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well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

therefore

How many times the word 'therefore' appears in the text?

well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

saying

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well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

decide

How many times the word 'decide' appears in the text?

well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

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How many times the word 'things' appears in the text?

well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

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well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

excuse

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well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

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well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

around

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well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

gentlemen

How many times the word 'gentlemen' appears in the text?

well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

reigned

How many times the word 'reigned' appears in the text?

well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

risk

How many times the word 'risk' appears in the text?

well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

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well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

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well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

earnestly

How many times the word 'earnestly' appears in the text?

well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

proved

How many times the word 'proved' appears in the text?

well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

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well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

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well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

pipe

How many times the word 'pipe' appears in the text?

well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

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well," agreed Dorothy. "Let's see--the camp must be over this way." She had probably made a mistake about that, for after they had gone far enough to have reached the camp they still found themselves in the thick of the woods. So the little girl stopped short and looked around her, and Toto glanced up into her face with his bright little eyes and wagged his tail as if he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell much about direction himself, because he had spent his time prowling among the bushes and running here and there; nor had Billina paid much attention to where they were going, being interested in picking bugs from the moss as they passed along. The Yellow Hen now turned one eye up toward the little girl and asked: "Have you forgotten where the camp is, Dorothy?" "Yes," she admitted; "have you, Billina?" "I didn't try to remember," returned Billina. "I'd no idea you would get lost, Dorothy." "It's the thing we don't expect, Billina, that usually happens," observed the girl, thoughtfully. "But it's no use standing here. Let's go in that direction," pointing a finger at random. "It may be we'll get out of the forest over there." So on they went again, but this way the trees were closer together, and the vines were so tangled that often they tripped Dorothy up. Suddenly a voice cried sharply: "Halt!" [Illustration: "HALT!"] At first Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very carefully. But Billina exclaimed: "Well, I declare!" "What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was. A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern and severe. Dorothy laughed at the queer things. "Who are you?" she asked. "We're the Spoon Brigade," said one. "In the service of his Majesty King Kleaver," said another. "And you are our prisoners," said a third. Dorothy sat down on an old stump and looked at them, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "What would happen," she inquired, "if I should set my dog on your Brigade?" "He would die," replied one of the spoons, sharply. "One shot from our deadly muskets would kill him, big as he is." "Don't risk it, Dorothy," advised the Yellow Hen. "Remember this is a fairy country, yet none of us three happens to be a fairy." Dorothy grew sober at this. "P'raps you're right, Billina," she answered. "But how funny it is, to be captured by a lot of spoons!" "I do not see anything very funny about it," declared a spoon. "We're the regular military brigade of the kingdom." "What kingdom?" she asked. "Utensia," said he. "I never heard of it before," asserted Dorothy. Then she added, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Ozma ever heard of Utensia, either. Tell me, are you not subjects of Ozma of Oz?" "We never have heard of her," retorted a spoon. "We are subjects of King Kleaver, and obey only his orders, which are to bring all prisoners to him as soon as they are captured. So step lively, my girl, and march with us, or we may be tempted to cut off a few of your toes with our swords." This threat made Dorothy laugh again. She did not believe she was in any danger; but here was a new and interesting adventure, so she was willing to be taken to Utensia that she might see what King Kleaver's kingdom was like. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY VISITED UTENSIA CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Illustration] There must have been from six to eight dozen spoons in the Brigade, and they marched away in the shape of a hollow square, with Dorothy, Billina and Toto in the center of the square. Before they had gone very far Toto knocked over one of the spoons by wagging his tail, and then the Captain of the Spoons told the little dog to be more careful, or he would be punished. So Toto was careful, and the Spoon Brigade moved along with astonishing swiftness, while Dorothy really had to walk fast to keep up with it. By and by they left the woods and entered a big clearing, in which was the Kingdom of Utensia. Standing all around the clearing were a good many cookstoves, ranges and grills, of all sizes and shapes, and besides these there were several kitchen cabinets and cupboards and a few kitchen tables. These things were crowded with utensils of all sorts: frying pans, sauce pans, kettles, forks, knives, basting and soup spoons, nutmeg graters, sifters, colenders, meat saws, flat irons, rolling pins and many other things of a like nature. When the Spoon Brigade appeared with the prisoners a wild shout arose and many of the utensils hopped off their stoves or their benches and ran crowding around Dorothy and the hen and the dog. "Stand back!" cried the Captain, sternly, and he led his captives through the curious throng until they came before a big range that stood in the center of the clearing. Beside this range was a butcher's block upon which lay a great cleaver with a keen edge. It rested upon the flat of its back, its legs were crossed and it was smoking a long pipe. [Illustration] "Wake up, your Majesty," said the Captain. "Here are prisoners." Hearing this, King Kleaver sat up and looked at Dorothy sharply. "Gristle and fat!" he cried. "Where did this girl come from?" "I found her in the forest and brought her here a prisoner," replied the Captain. "Why did you do that?" inquired the King, puffing his pipe lazily. "To create some excitement," the Captain answered. "It is so quiet here that we are all getting rusty for want of amusement. For my part, I prefer to see stirring times." "Naturally," returned the cleaver, with a nod. "I have always said, Captain, without a bit of irony, that you are a sterling officer and a solid citizen, bowled and polished to a degree. But what do you expect me to do with these prisoners?" "That is for you to decide," declared the Captain. "You are the King." "To be sure; to be sure," muttered the cleaver, musingly. "As you say, we have had dull times since the steel and grindstone eloped and left us. Command my Counselors and the Royal Courtiers to attend me, as well as the High Priest and the Judge. We'll then decide what can be done." The Captain saluted and retired and Dorothy sat down on an overturned kettle and asked: "Have you anything to eat in your kingdom?" "Here! Get up! Get off from me!" cried a faint voice, at which his Majesty the cleaver said: "Excuse me, but you're sitting on my friend the Ten-quart Kettle." Dorothy at once arose, and the kettle turned right side up and looked at her reproachfully. "I'm a friend of the King, so no one dares sit on me," said he. "I'd prefer a chair, anyway," she replied. "Sit on that hearth," commanded the King. So Dorothy sat on the hearth-shelf of the big range, and the subjects of Utensia began to gather around in a large and inquisitive throng. Toto lay at Dorothy's feet and Billina flew upon the range, which had no fire in it, and perched there as comfortably as she could. When all the Counselors and Courtiers had assembled--and these seemed to include most of the inhabitants of the kingdom--the King rapped on the block for order and said: "Friends and Fellow Utensils! Our worthy Commander of the Spoon Brigade, Captain Dipp, has captured the three prisoners you see before you and brought them here for--for--I don't know what for. So I ask your advice how to act in this matter, and what fate I should mete out to these captives. Judge Sifter, stand on my right. It is your business to sift this affair to the bottom. High Priest Colender, stand on my left and see that no one testifies falsely in this matter." As these two officials took their places Dorothy asked: "Why is the colender the High Priest?" "He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver. "Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes." "What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old fashioned sieves talk too much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise me what to do with these prisoners." "I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!" shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly. "Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are piquant and highly-seasoned, but you need a scattering of commonsense. It is only necessary to kill a person once to make him dead; but I do not see that it is necessary to kill this little girl at all." "I don't, either," said Dorothy. "Pardon me, but you are not expected to advise me in this matter," replied King Kleaver. "Why not?" asked Dorothy. "You might be prejudiced in your own favor, and so mislead us," he said. "Now then, good subjects, who speaks next?" "I'd like to smooth this thing over, in some way," said a flatiron, earnestly. "We are supposed to be useful to mankind, you know." "But the girl isn't mankind! She's womankind!" yelled a corkscrew. "What do you know about it?" inquired the King. "I'm a lawyer," said the corkscrew, proudly. "I am accustomed to appear at the bar." "But you're crooked," retorted the King, "and that debars you. You may be a corking good lawyer, Mr. Popp, but I must ask you to withdraw your remarks." "Very well," said the corkscrew, sadly; "I see I haven't any pull at this court." "Permit me," continued the flatiron, "to press my suit, your Majesty. I do not wish to gloss over any fault the prisoner may have committed, if such a fault exists; but we owe her some consideration, and that's flat!" "I'd like to hear from Prince Karver," said the King. At this a stately carvingknife stepped forward and bowed. "The Captain was wrong to bring this girl here, and she was wrong to come," he said. "But now that the foolish deed is done let us all prove our mettle and have a slashing good time." "That's it! that's it!" screamed a fat choppingknife. "We'll make mincemeat of the girl and hash of the chicken and sausage of the dog!" There was a shout of approval at this and the King had to rap again for order. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he said, "your remarks are somewhat cutting and rather disjointed, as might be expected from such acute intellects. But you give no reasons for your demands." "See here, Kleaver; you make me tired," exclaimed a saucepan, strutting before the King very impudently. "You're about the worst King that ever reigned in Utensia, and that's saying a good deal. Why don't you run things yourself, instead of asking everybody's advice, like the big, clumsy idiot you are?" The King sighed. "I wish there wasn't a saucepan in my kingdom," he said. "You fellows are always stewing, over something, and every once in a while you slop over and make a mess of it. Go hang yourself, sir--by the handle--and don't let me hear from you again." Dorothy was much shocked by the dreadful language the utensils employed, and she thought that they must have had very little proper training. So she said, addressing the King, who seemed very unfit to rule his turbulent subjects: "I wish you'd decide my fate right away. I can't stay here all day, trying to find out what you're going to do with me." "This thing is becoming a regular broil, and it's time I took part in it," observed a big gridiron, coming forward. "What I'd like to know," said a can-opener, in a shrill voice, "is why the girl came to our forest, anyhow, and why she intruded upon Captain Dipp--who ought to be called Dippy--and who she is, and where she came from, and where she is going, and why and wherefore and therefore and when." "I'm sorry to see, Sir Jabber," remarked the King to the can-opener, "that you have such a prying disposition. As a matter of fact, all the things you mention are none of our business." Having said this the King relighted his pipe, which had gone out. "Tell me, please, what _is_ our business?" inquired a potato-masher, winking at Dorothy somewhat impertinently. "I'm fond of little girls, myself, and it seems to me she has as much right to wander in the forest as we have." "Who accuses the little girl, anyway?" inquired a rolling-pin. "What has she done?" "I don't know," said the King. "What has she done, Captain Dipp?" "That's the trouble, your Majesty. She hasn't done anything," replied the Captain. "What do you want me to do?" asked Dorothy. This question seemed to puzzle them all. Finally a chafingdish, exclaimed, irritably: "If no one can throw any light on this subject you must excuse me if I go out." At this a big kitchen fork pricked up its ears and said in a tiny voice: "Let's hear from Judge Sifter." "That's proper," returned the King. So Judge Sifter turned around slowly several times and then said: "We have nothing against the girl except the stove-hearth upon which she sits. Therefore I order her instantly discharged." "Discharged!" cried Dorothy. "Why, I never was discharged in my life, and I don't intend to be. If its all the same to you, I'll resign." "It's all the same," declared the King. "You are free--you and your companions--and may go wherever you like." "Thank you," said the little girl. "But haven't you anything to eat in your kingdom? I'm hungry." "Go into the woods and pick blackberries," advised the King, lying down upon his back again and preparing to go to sleep. "There isn't a morsel to eat in all Utensia, that I know of." So Dorothy jumped up and said: "Come on, Toto and Billina. If we can't find the camp we may find some blackberries." The utensils drew back and allowed them to pass without protest, although Captain Dipp marched the Spoon Brigade in close order after them until they had reached the edge of the clearing. There the spoons halted; but Dorothy and her companions entered the forest again and began searching diligently for a way back to the camp, that they might rejoin their party. [Illustration] _How_ THEY CAME TO BUNBURY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Illustration] Wandering through the woods, without knowing where you are going or what adventure you are about to meet next, is not as pleasant as one might think. The woods are always beautiful and impressive, and if you are not worried or hungry you may enjoy them immensely; but Dorothy was worried and hungry that morning, so she paid little attention to the beauties of the forest, and hurried along as fast as she could go. She tried to keep in one direction and not circle around, but she was not at all sure that the direction she had chosen would lead her to the camp. By and by, to her great joy, she came upon a path. It ran to the right and to the left, being lost in the trees in both directions, and just before her, upon a big oak, were fastened two signs, with arms pointing both ways. One sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNBURY and the second sign read: [Illustration: (hand pointing right)] TAKE THE OTHER ROAD TO BUNNYBURY "Well!" exclaimed Billina, eyeing the signs, "this looks as if we were getting back to civilization again." "I'm not sure about the civil'zation, dear," replied the little girl; "but it looks as if we might get _somewhere_, and that's a big relief, anyhow." "Which path shall we take?" inquired the Yellow Hen. Dorothy stared at the signs thoughtfully. "Bunbury sounds like something to eat," she said. "Let's go there." "It's all the same to me," replied Billina. She had picked up enough bugs and insects from the moss as she went along to satisfy her own hunger, but the hen knew Dorothy could not eat bugs; nor could Toto. The path to Bunbury seemed little traveled, but it was distinct enough and ran through the trees in a zigzag course until it finally led them to an open space filled with the queerest houses Dorothy had ever seen. They were all made of crackers, laid out in tiny squares, and were of many pretty and ornamental shapes, having balconies and porches with posts of bread-sticks and roofs shingled with wafer-crackers. There were walks of bread-crusts leading from house to house and forming streets, and the place seemed to have many inhabitants. When Dorothy, followed by Billina and Toto, entered the place, they found people walking the streets or assembled in groups talking together, or sitting upon the porches and balconies. And what funny people they were! Men, women, and children were all made of buns and bread. Some were thin and others fat; some were white, some light brown and some very dark of complexion. A few of the buns, which seemed to form the more important class of the people, were neatly frosted. Some had raisins for eyes and currant buttons on their clothes; others had eyes of cloves and legs of stick cinnamon, and many wore hats and bonnets frosted pink and green. There was something of a commotion in Bunbury when the strangers suddenly appeared among them. Women caught up their children and hurried into their houses, shutting the cracker doors carefully behind them. Some men ran so hastily that they tumbled over one another, while others, more brave, assembled in a group and faced the intruders defiantly. Dorothy at once realized that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she slowly advanced toward the group that stood silently awaiting her. "You must 'scuse me for coming unexpected," she said, softly, "but I really didn't know I was coming here until I arrived. I was lost in the woods, you know, and I'm as hungry as anything." "Hungry!" they murmured, in a horrified chorus. "Yes; I haven't had anything to eat since last night's supper," she explained. "Are there any eatables in Bunbury?" They looked at one another undecidedly, and then one portly bun man, who seemed a person of consequence, stepped forward and said: "Little girl, to be frank with you, we are all eatables. Everything in Bunbury is eatable to ravenous human creatures like you. But it is to escape being eaten and destroyed that we have secluded ourselves in this out-of-the-way place, and there is neither right nor justice in your coming here to feed upon us." Dorothy looked at him longingly. "You're bread, aren't you?" she asked. "Yes; bread and butter. The butter is inside me, so it won't melt and run. I do the running myself." At this joke all the others burst into a chorus of laughter, and Dorothy thought they couldn't be much afraid if they could laugh like that. "Couldn't I eat something besides people?" she asked. "Couldn't I eat just one house, or a side-walk, or something? I wouldn't mind much what it was, you know." "This is not a public bakery, child," replied the man, sternly. "It's private property." "I know Mr.--Mr.--" "My name is C. Bunn, Esquire," said the man. "C stands for Cinnamon, and this place is called after my family, which is the most aristocratic in the town." "Oh, I don't know about that," objected another of the queer people. "The Grahams and the Browns and Whites are all excellent families, and there are none better of their kind. I'm a Boston Brown, myself." "I admit you are all desirable citizens," said Mr. Bunn, rather stiffly; "but the fact remains that our town is called Bunbury." "'Scuse me," interrupted Dorothy; "but I'm getting hungrier every minute. Now, if you're polite and kind, as I'm sure you ought to be, you'll let me eat _something_. There's so much to eat here that you never will miss it." Then a big, puffed-up man, of a delicate brown color, stepped forward and said: "I think it would be a shame to send this child away hungry, especially as she agrees to eat whatever we can spare and not touch our people." "So do I, Pop," replied a Roll who stood near. "What, then, do you suggest, Mr. Over?" inquired Mr. Bunn. "Why, I'll let her eat my back fence, if she wants to. It's made of waffles, and they're very crisp and nice." "She may also eat my wheelbarrow," added a pleasant looking Muffin. "It's made of nabiscos with a zuzu wheel." "Very good; very good," remarked Mr. Bunn. "That is certainly very kind of you. Go with Pop Over and Mr. Muffin, little girl, and they will feed you." "Thank you very much," said Dorothy, gratefully. "May I bring my dog Toto, and the Yellow Hen? They're hungry, too." "Will you make them behave?" asked the Muffin. "Of course," promised Dorothy. "Then come along," said Pop Over. So Dorothy and Billina and Toto walked up the street and the people seemed no longer to be at all afraid of them. Mr. Muffin's house came first, and as his wheelbarrow stood in the front yard the little girl ate that first. It didn't seem very fresh, but she was so hungry that she was not particular. Toto ate some, too, while Billina picked up the crumbs. While the strangers were engaged in eating, many of the people came and stood in the street curiously watching them. Dorothy noticed six roguish looking brown children standing all in a row, and she asked: "Who are you, little ones?" "We're the Graham Gems," replied one; "and we're all twins." "I wonder if your mother could spare one or two of you?" asked Billina, who decided that they were fresh baked; but at this dangerous question the six little gems ran away as fast as they could go. "You mustn't say such things, Billina," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Now let's go into Pop Over's back yard and get the waffles." "I sort of hate to let that fence go," remarked Mr. Over, nervously, as they walked toward his house. "The neighbors back of us are Soda Biscuits, and I don't care to mix with them." "But I'm hungry yet," declared the girl. "That wheelbarrow wasn't very big." "I've got a shortcake piano, but none of my family can play on it," he said, reflectively. "Suppose you eat that." "All right," said Dorothy; "I don't mind. Anything to be accomodating." [Illustration] So Mr. Over led her into the house, where she ate the piano, which was of an excellent flavor. "Is there anything to drink here?" she asked. "Yes; I've a milk pump and a water pump; which will you have?" he asked. "I guess I'll try 'em both," said Dorothy. So Mr. Over called to his wife, who brought into the yard a pail made of some kind of baked dough, and Dorothy pumped the pail full of cool, sweet milk and drank it eagerly. The wife of Pop Over was several shades darker than her husband. "Aren't you overdone?" the little girl asked her. "No indeed," answered the woman. "I'm neither overdone nor done over; I'm just Mrs. Over, and I'm the President of the Bunbury Breakfast Band." Dorothy thanked them for their hospitality and went away. At the gate Mr. Cinnamon Bunn met her and said he would show her around the town. "We have some very interesting inhabitants," he remarked, walking stiffly beside her on his stick-cinnamon legs; "and all of us who are in good health are well bred. If you are no longer hungry we will call upon a few of the most important citizens." Toto and Billina followed behind them, behaving very well, and a little way down the street they came to a handsome residence where Aunt Sally Lunn lived. The old lady was glad to meet the little girl and gave her a slice of white bread and butter which had been used as a door-mat. It was almost fresh and tasted better than anything Dorothy had eaten in the town. "Where do you get the butter?" she inquired. "We dig it out of the ground, which, as you may have observed, is all flour and meal," replied Mr. Bunn. "There is a butter mine just at the opposite side of the village. The trees which you see here are all doughleanders and doughderas, and in the season we get quite a crop of dough-nuts off them." "I should think the flour would blow around and get into your eyes," said Dorothy. "No," said he; "we are bothered with cracker dust sometimes, but never with flour." Then he took her to see Johnny Cake, a cheerful old gentleman who lived near by. "I suppose you've heard of me," said old Johnny, with an air of pride. "I'm a great favorite all over the world." "Aren't you rather yellow?" asked Dorothy, looking at him critically. "Maybe, child. But don't think I'm bilious, for I was never in better health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me, I'd willingly acknowledge the corn." "Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing. "But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them." Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles. Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was. "Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!" "Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed. Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out: "Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it." "Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn--one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen. "What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune--what a terrible misfortune!" "See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do." "You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly. "Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked. "Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you." Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff. [Illustration] _How_ OZMA LOOKED INTO THE MAGIC PICTURE CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Illustration] Princess Ozma was a very busy little ruler, for she looked carefully after the comfort and welfare of her people and tried to make them happy. If any quarrels arose she decided them justly; if any one needed counsel or advice she was ready and willing to listen to them. For a day or two after Dorothy and her companions had started on their trip, Ozma was occupied with the affairs of her kingdom. Then she began to think of some manner of occupation for Uncle Henry and Aunt Em that would be light and easy and yet give the old people something to do. She soon

discredit

How many times the word 'discredit' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

both

How many times the word 'both' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

whose

How many times the word 'whose' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

hurry

How many times the word 'hurry' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

commands

How many times the word 'commands' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

thoughts

How many times the word 'thoughts' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

platform

How many times the word 'platform' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

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How many times the word 'removed' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

chanced

How many times the word 'chanced' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

entreaty

How many times the word 'entreaty' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

had

How many times the word 'had' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

touching

How many times the word 'touching' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

stealthy

How many times the word 'stealthy' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

kennedy

How many times the word 'kennedy' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

tropics

How many times the word 'tropics' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

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went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

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went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

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went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

hint

How many times the word 'hint' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

notion

How many times the word 'notion' appears in the text?

went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.' CHAPTER 6 'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that

famous

How many times the word 'famous' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

foot

How many times the word 'foot' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

burying

How many times the word 'burying' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

roundhouse

How many times the word 'roundhouse' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

consent

How many times the word 'consent' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

down

How many times the word 'down' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

genuine

How many times the word 'genuine' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

dancers

How many times the word 'dancers' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

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were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

partner

How many times the word 'partner' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

ever

How many times the word 'ever' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

hawker

How many times the word 'hawker' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

marked

How many times the word 'marked' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

suspended

How many times the word 'suspended' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

being

How many times the word 'being' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

music

How many times the word 'music' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

annette

How many times the word 'annette' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

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were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

lay

How many times the word 'lay' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

great

How many times the word 'great' appears in the text?

were in eager pursuit of a red rose that flashed in and out among the dancers. "And you really came over from England by yourself when you were just a small boy? Weren't you clever! But I know the captain and all of them made a great pet of you. Then you made a walking tour through the States; I heard all about it. It was just too romantic for any use. I love adventure. My two best friends are at the theological seminary. One's going to India,--he's a blond,--and one to Africa. Just between us, I am going with one of them, but I can't for the life of me make up my mind which. I don't know why I am telling you all these things, Mr. Kilday, except that you are so sweet and sympathetic. You understand, don't you?" He assured her that he did with more vehemence than was necessary, for he did not want her to suspect that he had not heard what she said. "I knew you did. I knew it the moment I shook hands with you. I felt that we were drawn to each other. I am like you; I am just full of magnetism." Sandy unconsciously moved slightly away: he had a sudden uncomfortable realization that he was the only one within the sphere of influence. After two intermissions he suggested that they go out to the drug-store and get some soda-water. On the steps they met Annette. "You old f-fraud," she whispered to Sandy in passing, "I thought you didn't like to sit out d-dances." He smiled feebly. "Don't you mind her teasing," pouted his partner; "if we like to talk better than to dance, it's our own affair." Sandy wished devoutly that it was somebody else's. When they returned, they went back to their old corner. The chairs, evidently considering them permanent occupants, assumed an air of familiarity which he resented. "Do you know, you remind me of an old sweetheart of mine," resumed the voice of his captor, coyly. "He was the first real lover I ever had. His eyes were big and pensive, just like yours, and there was always that same look in his face that just made me want to stay with him all the time to keep him from being lonely. He was awfully fond of me, but he had to go out West to make his fortune, and he married before he got back." Sandy sighed, ostensibly in sympathy, but in reality at his own sad fate. At that moment Prometheus himself would not have envied him his state of mind. The music set his nerves tingling and the dancers beckoned him on, yet he was bound to his chair, with no relief in view. At the tenth intermission he suggested soda-water again, after which they returned to their seats. "I hope people aren't talking about us," she said, with a pleased laugh. "I oughtn't to have given you all these dances. It's perfectly fatal for a girl to show such preference for one man. But we are so congenial, and you do remind me--" "If it's embarrassing to you--" began Sandy, grasping the straw with both hands. "Not one bit," she asserted. "If you would rather have a good confidential time here with me than to meet a lot of silly little girls, then I don't care what people say. But, as I was telling you, I met him the year I came out, and he was interested in me right off--" On and on and on she went, and Sandy ceased to struggle. He sank in his chair in dogged dejection. He felt that she had been talking ever since he was born, and was going to continue until he died, and that all he could do was to wait in anguish for the end. He watched the flushed, happy faces whirling by. How he envied the boys their wilted collars! After eons and eons of time the band played "Home, Sweet Home." "It's the last dance," said she. "Aren't you sorry? We've had a perfectly divine time--" She got no further, for her partner, faithful through many numbers, had deserted his post at last. Sandy pushed eagerly through the crowd and presented himself at Ruth's side. She was sitting with several boys on the stage steps, her cheeks flushed from the dance, and a loosened curl falling across her bare shoulder. He tried to claim his dance, but the words, too long confined, rushed to his lips so madly as to form a blockade. She looked up and saw him--saw the longing and doubt in his eyes, and came to his rescue. "Isn't this our dance, Mr. Kilday?" she said, half smiling, half timidly. In the excitement of the moment he forgot his carefully practised bow, and the omission brought such chagrin that he started out with the wrong foot. There was a gentle, ripping sound, and a quarter of a yard of lace trailed from the hem of his partner's skirt. "Did I put me foot in it?" cried Sandy, in such burning consternation that Ruth laughed. "It doesn't matter a bit," she said lightly, as she stooped to pin it up. "It shows I've had a good time. Come! Don't let's miss the music." He took her hand, and they stepped out on the polished floor. The blissful agony of those first few moments was intolerably sweet. She was actually dancing with him (one, two, three; one, two, three). Her soft hair was close to his cheek (one, two, three; one, two, three). What if he should miss a step (one, two, three)--or fall? He stole a glance at her; she smiled reassuringly. Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time. He felt as he had that morning on shipboard when the _America_ passed the _Great Britain_. All the joy of boyhood resurged through his veins, and he danced in a wild abandonment of bliss; for the band was playing "Home, Sweet Home," and to Sandy it meant that, come what might, within her shining eyes his gipsy soul had found its final home. [Illustration: "Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"] When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said: "I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!" "So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!" When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled. "Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!" CHAPTER XVI THE NELSON HOME Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows. It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons. In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar, in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal. When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age. Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome. Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. By adroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career. At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay. It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch. She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall. "Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side. Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. "You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?" "She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and--and everything you have." Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon." "But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day." "Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter. "Why, yes--" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her: "Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer." This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed. "It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age! What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been thinking of?" This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention. "I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it." Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes." "Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly. He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born." She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully. "The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip. "Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson. "I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it." "Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your d but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone." Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again. It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves. Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,--hers and Carter's,--and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her. "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton." "Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him--the one that didn't have any neck." Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do, that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?" "Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and--" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay." Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton--the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are." Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of no weight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little--" she searched a moment for a word--"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one." Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there." Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'" "Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook hands with me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'" "Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't you _any_ family pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her. In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try--" Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted--no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion. Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition. Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable? "Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time." "The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!" "I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid." "I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I could have begun and gone right through it again." "By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?" "The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?" "Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all." Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert. "Who, pray, is Kilday?" "Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me." "But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent. "Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know--an Irish peddler; came here three or four years ago with a pack on his back." "And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror. Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking." "But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!" A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called. "Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks. Ruth paused at the door. There was a slight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence. "It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river." There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell. "Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once." CHAPTER XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers. Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream. For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair. Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him. [Illustration: "Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"] They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough. Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes. But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope. Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question. "It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?" Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously. "I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came." "You cross?" She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt. "A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject. "I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy." "It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy. "I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's." "Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851." She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed. "It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago." "Where?" "At the Olympian Exposition." "I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here." "Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water. A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest. "Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!" "It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy. They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet. "You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent. "I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence. The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume. Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own. "Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs." "They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country." "Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth. Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began: "Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!" Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly." Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him. "Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth. "No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?" "That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it." "Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily. "No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat." "He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it." Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on: "I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!" For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil. "Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked. "Why?" cried Sandy, too

nubbicks

How many times the word 'nubbicks' appears in the text?

were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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duty

How many times the word 'duty' appears in the text?

were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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elizabeth

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were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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forgive

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were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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nine

How many times the word 'nine' appears in the text?

were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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cropped

How many times the word 'cropped' appears in the text?

were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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why

How many times the word 'why' appears in the text?

were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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duties

How many times the word 'duties' appears in the text?

were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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desperate

How many times the word 'desperate' appears in the text?

were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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medusa

How many times the word 'medusa' appears in the text?

were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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aboard

How many times the word 'aboard' appears in the text?

were left to watch the fight from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella. For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman. Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist, where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish. And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders, urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called for quarter. Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release, then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she had met her death. As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat." He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face to render him unrecognizable. But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks. CHAPTER XXXI. HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this, on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit of King William the splendid treasure which she carried. It was not until the evening of the following day that van der Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth. Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to sail for the Antilles. "And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor." "So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?" "That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with the ability to perform it." "Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port Royal safe, bedder nor you or me." "You mean Blood?" "Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do." "You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me, why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made Governor." Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so onerous a charge. "Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...." "It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had. I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset." "Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He looked at van der Kuylen. The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes twinkled humourously in his great face. "So!" he said. "Fery boedical!" My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it. That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's name--because I account you the fittest man for the office that I have seen." Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...." "Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten, and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum." Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion.... And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupidity in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened and bowed. "My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is because there are considerations with which I will not trouble your lordship." "Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship. This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness in his eyes. "It shall be as you wish--and very gratefully, let me assure your lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You may depend upon my loyal service. "If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship." Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept their thoughts to themselves. "Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen. "We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced. Blood was startled. "And Colonel Bishop?" he asked. "He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own yardarm. He deserves it." "Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood. "Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it." Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally, with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves in the service of King William. A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were--saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena--the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas. On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight. "That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me. A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship." Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself. Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop? His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented. He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate. "I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...." "Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud. He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in Barbados." She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that. Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him. He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he bitterly. "You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile. "Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?" "For your own sake--yes. But for your own sake only. I would not have you do anything mean or dishonouring." "Thief and pirate though I be?" She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and impatience. "Will you never forgive me those words?" "I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter, when all is said?" Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she put out her hand again. "I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle, I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet again--ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't you say 'good-bye'?" He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her. "You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be going with you?" "Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly. "Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?" "No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all." He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face. "Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing more for him to do out here." "But didn't he ask you to go with him?" "He did. I forgive you the impertinence." A wild hope leapt to life within him. "And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when...." "Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door. He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release me!" "Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?" "I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears. "Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...." "There was never, never anybody but you, Peter." They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended. And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade. A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny. Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!" "By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him. "The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other. "I am the Governor." "You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're hanged or not." Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who the devil may you be?" he asked. "I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming." The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn. "But, my lord..." began the Colonel. "Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away. To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered. "This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!" Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him. Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities. "You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter," she pleaded. "To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances won't." She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel. "His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw wide the door. Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting. At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing. The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship. "Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry--you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN BLOOD *** ***** This file should be named 1965.txt or 1965.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/1965/ Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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betty

How many times the word 'betty' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

seize

How many times the word 'seize' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

remarkable

How many times the word 'remarkable' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

beyond

How many times the word 'beyond' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

being

How many times the word 'being' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

imply

How many times the word 'imply' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

believing

How many times the word 'believing' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

catholic

How many times the word 'catholic' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

how

How many times the word 'how' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

began

How many times the word 'began' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

eight

How many times the word 'eight' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

men

How many times the word 'men' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

sure

How many times the word 'sure' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

certain

How many times the word 'certain' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

course

How many times the word 'course' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

very

How many times the word 'very' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

miracles

How many times the word 'miracles' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

god

How many times the word 'god' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

fact

How many times the word 'fact' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

pride

How many times the word 'pride' appears in the text?

were, how was justification by faith only?" Freeborn smiled, and said that he hoped Reding would have clearer views in a little time. It was a very simple matter. Faith not only justified, it regenerated also. It was the root of sanctification, as well as of Divine acceptance. The same act, which was the means of bringing us into God's favour, secured our being meet for it. Thus good works were secured, because faith would not be true faith unless it were such as to be certain of bringing forth good works in due time. Reding thought this view simple and clear, though it unpleasantly reminded him of Dr. Brownside. Freeborn added that it was a doctrine suited to the poor, that it put all the gospel into a nutshell, that it dispensed with criticism, primitive ages, teachers--in short, with authority in whatever form. It swept theology clean away. There was no need to mention this last consequence to Charles; but he passed it by, wishing to try the system on its own merits. "You speak of _true_ faith," he said, "as producing good works: you say that no faith justifies _but_ true faith, and true faith produces good works. In other words, I suppose, faith, which is _certain to be fruitful_, or _fruitful_ faith, justifies. This is very like saying that faith and works are the joint means of justification." "Oh, no, no," cried Freeborn, "that is deplorable doctrine: it is quite opposed to the gospel, it is anti-Christian. We are justified by faith only, apart from good works." "I am in an Article lecture just now," said Charles, "and Upton told us that we must make a distinction of _this_ kind; for instance, the Duke of Wellington is Chancellor of the University, but, though he is as much Chancellor as Duke, still he sits in the House of Lords as Duke, not as Chancellor. Thus, although faith is as truly fruitful as it is faith, yet it does not justify as being fruitful, but as being faith. Is this what you mean?" "Not at all," said Freeborn; "that was Melancthon's doctrine; he explained away a cardinal truth into a mere matter of words; he made faith a mere symbol, but this is a departure from the pure gospel: faith is the _instrument_, not a _symbol_ of justification. It is, in truth, a mere _apprehension_, and nothing else: the seizing and clinging which a beggar might venture on when a king passed by. Faith is as poor as Job in the ashes: it is like Job stripped of all pride and pomp and good works: it is covered with filthy rags: it is without anything good: it is, I repeat, a mere apprehension. Now you see what I mean." "I can't believe I understand you," said Charles: "you say that to have faith is to seize Christ's merits; and that we have them, if we will but seize them. But surely not every one who seizes them, gains them; because dissolute men, who never have a dream of thorough repentance or real hatred of sin, would gladly seize and appropriate them, if they might do so. They would like to get to heaven for nothing. Faith, then, must be some particular _kind_ of apprehension; _what_ kind? good works cannot be mistaken, but an 'apprehension' may. What, then, is a true apprehension? what _is_ faith?" "What need, my dear friend," answered Freeborn, "of knowing metaphysically what true faith is, if we have it and enjoy it? I do not know what bread is, but I eat it; do I wait till a chemist analyzes it? No, I eat it, and I feel the good effects afterwards. And so let us be content to know, not what faith _is_, but what it _does_, and enjoy our blessedness in possessing it." "I really don't want to introduce metaphysics," said Charles, "but I will adopt your own image. Suppose I suspected the bread before me to have arsenic in it, or merely to be unwholesome, would it be wonderful if I tried to ascertain how the fact stood?" "Did you do so this morning at breakfast?" asked Freeborn. "I did not suspect my bread," answered Charles. "Then why suspect faith?" asked Freeborn. "Because it is, so to say, a new substance,"--Freeborn sighed,--"because I am not used to it, nay, because I suspect it. I must say _suspect_ it; because, though I don't know much about the matter, I know perfectly well, from what has taken place in my father's parish, what excesses this doctrine may lead to, unless it is guarded. You say that it is a doctrine for the poor; now they are very likely to mistake one thing for another; so indeed is every one. If, then, we are told, that we have but to apprehend Christ's merits, and need not trouble ourselves about anything else; that justification has taken place, and works will follow; that all is done, and that salvation is complete, while we do but continue to have faith; I think we ought to be pretty sure that we _have_ faith, real faith, a real apprehension, before we shut up our books and make holiday." Freeborn was secretly annoyed that he had got into an argument, or pained, as he would express it, at the pride of Charles's natural man, or the blindness of his carnal reason; but there was no help for it, he must give him an answer. "There are, I know, many kinds of faith," he said; "and of course you must be on your guard against mistaking false faith for true faith. Many persons, as you most truly say, make this mistake; and most important is it, all important I should say, to go right. First, it is evident that it is not mere belief in facts, in the being of a God, or in the historical event that Christ has come and gone. Nor is it the submission of the reason to mysteries; nor, again, is it that sort of trust which is required for exercising the gift of miracles. Nor is it knowledge and acceptance of the contents of the Bible. I say, it is not knowledge, it is not assent of the intellect, it is not historical faith, it is not dead faith: true justifying faith is none of these--it is seated in the heart and affections." He paused, then added: "Now, I suppose, for practical purposes, I have described pretty well what justifying faith is." Charles hesitated: "By describing what it is _not_, you mean," said he; "justifying faith, then, is, I suppose, living faith." "Not so fast," answered Freeborn. "Why," said Charles, "if it's not dead faith, it's living faith." "It's neither dead faith nor living," said Freeborn, "but faith, simple faith, which justifies. Luther was displeased with Melancthon for saying that living and operative faith justified. I have studied the question very carefully." "Then do _you_ tell me," said Charles, "what faith is, since I do not explain it correctly. For instance, if you said (what you don't say), that faith was submission of the reason to mysteries, or acceptance of Scripture as an historical document, I should know perfectly well what you meant; _that_ is information: but when you say, that faith which justifies is an _apprehension_ of Christ, that it is _not_ living faith, or fruitful faith, or operative, but a something which in fact and actually is distinct from these, I confess I feel perplexed." Freeborn wished to be out of the argument. "Oh," he said, "if you really once experienced the power of faith--how it changes the heart, enlightens the eyes, gives a new spiritual taste, a new sense to the soul; if you once knew what it was to be blind, and then to see, you would not ask for definitions. Strangers need verbal descriptions; the heirs of the kingdom enjoy. Oh, if you could but be persuaded to put off high imaginations; to strip yourself of your proud self, and to _experience_ in yourself the wonderful change, you would live in praise and thanksgiving, instead of argument and criticism." Charles was touched by his warmth; "But," he said, "we ought to act by reason; and I don't see that I have more, or so much, reason to listen to you, as to listen to the Roman Catholic, who tells me I cannot possibly have that certainty of faith before believing, which on believing will be divinely given me." "Surely," said Freeborn, with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile it to God?" "I don't like you to talk so," said Reding; "I know very little about the real nature of Popery; but when I was a boy I was once, by chance, in a Roman Catholic chapel; and I really never saw such devotion in my life--the people all on their knees, and most earnestly attentive to what was going on. I did not understand what that was; but I am sure, had you been there, you never would have called their religion, be it right or wrong, an outward form or carnal ordinance." Freeborn said it deeply pained him to hear such sentiments, and to find that Charles was so tainted with the errors of the day; and he began, not with much tact, to talk of the Papal Antichrist, and would have got off to prophecy, had Charles said a word to afford fuel for discussion. As he kept silence, Freeborn's zeal burnt out, and there was a break in the conversation. After a time, Reding ventured to begin again. "If I understand you," he said, "faith carries its own evidence with it. Just as I eat my bread at breakfast without hesitation about its wholesomeness, so, when I have really faith, I know it beyond mistake, and need not look out for tests of it?" "Precisely so," said Freeborn; "you begin to see what I mean; you grow. The soul is enlightened to see that it has real faith." "But how," asked Charles, "are we to rescue those from their dangerous mistake, who think they have faith, while they have not? Is there no way in which they can find out that they are under a delusion?" "It is not wonderful," said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules _can_ be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of false faith." "Well, it does seem to me wonderful," said Charles, "that there is no natural and obvious warning provided against this delusion; wonderful that false faith should be so exactly like true faith that there is nothing to determine their differences from each other. Effects imply causes: if one apprehension of Christ leads to good works, and another does not, there must be something _in_ the one which is not _in_ the other. _What_ is a false apprehension of Christ wanting in, which a true apprehension has? The word _apprehension_ is so vague; it conveys no definite idea to me, yet justification depends on it. Is a false apprehension, for instance, wanting in repentance and amendment?" "No, no," said Freeborn; "true faith is complete without conversion; conversion follows; but faith is the root." "Is it the love of God which distinguishes true faith from false?" "Love?" answered Freeborn; "you should read what Luther says in his celebrated comment on the Galatians. He calls such a doctrine '_pestilens figmentum_,' '_diaboli portentum_;' and cries out against the Papists, '_Pereant sophist cum su maledict gloss !_'" "Then it differs from false faith in nothing." "Not so," said Freeborn; "it differs from it in its fruits: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" "This is coming round to the same point again," said Charles; "fruits come after; but a man, it seems, is to take comfort in his justification _before_ fruits come, before he knows that his faith will produce them." "Good works are the _necessary_ fruits of faith," said Freeborn; "so says the Article." Charles made no answer, but said to himself, "My good friend here certainly has not the clearest of heads;" then aloud, "Well, I despair of getting at the bottom of the subject." "Of course," answered Freeborn, with an air of superiority, though in a mild tone, "it is a very simple principle, '_Fides justificat ante et sine charitate_;' but it requires a Divine light to embrace it." They walked awhile in silence; then, as the day was now closing in, they turned homewards, and parted company when they came to the Clarendon. CHAPTER XVII. Freeborn was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, and the blind shifting of chairs as the flurried servant-maid of the lodgings suddenly came upon them from behind, with the kettle for the teapot, or toast for the table. There was no nature or elasticity in the party, but a great intention to be profitable. "Have you seen the last _Spiritual Journal_?" asked No. 1 of No. 2 in a low voice. No. 2 had just read it. "A very remarkable article that," said No. 1, "upon the deathbed of the Pope." "No one is beyond hope," answered No. 2. "I have heard of it, but not seen it," said No. 3. A pause. "What is it about?" asked Reding. "The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth," said No. 3; "he seems to have died a believer." A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more. "The _Journal_ gives it on excellent authority," said No. 2; "Mr. O'Niggins, the agent for the Roman Priest Conversion Branch Tract Society, was in Rome during his last illness. He solicited an audience with the Pope, which was granted to him. He at once began to address him on the necessity of a change of heart, belief in the one Hope of sinners, and abandonment of all creature mediators. He announced to him the glad tidings, and assured him there was pardon for all. He warned him against the figment of baptismal regeneration; and then, proceeding to apply the word, he urged him, though in the eleventh hour, to receive the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. The Pope listened with marked attention, and displayed considerable emotion. When it was ended, he answered Mr. O'Niggins that it was his fervent hope that they two would not die without finding themselves in one communion, or something of the sort. He declared moreover, what was astonishing, that he put his sole trust in Christ, 'the source of all merit,' as he expressed it--a remarkable phrase." "In what language was the conversation carried on?" asked Reding. "It is not stated," answered No. 2; "but I am pretty sure Mr. O'Niggins is a good French scholar." "It does not seem to me," said Charles, "that the Pope's admissions are greater than those made continually by certain members of our own Church, who are nevertheless accused of Popery." "But they are extorted from such persons," said Freeborn, "while the Pope's were voluntary." "The one party go back into darkness," said No. 3; "the Pope was coming forward into light." "One ought to interpret everything for the best in a real Papist," said Freeborn, "and everything for the worst in a Puseyite. That is both charity and common sense." "This was not all," continued No. 2; "he called together the Cardinals, protested that he earnestly desired God's glory, said that inward religion was all in all, and forms were nothing without a contrite heart, and that he trusted soon to be in Paradise--which, you know, was a denial of the doctrine of Purgatory." "A brand from the burning, I do hope," said No. 3. "It has frequently been observed," said No. 4, "nay it has struck me myself, that the way to convert Romanists is first to convert the Pope." "It is a sure way, at least," said Charles timidly, afraid he was saying too much; but his irony was not discovered. "Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?" Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same extent." Freeborn looked pleased. "I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought it did at first." Freeborn looked puzzled. Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a judicial punishment." In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake, and an audible emotion. "There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of grace." "Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"---- "We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_," said No. 2. "But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous religious training against self-deception!" "That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't attempt to make yourselves better. Believe that salvation is yours, and it is yours: good works follow after.'" "On the contrary," said Charles, continuing his argument, "when it is said that justification follows upon baptism, we have an intelligible something pointed out, which every one can ascertain. Baptism is an external unequivocal token; whereas that a man has this secret feeling called faith, no one but himself can be a witness, and he is not an unbiassed one." Reding had at length succeeded in throwing that dull tea-table into a state of great excitement. "My dear friend," said Freeborn, "I had hoped better things; in a little while, I hope, you will see things differently. Baptism is an outward rite; what is there, can there be, spiritual, holy, or heavenly in baptism?" "But you tell me faith too is not spiritual," said Charles. "_I_ tell you!" cried Freeborn, "when?" "Well," said Charles, somewhat puzzled, "at least you do not think it holy." Freeborn was puzzled in his turn. "If it is holy," continued Charles, "it has something good in it; it has some worth; it is not filthy rags. All the good comes afterwards, you said. You said that its fruits were holy, but that it was nothing at all itself." There was a momentary silence, and some agitation of thought. "Oh, faith is certainly a holy feeling," said No. 1. "No, it is spiritual, but not holy," said No. 2; "it is a mere act, the apprehension of Christ's merits." "It is seated in the affections," said No. 3; "faith is a feeling of the heart; it is trust, it is a belief that Christ is _my_ Saviour; all this is distinct from holiness. Holiness introduces self-righteousness. Faith is peace and joy, but it is not holiness. Holiness comes after." "Nothing can cause holiness but what is holy; this is a sort of axiom," said Charles; "if the fruits are holy, faith, which is the root, is holy." "You might as well say that the root of a rose is red, and of a lily white," said No. 3. "Pardon me, Reding," said Freeborn, "it is, as my friend says, an _apprehension_. An apprehension is a seizing; there is no more holiness in justifying faith, than in the hand's seizing a substance which comes in its way. This is Luther's great doctrine in his 'Commentary' on the Galatians. It is nothing in itself--it is a mere instrument; this is what he teaches, when he so vehemently resists the notion of justifying faith being accompanied by love." "I cannot assent to that doctrine," said No. 1; "it may be true in a certain sense, but it throws stumbling-blocks in the way of seekers. Luther could not have meant what you say, I am convinced. Justifying faith is always accompanied by love." "That is what I thought," said Charles. "That is the Romish doctrine all over," said No. 2; "it is the doctrine of Bull and Taylor." "Luther calls it, '_venenum infernale_,'" said Freeborn. "It is just what the Puseyites preach at present," said No. 3. "On the contrary," said No. 1, "it is the doctrine of Melancthon. Look here," he continued, taking his pocketbook out of his pocket, "I have got his words down as Shuffleton quoted them in the Divinity-school the other day: '_Fides significat fiduciam; in fiducid _ inest _dilectio; ergo etiam dilectione sumus justi_.'" Three of the party cried "Impossible!" The paper was handed round in solemn silence. "Calvin said the same," said No. 1 triumphantly. "I think," said No. 4, in a slow, smooth, sustained voice, which contrasted with the animation which had suddenly inspired the conversation, "that the con-tro-ver-sy, ahem, may be easily arranged. It is a question of words between Luther and Melancthon. Luther says, ahem, 'faith is _without_ love,' meaning, 'faith without love justifies.' Melancthon, on the other hand, says, ahem, 'faith is _with_ love,' meaning, 'faith justifies with love.' Now both are true: for, ahem, faith-without-love _justifies_, yet faith justifies _not-without-love_." There was a pause, while both parties digested this explanation. "On the contrary," he added, "it is the Romish doctrine that faith-with-love justifies." Freeborn expressed his dissent; he thought this the doctrine of Melancthon which Luther condemned. "You mean," said Charles, "that justification is given to faith _with_ love, not to faith _and_ love." "You have expressed my meaning," said No. 4. "And what is considered the difference between _with_ and _and_?" asked Charles. No. 4 replied without hesitation, "Faith is the _instrument_, love the _sine qu non_." Nos. 2 and 3 interposed with a protest; they thought it "legal" to introduce the phrase _sine qu non_; it was introducing _conditions_. Justification was unconditional. "But is not faith a condition?" asked Charles. "Certainly not," said Freeborn; "'condition' is a legal word. How can salvation be free and full, if it is conditional?" "There are no conditions," said No. 3; "all must come from the heart. We believe with the heart, we love from the heart, we obey with the heart; not because we are obliged, but because we have a new nature." "Is there no obligation to obey?" said Charles, surprised. "No obligation to the regenerate," answered No. 3; "they are above obligation; they are in a new state." "But surely Christians are under a law," said Charles. "Certainly not," said No. 2; "the law is done away in Christ." "Take care," said No. 1; "that borders on Antinomianism." "Not at all," said Freeborn; "an Antinomian actually holds that he may break the law: a spiritual believer only holds that he is not bound to keep it." Now they got into a fresh discussion among themselves; and, as it seemed as interminable as it was uninteresting, Reding took an opportunity to wish his host a good night, and to slip away. He never had much leaning towards the evangelical doctrine; and Freeborn and his friends, who knew what they were holding a great deal better than the run of their party, satisfied him that he had not much to gain by inquiring into that doctrine farther. So they will vanish in consequence from our pages. CHAPTER XVIII. When Charles got to his room he saw a letter from home lying on his table; and, to his alarm, it had a deep black edge. He tore it open. Alas, it announced the sudden death of his dear father! He had been ailing some weeks with the gout, which at length had attacked his stomach, and carried him off in a few hours. O my poor dear Charles, I sympathize with you keenly all that long night, and in that indescribable waking in the morning, and that dreary day of travel which followed it! By the afternoon you were at home. O piercing change! it was but six or seven weeks before that you had passed the same objects the reverse way, with what different feelings, and oh, in what company, as you made for the railway omnibus! It was a grief not to be put into words; and to meet mother, sisters--and the Dead!... The funeral is over by some days; Charles is to remain at home the remainder of the term, and does not return to Oxford till towards the end of January. The signs of grief have been put away; the house looks cheerful as before; the fire as bright, the mirrors as clear, the furniture as orderly; the pictures are the same, and the ornaments on the mantelpiece stand as they have stood, and the French clock tells the hour, as it has told it, for years past. The inmates of the parsonage wear, it is most true, the signs of a heavy bereavement; but they converse as usual, and on ordinary subjects; they pursue the same employments, they work, they read, they walk in the garden, they dine. There is no change except in the inward consciousness of an overwhelming loss. _He_ is not there, not merely on this day or that, for so it well might be; he is not merely away, but, as they know well, he is gone and will not return. That he is absent now is but a token and a memorial to their minds that he will be absent always. But especially at dinner; Charles had to take a place which he had sometimes filled, but then as the deputy, and in the presence of him whom now he succeeded. His father, being not much more than a middle-aged man, had been accustomed to carve himself. And when at the meal of the day Charles looked up, he had to encounter the troubled look of one, who, from her place at table, had before her eyes a still more vivid memento of their common loss;--_aliquid desideraverunt oculi_. Mr. Reding had left his family well provided for; and this, though a real alleviation of their loss in the event, perhaps augmented the pain of it at the moment. He had ever been a kind indulgent father. He was a most respectable clergyman of the old school; pious in his sentiments, a gentleman in his feelings, exemplary in his social relations. He was no reader, and never had been in the way to gain theological knowledge; he sincerely believed all that was in the Prayer Book, but his sermons were very rarely doctrinal. They were sensible, manly discourses on the moral duties. He administered Holy Communion at the three great festivals, saw his Bishop once or twice a year, was on good terms with the country gentlemen in his neighbourhood, was charitable to the poor, hospitable in his housekeeping, and was a staunch though not a violent supporter of the Tory interest in his county. He was incapable of anything harsh, or petty, or low, or uncourteous; and died esteemed by the great houses about him, and lamented by his parishioners. It was the first great grief poor Charles had ever had, and he felt it to be real. How did the small anxieties which had of late teased him, vanish before this tangible calamity! He then understood the difference between what was real and what was not. All the doubts, inquiries, surmises, views, which had of late haunted him on theological subjects, seemed like so many shams, which flitted before him in sun-bright hours, but had no root in his inward nature, and fell from him, like the helpless December leaves, in the hour of his affliction. He felt now

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