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Title: Erema
       My Father's Sin

Author: R. D. Blackmore

Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7112]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on March 11, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EREMA ***




Produced by Don Lainson





EREMA; OR, MY FATHER'S SIN


by


R. D. BLACKMORE



1877



CHAPTER I

A LOST LANDMARK


"The sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and
fourth generation of them that hate me."


These are the words that have followed me always.  This is the
curse which has fallen on my life.

If I had not known my father, if I had not loved him, if I had not
closed his eyes in desert silence deeper than the silence of the
grave, even if I could have buried and bewailed him duly, the
common business of this world and the universal carelessness might
have led me down the general track that leads to nothing.

Until my father fell and died I never dreamed that he could die.  I
knew that his mind was quite made up to see me safe in my new home,
and then himself to start again for still remoter solitudes.  And
when his mind was thus made up, who had ever known him fail of it?

If ever a resolute man there was, that very man was my father.  And
he showed it now, in this the last and fatal act of his fatal life.
"Captain, here I leave you all," he shouted to the leader of our
wagon train, at a place where a dark, narrow gorge departed from
the moilsome mountain track.  "My reasons are my own; let no man
trouble himself about them.  All my baggage I leave with you.
I have paid my share of the venture, and shall claim it at
Sacramento.  My little girl and I will take this short-cut through
the mountains."

"General!" answered the leader of our train, standing up on his
board in amazement.  "Forgive and forget, Sir; forgive and forget.
What is a hot word spoken hotly?  If not for your own sake, at
least come back for the sake of your young daughter."

"A fair haven to you!" replied my father.  He offered me his hand,
and we were out of sight of all that wearisome, drearisome,
uncompanionable company with whom, for eight long weeks at least,
we had been dragging our rough way.  I had known in a moment that
it must be so, for my father never argued.  Argument, to his mind,
was a very nice amusement for the weak.  My spirits rose as he
swung his bear-skin bag upon his shoulder, and the last sound of
the laboring caravan groaned in the distance, and the fresh air and
the freedom of the mountains moved around us.  It was the 29th of
May--Oak-apple Day in England--and to my silly youth this vast
extent of snowy mountains was a nice place for a cool excursion.

Moreover, from day to day I had been in most wretched anxiety, so
long as we remained with people who could not allow for us.  My
father, by his calm reserve and dignity and largeness, had always,
among European people, kept himself secluded; but now in this rough
life, so pent in trackless tracts, and pressed together by
perpetual peril, every body's manners had been growing free and
easy.  Every man had been compelled to tell, as truly as he could,
the story of his life thus far, to amuse his fellow-creatures--
every man, I mean, of course, except my own poor father.  Some told
their stories every evening, until we were quite tired--although
they were never the same twice over; but my father could never be
coaxed to say a syllable more than, "I was born, and I shall die."

This made him very unpopular with the men, though all the women
admired it; and if any rough fellow could have seen a sign of fear,
the speaker would have been insulted.  But his manner and the power
of his look were such that, even after ardent spirits, no man saw
fit to be rude to him.  Nevertheless, there had always been the
risk of some sad outrage.

"Erema," my father said to me, when the dust from the rear of the
caravan was lost behind a cloud of rocks, and we two stood in the
wilderness alone--"do you know, my own Erema, why I bring you from
them?"

"Father dear, how should I know?  You have done it, and it must be
right."

"It is not for their paltry insults.  Child, you know what I think
all that.  It is for you, my only child, that I am doing what now I
do."

I looked up into his large, sad eyes without a word, in such a way
that he lifted me up in his arms and kissed me, as if I were a
little child instead of a maiden just fifteen.  This he had never
done before, and it made me a little frightened.  He saw it, and
spoke on the spur of the thought, though still with one arm round
me.

"Perhaps you will live to be thankful, my dear, that you had a
stern, cold father.  So will you meet the world all the better;
and, little one, you have a rough world to meet."

For a moment I was quite at a loss to account for my father's
manner; but now, in looking back, it is so easy to see into things.
At the time I must have been surprised, and full of puzzled
eagerness.

Not half so well can I recall the weakness, anguish, and exhaustion
of body and spirit afterward.  It may have been three days of
wandering, or it may have been a week, or even more than that, for
all that I can say for certain.  Whether the time were long or
short, it seemed as if it would never end.  My father believed that
he knew the way to the house of an old settler, at the western foot
of the mountains, who had treated him kindly some years before, and
with whom he meant to leave me until he had made arrangements
elsewhere.  If we had only gone straightway thither, night-fall
would have found us safe beneath that hospitable roof.

My father was vexed, as I well remember, at coming, as he thought,
in sight of some great landmark, and finding not a trace of it.
Although his will was so very strong, his temper was good about
little things, and he never began to abuse all the world because he
had made a mistake himself.

"Erema," he said, "at this corner where we stand there ought to be
a very large pine-tree in sight, or rather a great redwood-tree, at
least twice as high as any tree that grows in Europe, or Africa
even.  From the plains it can be seen for a hundred miles or more.
It stands higher up the mountainside than any other tree of even
half its size, and that makes it so conspicuous.  My eyes must be
failing me, from all this glare; but it must be in sight.  Can you
see it now?"

"I see no tree of any kind whatever, but scrubby bushes and yellow
tufts; and oh, father, I am so thirsty!"

"Naturally.  But now look again.  It stands on a ridge, the last
ridge that bars the view of all the lowland.  It is a very straight
tree, and regular, like a mighty column, except that on the
northern side the wind from the mountains has torn a gap in it.
Are you sure that you can not see it--a long way off, but
conspicuous?"

"Father, I am sure that I can not see any tree half as large as a
broomstick.  Far or near, I see no tree."

"Then my eyes are better than my memory.  We must cast back for a
mile or two; but it can not make much difference."

"Through the dust and the sand?" I began to say; but a glance from
him stopped my murmuring.  And the next thing I can call to mind
must have happened a long time afterward.

Beyond all doubt, in this desolation, my father gave his life for
mine.  I did not know it at the time, nor had the faintest dream of
it, being so young and weary-worn, and obeying him by instinct.  It
is a fearful thing to think of--now that I can think of it--but to
save my own little worthless life I must have drained every drop of
water from his flat half-gallon jar.  The water was hot and the
cork-hole sandy, and I grumbled even while drinking it; and what
must my father (who was dying all the while for a drop, but never
took one)--what must he have thought of me?

But he never said a word, so far as I remember; and that makes it
all the worse for me.  We had strayed away into a dry, volcanic
district of the mountains, where all the snow-rivers run out quite
early; and of natural springs there was none forth-coming.  All we
had to guide us was a little traveler's compass (whose needle stuck
fast on the pivot with sand) and the glaring sun, when he came to
sight behind the hot, dry, driving clouds.  The clouds were very
low, and flying almost in our faces, like vultures sweeping down on
us.  To me they seemed to shriek over our heads at the others
rushing after them.  But my father said that they could make no
sound, and I never contradicted him.



CHAPTER II

A PACIFIC SUNSET


At last we came to a place from which the great spread of the earth
was visible.  For a time--I can not tell how long--we had wholly
lost ourselves, going up and down, and turning corners, without
getting further.  But my father said that we must come right, if we
made up our minds to go long enough.  We had been in among all
shapes, and want of shapes, of dreariness, through and in and out
of every thrup and thrum of weariness, scarcely hoping ever more to
find our way out and discover memory of men for us, when all of a
sudden we saw a grand sight.  The day had been dreadfully hot and
baffling, with sudden swirls of red dust arising, and driving the
great drought into us.  To walk had been worse than to drag one's
way through a stubbly bed of sting-nettles.  But now the quick
sting of the sun was gone, and his power descending in the balance
toward the flat places of the land and sea.  And suddenly we looked
forth upon an immeasurable spread of these.

We stood at the gate of the sandy range, which here, like a vast
brown patch, disfigures the beauty of the sierra.  On either side,
in purple distance, sprang sky-piercing obelisks and vapor-mantled
glaciers, spangled with bright snow, and shodden with eternal
forest.  Before us lay the broad, luxuriant plains of California,
checkered with more tints than any other piece of earth can show,
sleeping in alluvial ease, and veined with soft blue waters.  And
through a gap in the brown coast range, at twenty leagues of
distance, a light (so faint as to seem a shadow) hovered above the
Pacific.

But none of all this grandeur touched our hearts except the water
gleam.  Parched with thirst, I caught my father's arm and tried to
urge him on toward the blue enchantment of ecstatic living water.
But, to my surprise, he staggered back, and his face grew as white
as the distant snow.  I managed to get him to a sandy ledge, with
the help of his own endeavors, and there let him rest and try to
speak, while my frightened heart throbbed over his.

"My little child," he said at last, as if we were fallen back ten
years, "put your hand where I can feel it."

My hand all the while had been in his, and to let him know where it
was, it moved.  But cold fear stopped my talking.

"My child, I have not been kind to you," my father slowly spoke
again, "but it has not been from want of love.  Some day you will
see all this, and some day you will pardon me."

He laid one heavy arm around me, and forgetting thirst and pain,
with the last intensity of eyesight watched the sun departing.  To
me, I know not how, great awe was every where, and sadness.  The
conical point of the furious sun, which like a barb had pierced us,
was broadening into a hazy disk, inefficient, but benevolent.
Underneath him depth of night was waiting to come upward (after
letting him fall through) and stain his track with redness.
Already the arms of darkness grew in readiness to receive him: his
upper arc was pure and keen, but the lower was flaked with
atmosphere; a glow of hazy light soon would follow, and one bright
glimmer (addressed more to the sky than to the earth), and after
that a broad, soft gleam; and after that how many a man should
never see the sun again, and among them would be my father.

He, for the moment, resting there, with heavy light upon him, and
the dark jaws of the mountain desert yawning wide behind him, and
all the beautiful expanse of liberal earth before him--even so he
seemed to me, of all the things in sight, the one that first would
draw attention.  His face was full of quiet grandeur and impressive
calm, and the sad tranquillity which comes to those who know what
human life is through continual human death.  Although, in the
matter of bodily strength, he was little past the prime of life,
his long and abundant hair was white, and his broad and upright
forehead marked with the meshes of the net of care.  But drought
and famine and long fatigue had failed even now to change or weaken
the fine expression of his large, sad eyes.  Those eyes alone would
have made the face remarkable among ten thousand, so deep with
settled gloom they were, and dark with fatal sorrow.  Such eyes
might fitly have told the grief of Adrastus, son of Gordias, who,
having slain his own brother unwitting, unwitting slew the only son
of his generous host and savior.

The pale globe of the sun hung trembling in the haze himself had
made.  My father rose to see the last, and reared his tall form
upright against the deepening background.  He gazed as if the
course of life lay vanishing below him, while level land and waters
drew the breadth of shadow over them.  Then the last gleam flowed
and fled upon the face of ocean, and my father put his dry lips to
my forehead, saying nothing.

His lips might well be dry, for he had not swallowed water for
three days; but it frightened me to feel how cold they were, and
even tremulous.  "Let us run, let us run, my dear father!" I cried.
"Delicious water!  The dark falls quickly; but we can get there
before dark.  It is all down hill.  Oh, do let us run at once!"

"Erema," he answered, with a quiet smile, "there is no cause now
for hurrying, except that I must hurry to show you what you have to
do, my child.  For once, at the end of my life, I am lucky.  We
have escaped from that starving desert at a spot--at a spot where
we can see--"

For a little while he could say no more, but sank upon the stony
seat, and the hand with which he tried to point some distant
landmark fell away.  His face, which had been so pale before,
became of a deadly whiteness, and he breathed with gasps of agony.
I knelt before him and took his hands, and tried to rub the palms,
and did whatever I could think of.

"Oh, father, father, you have starved yourself, and given every
thing to me!  What a brute I was to let you do it!  But I did not
know; I never knew!  Please God to take me also!"

He could not manage to answer this, even if he understood it; but
he firmly lifted his arm again, and tried to make me follow it.

"What does it matter?  Oh, never mind, never mind such, a wretch as
I am!  Father, only try to tell me what I ought to do for you."

"My child! my child!" were his only words; and he kept on saying,
"My child! my child!" as if he liked the sound of it.

At what time of the night my father died I knew not then or
afterward.  It may have been before the moon came over the snowy
mountains, or it may not have been till the worn-out stars in vain
repelled the daybreak.  All I know is that I ever strove to keep
more near to him through the night, to cherish his failing warmth,
and quicken the slow, laborious, harassed breath.  From time to
time he tried to pray to God for me and for himself; but every time
his mind began to wander and to slip away, as if through want of
practice.  For the chills of many wretched years had deadened and
benumbed his faith.  He knew me, now and then, betwixt the conflict
and the stupor; for more than once he muttered feebly, and as if
from out a dream,

"Time for Erema to go on her way.  Go on your way, and save your
life; save your life, Erema."

There was no way for me to go, except on my knees before him.  I
took his hands, and made them lissome with a soft, light rubbing.
I whispered into his ear my name, that he might speak once more to
me; and when he could not speak, I tried to say what he would say
to me.

At last, with a blow that stunned all words, it smote my stupid,
wandering mind that all I had to speak and smile to, all I cared to
please and serve, the only one left to admire and love, lay here in
my weak arms quite dead.  And in the anguish of my sobbing, little
things came home to me, a thousand little things that showed how
quietly he had prepared for this, and provided for me only.  Cold
despair and self-reproach and strong rebellion dazed me, until I
lay at my father's side, and slept with his dead hand in mine.
There in the desert of desolation pious awe embraced me, and small
phantasms of individual fear could not come nigh me.

By-and-by long shadows of morning crept toward me dismally, and the
pallid light of the hills was stretched in weary streaks away from
me.  How I arose, or what I did, or what I thought, is nothing now.
Such times are not for talking of.  How many hearts of anguish lie
forlorn, with none to comfort them, with all the joy of life died
out, and all the fear of having yet to live, in front arising!

Young and weak, and wrong of sex for doing any valiance, long I lay
by my father's body, wringing out my wretchedness.  Thirst and
famine now had flown into the opposite extreme; I seemed to loathe
the thought of water, and the smell of food would have made me
sick.  I opened my father's knapsack, and a pang of new misery
seized me.  There lay nearly all his rations, which he had made
pretense to eat as he gave me mine from time to time.  He had
starved himself; since he failed of his mark, and learned our risk
of famishing, all his own food he had kept for me, as well as his
store of water.  And I had done nothing but grumble and groan, even
while consuming every thing.  Compared with me, the hovering
vultures might be considered angels.

When I found all this, I was a great deal too worn out to cry or
sob.  Simply to break down may be the purest mercy that can fall on
truly hopeless misery.  Screams of ravenous maws and flaps of fetid
wings came close to me, and, fainting into the arms of death, I
tried to save my father's body by throwing my own over it.



CHAPTER III

A STURDY COLONIST


For the contrast betwixt that dreadful scene and the one on which
my dim eyes slowly opened, three days afterward, first I thank the
Lord in heaven, whose gracious care was over me, and after Him some
very simple members of humanity.

A bronze-colored woman, with soft, sad eyes, was looking at me
steadfastly.  She had seen that, under tender care, I was just
beginning to revive, and being acquainted with many troubles, she
had learned to succor all of them.  This I knew not then, but felt
that kindness was around me.

"Arauna, arauna, my shild," she said, in a strange but sweet and
soothing voice, "you are with the good man in the safe, good house.
Let old Suan give you the good food, my shild."

"Where is my father?  Oh, show me my father?" I whispered faintly,
as she raised me in the bed and held a large spoon to my lips.

"You shall--you shall; it is too very much Inglese; me tell you
when have long Sunday time to think.  My shild, take the good food
from poor old Suan."

She looked at me with such beseeching eyes that, even if food had
been loathsome to me, I could not have resisted her; whereas I was
now in the quick-reviving agony of starvation.  The Indian woman
fed me with far greater care than I was worth, and hushed me, with
some soothing process, into another abyss of sleep.

More than a week passed by me thus, in the struggle between life
and death, before I was able to get clear knowledge of any body or
any thing.  No one, in my wakeful hours, came into my little
bedroom except this careful Indian nurse, who hushed me off to
sleep whenever I wanted to ask questions.  Suan Isco, as she was
called, possessed a more than mesmeric power of soothing a weary
frame to rest; and this was seconded, where I lay, by the soft,
incessant cadence and abundant roar of water.  Thus every day I
recovered strength and natural impatience.

"The master is coming to see you, shild," Suan said to me one day,
when I had sat up and done my hair, and longed to be down by the
water-fall; "if, if--too much Inglese--old Suan say no more can
now."

"If I am ready and able and willing!  Oh, Suan, run and tell him
not to lose one moment."

"No sure; Suan no sure at all," she answered, looking at me calmly,
as if there were centuries yet to spare.  "Suan no hurry; shild no
hurry; master no hurry: come last of all."

"I tell you, Suan, I want to see him.  And I am not accustomed to
be kept waiting.  My dear father insisted always--But oh, Suan,
Suan, he is dead--I am almost sure of it."

"Him old man quite dead enough, and big hole dug in the land for
him.  Very good; more good than could be.  Suan no more Inglese."

Well as I had known it long, a catching of the breath and hollow,
helpless pain came through me, to meet in dry words thus the dread
which might have been but a hovering dream.  I turned my face to
the wall, and begged her not to send the master in.

But presently a large, firm hand was laid on my shoulder softly,
and turning sharply round, I beheld an elderly man looking down at
me.  His face was plain and square and solid, with short white
curls on a rugged forehead, and fresh red cheeks, and a triple
chin--fit base for remarkably massive jaws.  His frame was in
keeping with his face, being very large and powerful, though not of
my father's commanding height.  His dress and appearance were those
of a working--and a really hard-working--man, sober, steadfast, and
self-respecting; but what engaged my attention most was the frank
yet shrewd gaze of deep-set eyes.  I speak of things as I observed
them later, for I could not pay much heed just then.

"'Tis a poor little missy," he said, with a gentle tone.  "What
things she hath been through!  Will you take an old man's hand, my
dear?  Your father hath often taken it, though different from his
rank of life.  Sampson Gundry is my name, missy.  Have you ever
heard your father tell of it?"

"Many and many a time," I said, as I placed my hot little hand in
his.  "He never found more than one man true on earth, and it was
you, Sir."

"Come, now," he replied, with his eyes for a moment sparkling at my
warmth of words; "you must not have that in your young head, missy.
It leads to a miserable life.  Your father hath always been
unlucky--the most unlucky that ever I did know.  And luck cometh
out in nothing clearer than in the kind of folk we meet.  But the
Lord in heaven ordereth all.  I speak like a poor heathen."

"Oh, never mind that!" I cried: "only tell me, were you in time to
save--to save--"  I could not bear to say what I wanted.

"In plenty of time, my dear; thanks to you.  You must have fought
when you could not fight: the real stuff, I call it.  Your poor
father lies where none can harm him.  Come, missy, missy, you must
not take on so.  It is the best thing that could befall a man so
bound up with calamity.  It is what he hath prayed for for many a
year--if only it were not for you.  And now you are safe, and for
sure he knows it, if the angels heed their business."

With these words he withdrew, and kindly sent Suan back to me,
knowing that her soothing ways would help me more than argument.
To my mind all things lay in deep confusion and abasement.
Overcome with bodily weakness and with bitter self-reproach, I even
feared that to ask any questions might show want of gratitude.  But
a thing of that sort could not always last, and before very long I
was quite at home with the history of Mr. Gundry.

Solomon Gundry, of Mevagissey, in the county of Cornwall, in
England, betook himself to the United States in the last year of
the last century.  He had always been a most upright man, as well
as a first-rate fisherman; and his family had made a rule--as most
respectable families at that time did--to run a nice cargo of
contraband goods not more than twice in one season.  A highly
querulous old lieutenant of the British navy (who had served under
Nelson and lost both, arms, yet kept "the rheumatics" in either
stump) was appointed, in an evil hour, to the Cornish coast-guard;
and he never rested until he had caught all the best county
families smuggling.  Through this he lost his situation, and had to
go to the workhouse; nevertheless, such a stir had been roused that
(to satisfy public opinion) they made a large sacrifice of inferior
people, and among them this Solomon Gundry.  Now the Gundries had
long been a thickset race, and had furnished some champion
wrestlers; and Solomon kept to the family stamp in the matter of
obstinacy.  He made a bold mark at the foot of a bond for 150
pounds; and with no other sign than that, his partner in their
stanch herring-smack (the Good Hope, of Mevagissey) allowed him to
make sail across the Atlantic with all he cared for.

This Cornish partner deserved to get all his money back; and so he
did, together with good interest.  Solomon Gundry throve among a
thrifty race at Boston; he married a sweet New England lass, and
his eldest son was Sampson.  Sampson, in the prime of life, and at
its headstrong period, sought the far West, overland, through not
much less of distance, and through even more of danger, than his
English father had gone through.  His name was known on the western
side of the mighty chain of mountains before Colonel Fremont was
heard of there, and before there was any gleam of gold on the
lonely sunset frontage.

Here Sampson Gundry lived by tillage of the nobly fertile soil ere
Sacramento or San Francisco had any name to speak of.  And though
he did not show regard for any kind of society, he managed to have
a wife and son, and keep them free from danger.  But (as it appears
to me the more, the more I think of every thing) no one must assume
to be aside the reach of Fortune because he has gathered himself so
small that she should not care to strike at him.  At any rate, good
or evil powers smote Sampson Gundry heavily.

First he lost his wife, which was a "great denial" to him.  She
fell from a cliff while she was pegging out the linen, and the
substance of her frame prevented her from ever getting over it.
And after that he lost his son, his only son--for all the Gundries
were particular as to quality; and the way in which he lost his son
made it still more sad for him.

A reputable and valued woman had disappeared in a hasty way from a
cattle-place down the same side of the hills.  The desire of the
Indians was to enlarge her value and get it.  There were very few
white men as yet within any distance to do good; but Sampson Gundry
vowed that, if the will of the Lord went with him, that woman
should come back to her family without robbing them of sixpence.
To this intent he started with a company of some twenty men--white
or black or middle-colored (according to circumstances).  He was
their captain, and his son Elijah their lieutenant.  Elijah had
only been married for a fortnight, but was full of spirit, and
eager to fight with enemies; and he seems to have carried this too
far; for all that came back to his poor bride was a lock of his
hair and his blessing.  He was buried in a bed of lava on the
western slope of Shasta, and his wife died in her confinement, and
was buried by the Blue River.

It was said at the time and long afterward that Elijah Gundry--thus
cut short--was the finest and noblest young man to be found from
the mountains to the ocean.  His father, in whose arms he died, led
a sad and lonely life for years, and scarcely even cared (although
of Cornish and New England race) to seize the glorious chance of
wealth which lay at his feet beseeching him.  By settlement he had
possessed himself of a large and fertile district, sloping from the
mountain-foot along the banks of the swift Blue River, a tributary
of the San Joaquin.  And this was not all; for he also claimed the
ownership of the upper valley, the whole of the mountain gorge and
spring head, whence that sparkling water flows.  And when that fury
of gold-digging in 1849 arose, very few men could have done what he
did without even thinking twice of it.

For Sampson Gundry stood, like a bull, on the banks of his own
river, and defied the worst and most desperate men of all nations
to pollute it.  He had scarcely any followers or steadfast friends
to back him; but his fame for stern courage was clear and strong,
and his bodily presence most manifest.  Not a shovel was thrust nor
a cradle rocked in the bed of the Blue River.

But when a year or two had passed, and all the towns and villages,
and even hovels and way-side huts, began to clink with money, Mr.
Gundry gradually recovered a wholesome desire to have some.  For
now his grandson Ephraim was growing into biped shape, and having
lost his mother when he first came into the world, was sure to need
the more natural and maternal nutriment of money.

Therefore Sampson Gundry, though he would not dig for gold, wrought
out a plan which he had long thought of.  Nature helped him with
all her powers of mountain, forest, and headlong stream.  He set up
a saw-mill, and built it himself; and there was no other to be
found for twelve degrees of latitude and perhaps a score of
longitude.



CHAPTER IV

THE "KING OF THE MOUNTAINS."


If I think, and try to write forever with the strongest words, I
can not express to any other mind a thousandth part of the
gratitude which was and is, and ought to be forever, in my own poor
mind toward those who were so good to me.  From time to time it is
said (whenever any man with power of speech or fancy gets some
little grievances) that all mankind are simply selfish, miserly,
and miserable.  To contradict that saying needs experience even
larger, perhaps, than that which has suggested it; and this I can
not have, and therefore only know that I have not found men or
women behave at all according to that view of them.

Whether Sampson Gundry owed any debt, either of gratitude or of
loyalty, to my father, I did not ask; and he seemed to be (like
every one else) reserved and silent as to my father's history.  But
he always treated me as if I belonged to a rank of life quite
different from and much above his own.  For instance, it was long
before he would allow me to have my meals at the table of the
household.

But as soon as I began in earnest to recover from starvation, loss,
and loneliness, my heart was drawn to this grand old man, who had
seen so many troubles.  He had been here and there in the world so
much, and dealt with so many people, that the natural frankness of
his mind was sharpened into caution.  But any weak and helpless
person still could get the best of him; and his shrewdness
certainly did not spring from any form of bitterness.  He was rough
in his ways sometimes, and could not bear to be contradicted when
he was sure that he was right, which generally happened to him.
But above all things he had one very great peculiarity, to my mind
highly vexatious, because it seemed so unaccountable.  Sampson
Gundry had a very low opinion of feminine intellect.  He never
showed this contempt in any unpleasant way, and indeed he never,
perhaps, displayed it in any positive sayings.  But as I grew older
and began to argue, sure I was that it was there; and it always
provoked me tenfold as much by seeming to need no assertion, but to
stand as some great axiom.

The other members of the household were his grandson Ephraim (or
"Firm" Gundry), the Indian woman Suan Isco, and a couple of helps,
of race or nation almost unknown to themselves.  Suan Isco belonged
to a tribe of respectable Black Rock Indians, and had been the wife
of a chief among them, and the mother of several children.  But
Klamath Indians, enemies of theirs (who carried off the lady of the
cattle ranch, and afterward shot Elijah), had Suan Isco in their
possession, having murdered her husband and children, and were
using her as a mere beast of burden, when Sampson Gundry fell on
them.  He, with his followers, being enraged at the cold-blooded
death of Elijah, fell on those miscreants to such purpose that
women and children alone were left to hand down their bad
propensities.

But the white men rescued and brought away the stolen wife of the
stockman, and also the widow of the Black Rock chief.  She was in
such poor condition and so broken-hearted that none but the finest
humanity would have considered her worth a quarter of the trouble
of her carriage.  But she proved to be worth it a thousandfold; and
Sawyer Gundry (as now he was called) knew by this time all the
value of uncultivated gratitude.  And her virtues were so many that
it took a long time to find them out, for she never put them
forward, not knowing whether they were good or bad.

Until I knew these people, and the pure depth of their kindness, it
was a continual grief to me to be a burden upon them.  But when I
came to understand them and their simple greatness, the only thing
I was ashamed of was my own mistrust of them.  Not that I expected
ever that any harm would be done to me, only that I knew myself to
have no claim on any one.

One day, when I was fit for nothing but to dwell on trouble,
Sampson Gundry's grandson "Firm"--as he was called for Ephraim--ran
up the stairs to the little room where I was sitting by myself.

"Miss Rema, will you come with us?" he said, in his deep, slow
style of speech.  "We are going up the mountain, to haul down the
great tree to the mill."

"To be sure I will come," I answered, gladly.  "What great tree is
it, Mr. Ephraim?"

"The largest tree any where near here--the one we cut down last
winter.  Ten days it took to cut it down.  If I could have saved
it, it should have stood.  But grandfather did it to prove his
rights.  We shall have a rare job to lead it home, and I doubt if
we can tackle it.  I thought you might like to see us try."

In less than a minute I was ready, for the warmth and softness of
the air made cloak or shawl unbearable.  But when I ran down to the
yard of the mill, Mr. Gundry, who was giving orders, came up and
gave me an order too.

"You must not go like this, my dear.  We have three thousand feet
to go upward.  The air will be sharp up there, and I doubt if we
shall be home by night-fall.  Run, Suan, and fetch the young lady's
cloak, and a pair of thicker boots for change."

Suan Isco never ran.  That manner of motion was foreign to her, at
least as we accomplish it.  When speed was required, she attained
it by increased length of stride and great vigor of heel.  In this
way she conquered distance steadily, and with very little noise.

The air, and the light, and the beauty of the mountains were a
sudden joy to me.  In front of us all strode Sampson Gundry,
clearing all tangles with a short, sharp axe, and mounting steep
places as if twoscore were struck off his threescore years and
five.  From time to time he turned round to laugh, or see that his
men and trained bullocks were right; and then, as his bright eyes
met my dark ones, he seemed to be sorry for the noise he made.  On
the other hand, I was ashamed of damping any one's pleasure by
being there.

But I need not have felt any fear about this.  Like all other
children, I wrapped myself up too much in my own importance, and
behaved as if my state of mind was a thing to be considered.  But
the longer we rose through the freedom and the height, the lighter
grew the heart of every one, until the thick forest of pines closed
round us, and we walked in a silence that might be felt.

Hence we issued forth upon the rough bare rock, and after much
trouble with the cattle, and some bruises, stood panting on a
rugged cone, or crest, which had once been crowned with a Titan of
a tree.  The tree was still there, but not its glory; for, alas!
the mighty trunk lay prostrate--a grander column than ever was or
will be built by human hands.  The tapering shaft stretched out of
sight for something like a furlong, and the bulk of the butt rose
over us so that we could not see the mountains.  Having never seen
any such tree before, I must have been amazed if I had been old
enough to comprehend it.

Sampson Gundry, large as he was, and accustomed to almost every
thing, collected his men and the whole of his team on the ground-
floor or area of the stump before he would say any thing.  Here we
all looked so sadly small that several of the men began to laugh;
the bullocks seemed nothing but raccoons or beavers to run on the
branches or the fibres of the tree; and the chains and the
shackles, and the blocks and cranes, and all the rest of the things
they meant to use, seemed nothing whatever, or at all to be
considered, except as a spider's web upon this tree.

The sagacious bullocks, who knew quite well what they were expected
to do, looked blank.  Some rubbed their horns into one another's
sadly, and some cocked their tails because they felt that they
could not be called upon to work.  The light of the afternoon sun
came glancing along the vast pillar, and lit its dying hues--
cinnamon, purple, and glabrous red, and soft gray where the lichens
grew.

Every body looked at Mr. Gundry, and he began to cough a little,
having had lately some trouble with his throat.  Then in his sturdy
manner he spoke the truth, according to his nature.  He set his
great square shoulders against the butt of the tree, and delivered
himself:

"Friends and neighbors, and hands of my own, I am taken in here,
and I own to it.  It serves me right for disbelieving what my
grandson, Firm Gundry, said.  I knew that the tree was a big one,
of course, as every body else does; but till you see a tree laid
upon earth you get no grip of his girth, no more than you do of a
man till he lieth a corpse.  At the time of felling I could not
come anigh him, by reason of an accident; and I had some words with
this boy about it, which kept me away ever since that time.  Firm,
you were right, and I was wrong.  It was a real shame, now I see
it, to throw down the 'King of the Mountains.'  But, for all that,
being down, we must use him.  He shall be sawn into fifty-foot
lengths.  And I invite you all to come again, for six or seven good
turns at him."

At the hearing of this, a cheer arose, not only for the Sawyer's
manly truth, but also for his hospitality; because on each of these
visits to the mountain he was the host, and his supplies were good.
But before the descent with the empty teams began, young Ephraim
did what appeared to me to be a gallant and straightforward thing.
He stood on the chine of the fallen monster, forty feet above us,
having gained the post of vantage by activity and strength, and he
asked if he might say a word or two.

"Say away, lad," cried his grandfather, supposing, perhaps, in his
obstinate way (for truly he was very obstinate), that his grandson
was going now to clear himself from art or part in the murder of
that tree--an act which had roused indignation over a hundred
leagues of lowland.

"Neighbors," said Firm, in a clear young voice, which shook at
first with diffidence, "we all have to thank you, more than I can
tell, for coming to help us with this job.  It was a job which
required to be done for legal reasons which I do not understand,
but no doubt they were good ones.  For that we have my grandfather's
word; and no one, I think, will gainsay it.  Now, having gone
so far, we will not be beaten by it, or else we shall not be
Americans."

These simple words were received with great applause; and an
orator, standing on the largest stump to be found even in America,
delivered a speech which was very good to hear, but need not now be
repeated.  And Mr. Gundry's eyes were moist with pleasure at his
grandson's conduct.

"Firm knoweth the right thing to do," he said; "and like a man he
doeth it.  But whatever aileth you, Miss Rema, and what can 'e see
in the distance yonner?  Never mind, my dear, then.  Tell me by-
and-by, when none of these folk is 'longside of us."

But I could not bear to tell him, till he forced it from me under
pain of his displeasure.  I had spied on the sky-line far above us,
in the desert track of mountain, the very gap in which my father
stood and bade me seek this landmark.  His memory was true, and his
eyesight also; but the great tree had been felled.  The death of
the "King of the Mountains" had led to the death of the king of
mankind, so far as my little world contained one.



CHAPTER V

UNCLE SAM


The influence of the place in which I lived began to grow on me.
The warmth of the climate and the clouds of soft and fertile dust
were broken by the refreshing rush of water and the clear soft
green of leaves.  We had fruit trees of almost every kind, from the
peach to the amber cherry, and countless oaks by the side of the
river--not large, but most fantastic.  Here I used to sit and
wonder, in a foolish, childish way, whether on earth there was any
other child so strangely placed as I was.  Of course there were
thousands far worse off, more desolate and destitute, but was there
any more thickly wrapped in mystery and loneliness?

A wanderer as I had been for years, together with my father, change
of place had not supplied the knowledge which flows from lapse of
time.  Faith, and warmth, and trust in others had not been dashed
out of me by any rude blows of the world, as happens with unlucky
children huddled together in large cities.  My father had never
allowed me much acquaintance with other children; for six years he
had left me with a community of lay sisters, in a little town of
Languedoc, where I was the only pupil, and where I was to remain as
I was born, a simple heretic.  Those sisters were very good to me,
and taught me as much as I could take of secular accomplishment.
And it was a bitter day for me when I left them for America.

For during those six years I had seen my father at long intervals,
and had almost forgotten the earlier days when I was always with
him.  I used to be the one little comfort of his perpetual
wanderings, when I was a careless child, and said things to amuse
him.  Not that he ever played with me any more than he played with
any thing; but I was the last of his seven children, and he liked
to watch me grow.  I never knew it, I never guessed it, until he
gave his life for mine; but, poor little common thing as I was, I
became his only tie to earth.  Even to me he was never loving, in
the way some fathers are.  He never called me by pet names, nor
dandled me on his knee, nor kissed me, nor stroked down my hair and
smiled.  Such things I never expected of him, and therefore never
missed them; I did not even know that happy children always have
them.

But one thing I knew, which is not always known to happier
children: I had the pleasure of knowing my own name.  My name was
an English one--Castlewood--and by birth I was an English girl,
though of England I knew nothing, and at one time spoke and thought
most easily in French.  But my longing had always been for England,
and for the sound of English voices and the quietude of English
ways.  In the chatter and heat and drought of South France some
faint remembrance of a greener, cooler, and more silent country
seemed to touch me now and then.  But where in England I had lived,
or when I had left that country, or whether I had relations there,
and why I was doomed to be a foreign girl--all these questions were
but as curling wisps of cloud on memory's sky.

Of such things (much as I longed to know a good deal more about
them) I never had dared to ask my father; nor even could I, in a
roundabout way, such as clever children have, get second-hand
information.  In the first place, I was not a clever child; for the
next point, I never had underhand skill; and finally, there was no
one near me who knew any thing about me.  Like all other girls--and
perhaps the very same tendency is to be found in boys--I had strong
though hazy ideas of caste.  The noble sense of equality,
fraternity, and so on, seems to come later in life than childhood,
which is an age of ambition.  I did not know who in the world I
was, but felt quite sure of being somebody.

One day, when the great tree had been sawn into lengths, and with
the aid of many teams brought home, and the pits and the hoisting
tackle were being prepared and strengthened to deal with it, Mr.
Gundry, being full of the subject, declared that he would have his
dinner in the mill yard.  He was anxious to watch, without loss of
time, the settlement of some heavy timbers newly sunk in the
river's bed, to defend the outworks of the mill.  Having his good
leave to bring him his pipe, I found him sitting upon a bench with
a level fixed before him, and his empty plate and cup laid by,
among a great litter of tools and things.  He was looking along the
level with one eye shut, and the other most sternly intent; but
when I came near he rose and raised his broad pith hat, and made me
think that I was not interrupting him.

"Here is your pipe, Uncle Sam," I said; for, in spite of all his
formal ways, I would not be afraid of him.  I had known him now
quite long enough to be sure he was good and kind.  And I knew that
the world around these parts was divided into two hemispheres, the
better half being of those who loved, and the baser half made of
those who hated, Sawyer Sampson Gundry.

"What a queer world it is!" said Mr. Gundry, accepting his pipe to
consider that point.  "Who ever would have dreamed, fifty years
agone, that your father's daughter would ever have come with a pipe
to light for my father's son?"

"Uncle Sam," I replied, as he slowly began to make those puffs
which seem to be of the highest essence of pleasure, and wisps of
blue smoke flitted through his white eyebrows and among the snowy
curls of hair--"dear Uncle Sam, I am sure that it would be an honor
to a princess to light a pipe for a man like you."

"Miss Rema, I should rather you would talk no nonsense," he
answered, very shortly, and he set his eye along his level, as if I
had offended him.  Not knowing how to assert myself and declare
that I had spoken my honest thoughts, I merely sat down on the
bench and waited for him to speak again to me.  But he made believe
to be very busy, and scarcely to know that I was there.  I had a
great mind to cry, but resolved not to do it.

"Why, how is this?  What's the matter?" he exclaimed at last, when
I had been watching the water so long that I sighed to know where
it was going to.  "Why, missy, you look as if you had never a
friend in all the wide world left."

"Then I must look very ungrateful," I said; "for at any rate I have
one, and a good one."

"And don't you know of any one but me, my dear?"

"You and Suan Isco and Firm--those are all I have any knowledge
of."

"'Tis a plenty--to my mind, almost too many.  My plan is to be a
good friend to all, but not let too many be friends with me.  Rest
you quite satisfied with three, Miss Rema.  I have lived a good
many years, and I never had more than three friends worth a puff of
my pipe."

"But one's own relations, Uncle Sam--people quite nearly related to
us: it is impossible for them to be unkind, you know."

"Do I, my dear?  Then I wish that I did.  Except one's own father
and mother, there is not much to be hoped for out of them.  My own
brother took a twist against me because I tried to save him from
ruin; and if any man ever wished me ill, he did.  And I think that
your father had the same tale to tell.  But there!  I know nothing
whatever about that."

"Now you do, Mr. Gundry; I am certain that you do, and beg you to
tell me, or rather I demand it.  I am old enough now, and I am
certain my dear father would have wished me to know every thing.
Whatever it was, I am sure that he was right; and until I know
that, I shall always be the most miserable of the miserable."

The Sawyer looked at me as if he could not enter into my meaning,
and his broad, short nose and quiet eyes were beset with wrinkles
of inquiry.  He quite forgot his level and his great post in the
river, and tilted back his ancient hat, and let his pipe rest on
his big brown arm.  "Lord bless me!" he said, "what a young gal you
are!  Or, at least, what a young Miss Rema.  What good can you do,
miss, by making of a rout?  Here you be in as quiet a place as you
could find, and all of us likes and pities you.  Your father was a
wise man to settle you here in this enlightened continent.  Let the
doggoned old folk t'other side of the world think out their own
flustrations.  A female young American you are now, and a very fine
specimen you will grow.  'Tis the finest thing to be on all God's
earth."

"No, Mr. Gundry, I am an English girl, and I mean to be an
Englishwoman.  The Americans may be more kind and generous, and
perhaps my father thought so, and brought me here for that reason.
And I may be glad to come back to you again when I have done what I
am bound to do.  Remember that I am the last of seven children, and
do not even know where the rest are buried."

"Now look straight afore you, missy.  What do you see yonner?"  The
Sawyer was getting a little tired, perhaps, of this long
interruption.

"I see enormous logs, and a quantity of saws, and tools I don't
even know the names of.  Also I see a bright, swift river."

"But over here, missy, between them two oaks.  What do you please
to see there, Miss Rema?"

"What I see there, of course, is a great saw-mill."

"But it wouldn't have been 'of course,' and it wouldn't have been
at all, if I had spent all my days a-dwelling on the injuries of my
family.  Could I have put that there unekaled sample of water-power
and human ingenuity together without laboring hard for whole months
of a stretch, except upon the Sabbath, and laying awake night after
night, and bending all my intellect over it?  And could I have done
that, think you now, if my heart was a-mooning upon family wrongs,
and this, that, and the other?"

Here Sampson Gundry turned full upon me, and folded his arms, and
spread his great chin upon his deer-skin apron, and nodded briskly
with his deep gray eyes, surveying me in triumph.  To his mind,
that mill was the wonder of the world, and any argument based upon
it, with or without coherence, was, like its circular saws,
irresistible.  And yet he thought that women can not reason!
However, I did not say another word just then, but gave way to him,
as behooved a child.  And not only that, but I always found him too
good to be argued with--too kind, I mean, and large of heart, and
wedded to his own peculiar turns.  There was nothing about him that
one could dislike, or strike fire at, and be captious; and he
always proceeded with such pity for those who were opposed to him
that they always knew they must be wrong, though he was too polite
to tell them so.  And he had such a pleasant, paternal way of
looking down into one's little thoughts when he put on his
spectacles, that to say any more was to hazard the risk of
ungrateful inexperience.



CHAPTER VI

A BRITISHER


The beautiful Blue River came from the jagged depths of the
mountains, full of light and liveliness.  It had scarcely run six
miles from its source before it touched our mill-wheel; but in that
space and time it had gathered strong and copious volume.  The
lovely blue of the water (like the inner tint of a glacier) was
partly due to its origin, perhaps, and partly to the rich, soft
tone of the granite sand spread under it.  Whatever the cause may
have been, the river well deserved its title.

It was so bright and pure a blue, so limpid and pellucid, that it
even seemed to out-vie the tint of the sky which it reflected, and
the myriad sparks of sunshine on it twinkled like a crystal rain.
Plodding through the parched and scorching dust of the mountain-
foot, through the stifling vapor and the blinding, ochreous glare,
the traveler suddenly came upon this cool and calm delight.  It was
not to be descried afar, for it lay below the level, and the oaks
and other trees of shelter scarcely topped the narrow comb.  There
was no canyon, such as are--and some of them known over all the
world--both to the north and south of it.  The Blue River did not
owe its birth to any fierce convulsion, but sparkled on its
cheerful way without impending horrors.  Standing here as a child,
and thinking, from the manner of my father, that strong men never
wept nor owned the conquest of emotion, I felt sometimes a fool's
contempt for the gushing transport of brave men.  For instance, I
have seen a miner, or a tamer of horses, or a rough fur-hunter, or
(perhaps the bravest of all) a man of science and topography,
jaded, worn, and nearly dead with drought and dearth and choking,
suddenly, and beyond all hope, strike on this buried Eden.  And
then he dropped on his knees and spread his starved hands upward,
if he could, and thanked the God who made him, till his head went
round, and who knows what remembrance of loved ones came to him?
And then, if he had any moisture left, he fell to a passion of
weeping.

In childish ignorance I thought that this man weakly degraded
himself, and should have been born a woman.  But since that time I
have truly learned that the bravest of men are those who feel their
Maker's Land most softly, and are not ashamed to pay the tribute of
their weakness to Him.

Living, as we did, in a lonely place, and yet not far from a track
along the crest of the great Californian plain from Sacramento
southward, there was scarcely a week which did not bring us some
traveler needing comfort.  Mr. Gundry used to be told that if he
would set up a rough hotel, or house of call for cattle-drovers,
miners, loafers, and so on, he might turn twice the money he could
ever make by his thriving saw-mill.  But he only used to laugh, and
say that nature had made him too honest for that; and he never
thought of charging any thing for his hospitality, though if a rich
man left a gold piece, or even a nugget, upon a shelf, as happened
very often, Sawyer Gundry did not disdain to set it aside for a
rainy day.  And one of his richest or most lavish guests arrived on
my account, perhaps.

It happened when daylight was growing shorter, and the red heat of
the earth was gone, and the snow-line of distant granite peaks had
crept already lower, and the chattering birds that spent their
summer in our band of oak-trees were beginning to find their food
get short, and to prime swift wings for the lowland; and I, having
never felt bitter cold, was trembling at what I heard of it.  For
now it was clear that I had no choice but to stay where I was for
the present, and be truly thankful to God and man for having the
chance of doing so.  For the little relics of my affairs--so far as
I had any--had taken much time in arrangement, perhaps because it
was so hard to find them.  I knew nothing, except about my own
little common wardrobe, and could give no information about the
contents of my father's packages.  But these, by dint of
perseverance on the part of Ephraim (who was very keen about all
rights), had mainly been recovered, and Mr. Gundry had done the
best that could be done concerning them.  Whatever seemed of a
private nature, or likely to prove important, had been brought home
to Blue River Mills; the rest had been sold, and had fetched large
prices, unless Mr. Gundry enlarged them.

He more than enlarged, he multiplied them, as I found out long
afterward, to make me think myself rich and grand, while a beggar
upon his bounty.  I had never been accustomed to think of money,
and felt some little contempt for it--not, indeed, a lofty hatred,
but a careless wonder why it seemed to be always thought of.  It
was one of the last things I ever thought of; and those who were
waiting for it were--until I got used to them--obliged in self-duty
to remind me.

This, however, was not my fault.  I never dreamed of wronging them.
But I had earned no practical knowledge of the great world any
where, much though I had wandered about, according to vague
recollections.  The duty of paying had never been mine; that
important part had been done for me.  And my father had such a
horror always of any growth of avarice that he never gave me
sixpence.

And now, when I heard upon every side continual talk of money, from
Suan Isco upward, I thought at first that the New World must be
different from the Old one, and that the gold mines in the
neighborhood must have made them full of it; and once or twice I
asked Uncle Sam; but he only nodded his head, and said that it was
the practice every where.  And before very long I began to perceive
that he did not exaggerate.

Nothing could prove this point more clearly than the circumstance
above referred to--the arrival of a stranger, for the purpose of
bribing even Uncle Sam himself.  This happened in the month of
November, when the passes were beginning to be blocked with snow,
and those of the higher mountain tracts had long been overwhelmed
with it.  On this particular day the air was laden with gray,
oppressive clouds, threatening a heavy downfall, and instead of
faring forth, as usual, to my beloved river, I was kept in-doors,
and even up stairs, by a violent snow-headache.  This is a crushing
weight of pain, which all new-comers, or almost all, are obliged to
endure, sometimes for as much as eight-and-forty hours, when the
first great snow of the winter is breeding, as they express it,
overhead.  But I was more lucky than most people are; for after
about twelve hours of almost intolerable throbbing, during which
the sweetest sound was odious, and the idea of food quite
loathsome, the agony left me, and a great desire for something to
eat succeeded.  Suan Isco, the kindest of the kind, was gone down
stairs at last, for which I felt ungrateful gratitude--because she
had been doing her best to charm away my pain by low, monotonous
Indian ditties, which made it ten times worse; and yet I could not
find heart to tell her so.

Now it must have been past six o'clock in the evening of the
November day when the avalanche slid off my head, and I was able to
lift it.  The light of the west had been faint, and was dead;
though often it used to prolong our day by the backward glance of
the ocean.  With pangs of youthful hunger, but a head still weak
and dazy, I groped my way in the dark through the passage and down
the stairs of redwood.

At the bottom, where a railed landing was, and the door opened into
the house-room, I was surprised to find that, instead of the usual
cheerful company enjoying themselves by the fire-light, there were
only two people present.  The Sawyer sat stiffly in his chair of
state, delaying even the indulgence of his pipe, and having his
face set sternly, as I had never before beheld it.  In the
visitor's corner, as we called it, where people sat to dry
themselves, there was a man, and only one.

Something told me that I had better keep back and not disturb them.
The room was not in its usual state of comfort and hospitality.
Some kind of meal had been made at the table, as always must be in
these parts; but not of the genial, reckless sort which random
travelers carried on without any check from the Sawyer.  For he of
all men ever born in a civilized age was the finest host, and a
guest beneath his roof was sacred as a lady to a knight.  Hence it
happened that I was much surprised.  Proper conduct almost
compelled me to withdraw; but curiosity made me take just one more
little peep, perhaps.  Looking back at these things now, I can not
be sure of every thing; and indeed if I could, I must have an
almost supernatural memory.  But I remember many things; and the
headache may have cleared my mind.

The stranger who had brought Mr. Gundry's humor into such stiff
condition was sitting in the corner, a nook where light and shadow
made an eddy.  He seemed to be perfectly unconcerned about all the
tricks of the hearth flame, presenting as he did a most solid face
for any light to play upon.  To me it seemed to be a weather-beaten
face of a bluff and resolute man, the like of which we attribute to
John Bull.  At any rate, he was like John Bull in one respect: he
was sturdy and square, and fit to hold his own with any man.

Strangers of this sort had come (as Englishmen rove every where),
and been kindly welcomed by Uncle Sam, who, being of recent English
blood, had a kind of hankering after it, and would almost rather
have such at his board than even a true-born American; and
infinitely more welcome were they than Frenchman, Spaniard, or
German, or any man not to be distinguished, as was the case with
some of them.  Even now it was clear that the Sawyer had not
grudged any tokens of honor, for the tall, square, brazen
candlesticks, of Boston make, were on the table, and very little
light they gave.  The fire, however, was grandly roaring of stub-
oak and pine antlers, and the black grill of the chimney bricks was
fringed with lifting filaments.  It was a rich, ripe light,
affording breadth and play for shadow; and the faces of the two men
glistened, and darkened in their creases.

I was dressed in black, and could not be seen, though I could see
them so clearly; and I doubted whether to pass through, upon my way
to the larder, or return to my room and starve a little longer; for
I did not wish to interrupt, and had no idea of listening.  But
suddenly I was compelled to stop; and to listen became an honest
thing, when I knew what was spoken of--or, at any rate, I did it.

"Castlewood, Master Colonist; Castlewood is the name of the man
that I have come to ask about.  And you will find it worth your
while to tell me all you know of him."  Thus spoke the Englishman
sitting in the corner; and he seemed to be certain of producing his
effect.

"Wal," said Uncle Sam, assuming what all true Britons believe to be
the universal Yankee tone, while I knew that he was laughing in his
sleeve, "Squire, I guess that you may be right.  Considerations of
that 'ere kind desarves to be considered of."

"Just so.  I knew that you must see it," the stranger continued,
bravely.  "A stiff upper lip, as you call it here, is all very well
to begin with.  But all you enlightened members of the great
republic know what is what.  It will bring you more than ten years'
income of your saw-mill, and farm, and so on, to deal honestly with
me for ten minutes.  No more beating about the bush and fencing
with me, as you have done.  Now can you see your own interest?"

"I never were reckoned a fool at that.  Squire, make tracks, and be
done with it."

"Then, Master Colonist, or Colonel--for I believe you are all
colonels here--your task is very simple.  We want clear proof,
sworn properly and attested duly, of the death of a villain--George
Castlewood, otherwise the Honorable George Castlewood, otherwise
Lord Castlewood: a man who murdered his own father ten years ago
this November: a man committed for trial for the crime, but who
bribed his jailers and escaped, and wandered all over the
Continent.  What is that noise?  Have you got rats?"

"Plenty of foreign rats, and native 'coons, and skunks, and other
varmint.  Wal, Squire, go on with it."

The voice of Uncle Sam was stern, and his face full of rising fury,
as I, who had made that noise in my horror, tried to hush my heart
with patience.

"The story is well known," continued the stranger: "we need make no
bones of it.  George Castlewood went about under a curse--"

"Not quite so loud, Squire, if you please.  My household is not
altogether seasoned."

"And perhaps you have got the young lady somewhere.  I heard a
report to that effect.  But here you think nothing of a dozen
murders.  Now, Gundry, let us have no squeamishness.  We only want
justice, and we can pay for it.  Ten thousand dollars I am
authorized to offer for a mere act of duty on your part.  We have
an extradition treaty.  If the man had been alive, we must have had
him.  But as he has cheated the hangman by dying, we can only see
his grave and have evidence.  And all well-disposed people must
rejoice to have such a quiet end of it.  For the family is so well
known, you see."

"I see," Mr. Gundry answered, quietly, laying a finger on his lips.
"Guess you want something more than that, though, Squire.  Is there
nothing more than the grave to oblige a noble Britisher with?"

"Yes, Colonel; we want the girl as well.  We know that she was with
him in that caravan, or wagon train, or whatever you please to call
it.  We know that you have made oath of his death, produced his
child, and obtained his trunks, and drawn his share in the
insurance job.  Your laws must be queer to let you do such things.
In England it would have taken at least three years, and cost a
deal more than the things were worth, even without a Chancery suit.
However, of his papers I shall take possession; they can be of no
earthly use to you."

"To be sure.  And possession of his darter too, without so much as
a Chancery suit.  But what is to satisfy me, Squire, agin goin'
wrong in this little transaction?"

"I can very soon satisfy you," said the stranger, "as to their
identity.  Here is their full, particular, and correct description--
names, weights, and colors of the parties."

With a broad grin at his own exquisite wit, the bluff man drew
forth his pocket-book, and took out a paper, which he began to
smooth on his knee quite leisurely.  Meanwhile, in my hiding-place,
I was trembling with terror and indignation.  The sense of
eavesdropping was wholly lost, in that of my own jeopardy.  I must
know what was arranged about me; for I felt such a hatred and fear
of that stranger that sooner than be surrendered to him I would
rush back to my room and jump out of the window, and trust myself
to the trackless forest and the snowy night.  I was very nearly
doing so, but just had sense enough to wait and hear what would be
said of me.  So I lurked in the darkness, behind the rails, while
the stranger read slowly and pompously.



CHAPTER VII

DISCOMFITURE


The Englishman drew forth a double eyeglass from a red velvet
waistcoat, and mounting it on his broad nose, came nearer to get
the full light of the candles.  I saw him as clearly as I could
wish, and, indeed, a great deal too clearly; for the more I saw of
the man, the more I shrank from the thought of being in his power.
Not that he seemed to be brutal or fierce, but selfish, and
resolute, and hard-hearted, and scornful of lofty feelings.  Short
dust-colored hair and frizzly whiskers framed his large, thick-
featured face, and wearing no mustache, he showed the clumsy sneer
of a wide, coarse mouth.  I watched him with all my eyes, because
of his tone of authority about myself.  He might even be my
guardian or my father's nearest relation--though he seemed to be
too ill-bred for that.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Colonel," he went on, in a patronizing
tone, such as he had assumed throughout.  "Here it is.  Now prick
your ears up, and see if these candid remarks apply.  I am reading
from a printed form, you see:

"'George Castlewood is forty-eight years old, but looks perhaps ten
years older.  His height is over six feet two, and he does not
stoop or slouch at all.  His hair is long and abundant, but white;
his eyes are dark, piercing, and gloomy.  His features are fine,
and of Italian cast, but stern, morose, and forbidding, and he
never uses razor.  On the back of his left hand, near the wrist,
there is a broad scar.  He dresses in half-mourning always, and
never wears any jewelry, but strictly shuns all society, and
prefers uncivilized regions.  He never stays long in any town, and
follows no occupation, though his aspect and carriage are military,
as he has been a cavalry officer.  From time to time he has been
heard of in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and is now believed to be in
America.

"'His only surviving child, a girl of about fifteen, has been seen
with him.  She is tall and slight and very straight, and speaks
French better than English.  Her hair is very nearly black, and her
eyes of unusual size and lustre.  She is shy, and appears to have
been kept under, and she has a timid smile.  Whether she knows of
her father's crime or not is quite uncertain; but she follows him
like a dog almost.'

"There now, Colonel," cried the Englishman, as he folded the paper
triumphantly; "most of that came from my information, though I
never set eyes upon the child.  Does the cap fit or not, Brother
Jonathan?"

Mr. Gundry was leaning back in his own corner, with a favorite
pipe, carved by himself, reposing on his waistcoat.  And being thus
appealed to, he looked up and rubbed his eyes as if he had been
dozing, though he never had been more wide awake, as I, who knew
his attitudes, could tell.  And my eyes filled with tears of love
and shame, for I knew by the mere turn of his chin that he never
would surrender me.

"Stranger," he said, in a most provoking drawl, "a hard day's work
tells its tale on me, you bet.  You do read so bootiful, you read
me hard asleep.  And the gutturals of that furrin English is always
a little hard to catch.  Mought I trouble you just to go through it
again?  You likes the sound of your own voice; and no blame to you,
being such a swate un."

The Englishman looked at him keenly, as if he had some suspicion of
being chaffed; but the face of the Sawyer was so grave and the bend
of his head so courteous that he could not refuse to do as he was
asked.  But he glanced first at the whiskey bottle standing between
the candlesticks; and I knew it boded ill for his errand when Uncle
Sam, the most hospitable of men, feigned pure incomprehension of
that glance.  The man should have no more under that roof.

With a sullen air and a muttered curse, at which Mr. Gundry blew a
wreath of smoke, the stranger unfolded his paper again, and saying,
"Now I beg you to attend this time," read the whole of his
description, with much emphasis, again, while the Sawyer turned
away and beat time upon the hearth, with his white hair, broad
shoulders, and red ears prominent.  The Englishman looked very
seriously vexed, but went through his business doggedly.  "Are you
satisfied now?" he asked when he had finished.

"Wal, now, Squire," replied Uncle Sam, still keeping up his
provoking drawl, but turning round and looking at the stranger very
steadfastly, "some thin's is so pooty and so ilegantly done, they
seems a'most as good as well-slung flapjacks.  A natteral honest
stomick can't nohow have enough of them.  Mought I be so bold, in a
silly, mountaneous sort of a way, as to ax for another heerin' of
it?"

"Do you mean to insult me, Sir?" shouted the visitor, leaping up
with a flaming face, and throwing himself into an attitude of
attack.

"Stranger, I mought," answered Mr. Gundry, standing squarely before
him, and keeping his hands contemptuously behind his back--"I
mought so do, barrin' one little point.  The cutest commissioner in
all the West would have to report 'Non compos' if his orders was to
diskiver somethin' capable of bein' insulted in a fellow of your
natur'."

With these words Uncle Sam sat down, and powerfully closed his
mouth, signifying that now the matter was taken through every phase
of discussion, and had been thoroughly exhausted.  His visitor
stared at him for a moment, as if at some strange phenomenon, and
then fell back into self-command, without attempting bluster.

"Colonel, you are a 'cure,' as we call it on our side of the
herring pond.  What have I done to 'riz your dander,' as you
elegantly express it here?"

"Britisher, nothing.  You know no better.  It takes more than that
to put my back up.  But forty years agone I do believe I must 'a
heaved you out o' window."

"Why, Colonel, why?  Now be reasonable.  Not a word have I said
reflecting either upon you or your country; and a finer offer than
I have made can not come to many of you, even in this land of gold.
Ten thousand dollars I offer, and I will exceed my instructions and
say fifteen, all paid on the nail by an order on Frisco, about
which you may assure yourself.  And what do I ask in return?  Legal
proof of the death of a man whom we know to be dead, and the
custody of his child, for her own good."

"Squire, I have no other answer to make.  If you offered me all the
gold dug in these mountains since they were discovered, I could
only say what I have said before.  You came from Sylvester's ranch--
there is time for you to get back ere the snow begins."

"What a hospitable man you are!  Upon my word, Gundry, you deserve
to have a medal from our Humane Society.  You propose to turn me
out of doors to-night, with a great fall of snow impending?"

"Sir, the fault is entirely your own.  What hospitality can you
expect after coming to buy my guest?  If you are afraid of the ten-
mile ride, my man at the mill will bed you.  But here you must not
sleep, because I might harm you in the morning.  I am apt to lose
my temper sometimes, when I go on to think of things."

"Colonel, I think I had better ride back.  I fear no man, nor his
temper, nor crotchets.  But if I were snowed up at your mill, I
never might cross the hill-foot for months; but from Sylvester's I
can always get to Minto.  You refuse, then, to help me in any way?"

"More than that.  I will do every thing in my power to confound
you.  If any one comes prowling after that young lady, he shall be
shot."

"That is most discouraging.  However, you may think better of it.
Write to this address if you do.  You have the girl here, of
course?"

"That is her concern and mine.  Does your guide know the way right
well!  The snow is beginning.  You do not know our snows, any more
than you know us."

"Never mind, Mr. Gundry.  I shall do very well.  You are rough in
your ways, but you mean to do the right; and your indignation is
virtuous.  But mark my words upon one little point.  If George
Castlewood had been living, I have such credentials that I would
have dragged him back with me in spite of all your bluster.  But
over his corpse I have no control, in the present condition of
treaties.  Neither can I meddle with his daughter, if it were worth
while to do so.  Keep her and make the best of her, my man.  You
have taken a snake in the grass to your bosom, if that is what you
are up for.  A very handsome girl she may be, but a bad lot, as her
father was.  If you wish the name of Gundry to have its due respect
hereafter, let the heir of the sawmills have nothing to do with the
Honorable Miss Castlewood."

"Let alone, let alone," Uncle Sam said, angrily.  "It is well for
you that the 'heir of the saw-mills' hath not heard your insolence.
Firm is a steady lad; but he knoweth well which foot to kick with.
No fear of losing the way to Sylvester's ranch with Firm behind
you.  But, meddlesome as you be, and a bitter weed to my
experience, it shall not be said that Sampson Gundry sent forth a
fellow to be frozen.  Drink a glass of hot whiskey before you get
to saddle.  Not in friendship, mind you, Sir, but in common human
nature."

That execrable man complied, for he began to be doubtful of the
driving snow, now huddling against the window-frames.  And so he
went out; and when he was gone, I came forth into the fire-light,
and threw my arms round the Sawyer's neck and kissed him till he
was ashamed of me.

"Miss Rema, my dear, my poor little soul, what makes you carry on
so?"

"Because I have heard every word, Uncle Sam, and I was base enough
to doubt you."



CHAPTER VIII

A DOUBTFUL LOSS


When I tried to look out of my window in the morning, I was quite
astonished at the state of things.  To look out fairly was
impossible; for not only was all the lower part of the frame
hillocked up like a sandglass, and the sides filled in with dusky
plaits, but even in the middle, where some outlook was, it led to
very little.  All the air seemed choked with snow, and the ground
coming up in piles to meet it; all sounds were deadened in the
thick gray hush, and nothing had its own proportion.  Never having
seen such a thing before, I was frightened, and longed to know more
of it.

Mr. Gundry had a good laugh at me, in which even Suan Isco joined,
when I proposed to sweep a path to the mill, and keep it open
through the winter.

"It can be done--I am sure it can," I exclaimed, with vigorous
ignorance.  "May I do it if I can?  It only requires perseverance.
If you keep on sweeping as fast as it falls, you must overcome it.
Don't you see, Uncle Sam?"

"To be sure I do, Miss Rema, as plain as any pikestaff.  Suan,
fetch a double bundle of new brooms from top loft, and don't forget
while you be up there to give special orders--no snow is to fall at
night or when missy is at dinner."

"You may laugh as much as you please, Uncle Sam, but I intend to
try it.  I must try to keep my path to--somewhere."

"What a fool I am, to be sure!" said Mr. Gundry, softly.  "There,
now, I beg your pardon, my dear, for never giving a thought to it.
Firm and I will do it for you, as long as the Lord allows of it.
Why, the snow is two foot deep a'ready, and twenty foot in places.
I wonder whether that rogue of a Goad got home to Sylvester's ranch
last night?  No fault of mine if he never did, for go he would in
spite of me."

I had not been thinking of Mr. Goad, and indeed I did not know his
name until it was told in this way.  My mind was dwelling on my
father's grave, where I used to love to sit and think; and I could
not bear the idea of the cold snow lying over it, with nobody
coming to care for him.  Kind hands had borne him down the
mountains (while I lay between life and death) and buried him in
the soft peach orchard, in the soothing sound of the mill-wheel.
Here had been planted above his head a cross of white un-painted
wood, bearing only his initials, and a small "Amen" below them.

With this I was quite content, believing that he would have wished
no better, being a very independent man, and desirous of no kind of
pomp.  There was no "consecrated ground" within miles and miles of
traveling; but I hoped that he might rest as well with simple tears
to hallow it.  For often and often, even now, I could not help
giving way and sobbing, when I thought how sad it was that a
strong, commanding, mighty man, of great will and large experience,
should drop in a corner of the world and die, and finally be
thought lucky--when he could think for himself no longer--to obtain
a tranquil, unknown grave, and end with his initials, and have a
water-wheel to sing to him.  Many a time it set me crying, and made
me long to lie down with him, until I thought of earth-worms.

All that could be done was done by Sampson and Firm Gundry, to let
me have my clear path, and a clear bourne at the end of it.  But
even with a steam snow-shovel they could not have kept the way
unstopped, such solid masses of the mountain clouds now descended
over us.  And never had I been so humored in my foolish wishes: I
was quite ashamed to see the trouble great men took to please me.

"Well, I am sorry to hear it, Firm," said the Sawyer, coming in one
day, with clouts of snow in his snowy curls.  "Not that I care a
cent for the fellow--and an impudenter fellow never sucked a pipe.
Still, he might have had time to mend, if his time had been as good
as the room for it.  However, no blame rests on us.  I told him to
bed down to saw-mill.  They Englishmen never know when they are
well off.  But the horse got home, they tell me?"

"The horse got home all right, grandfather, and so did the other
horse and man.  But Sylvester thinks that a pile of dollars must
have died out in the snow-drift.  It is a queer story.  We shall
never know the rights."

"How many times did I tell him," the Sawyer replied, without much
discontent, "that it were a risky thing to try the gulches, such a
night as that?  His own way he would have, however; and finer liars
than he could ever stick up to be for a score of years have gone,
time upon time, to the land of truth by means of that same view of
things.  They take every body else for a liar."

"Oh, Uncle Sam, who is it?" I cried.  "Is it that dreadful--that
poor man who wanted to carry me away from you?"

"Now you go in, missy; you go to the fire-hearth," Mr. Gundry
answered, more roughly than usual.  "Leave you all such points to
the Lord.  They are not for young ladies to talk about."

"Grandfather, don't you be too hard," said Firm, as he saw me
hurrying away.  "Miss Rema has asked nothing unbecoming, but only
concerning her own affairs.  If we refuse to tell her, others
will."

"Very well, then, so be it," the Sawyer replied; for he yielded
more to his grandson than to the rest of the world put together.
"Turn the log up, Firm, and put the pan on.  You boys can go on
without victuals all day, but an old man must feed regular.  And,
bad as he was, I thank God for sending him on his way home with his
belly full.  If ever he turneth up in the snow, that much can be
proved to my account."

Young as I was, and little practiced in the ways of settlers, I
could not help perceiving that Uncle Sam was very much put out--not
at the death of the man so sadly, as at the worry of his dying so
in going from a hospitable house.  Mr. Gundry cared little what any
body said concerning his honor, or courage, or such like; but the
thought of a whisper against his hospitality would rouse him.

"Find him, Firm, find him," he said, in his deep sad voice, as he
sat down on the antlered stump and gazed at the fire gloomily.
"And when he is found, call a public postmortem, and prove that we
gave him his bellyful."

Ephraim, knowing the old man's ways, and the manners, perhaps, of
the neighborhood, beckoned to Suan to be quick with something hot,
that he might hurry out again.  Then he took his dinner standing,
and without a word went forth to seek.

"Take the snow-harrow, and take Jowler," the old man shouted after
him, and the youth turned round at the gate and waved his cap to
show that he heard him.  The snow was again falling heavily, and
the afternoon was waning; and the last thing we saw was the brush
of the mighty tail of the great dog Jowler.

"Oh, uncle, Firm will be lost himself!" I cried, in dismay at the
great white waste.  "And the poor man, whoever he is, must be dead.
Do call him back, or let me run."

Mr. Gundry's only answer was to lead me back to the fireside, where
he made me sit down, and examined me, while Suan was frying the
butter-beans.

"Who was it spied you on the mountains, missy, the whole of the way
from the redwood-tree, although you lay senseless on the ground,
and he was hard at work with the loppings?"

"Why, Ephraim, of course, Uncle Sam; every body says that nobody
else could have noticed such a thing at such a distance."

"Very well, my dear; and who was it carried you all the way to this
house, without stopping, or even letting your head droop down,
although it was a burning hot May morn?"

"Mr. Gundry, as if you did not know a great deal better than I do!
It was weeks before I could thank him, even.  But you must have
seen him do it all."

The Sawyer rubbed his chin, which was large enough for a great deal
of rubbing; and when he did that, I was always sure that an
argument went to his liking.  He said nothing more for the present,
but had his dinner, and enjoyed it.

"Supposing now that he did all that," he resumed, about an hour
afterward, "is Firm the sort of boy you would look to to lose his
own self in a snow-drift?  He has three men with him, and he is
worth all three, let alone the big dog Jowler, who has dug out
forty feet of snow ere now.  If that rogue of an Englishman, Goad,
has had the luck to cheat the hangman, and the honor to die in a
Californy snow-drift, you may take my experience for it, missy,
Firm and Jowler will find him, and clear Uncle Sam's reputation."



CHAPTER IX

WATER-SPOUT


If Mr. Gundry was in one way right, he was equally wrong in the
other.  Firm came home quite safe and sound, though smothered with
snow and most hungry; but he thought that he should have staid out
all the night, because he had failed of his errand.  Jowler also
was full of discontent and trouble of conscience.  He knew, when he
kicked up his heels in the snow, that his duty was to find
somebody, and being of Alpine pedigree, and trained to act up to
his ancestry, he now dropped his tail with failure.

"It comes to the same thing," said Sawyer Gundry; "it is foolish to
be so particular.  A thousand better men have sunk through being so
pig-headed.  We shall find the rogue toward the end of March, or in
April, if the season suits.  Firm, eat your supper and shake
yourself."

This was exactly the Sawyer's way--to take things quietly when
convinced that there was no chance to better them.  He would always
do his best about the smallest trifle; but after that, be the
matter small or great, he had a smiling face for the end of it.

The winter, with all its weight of sameness and of dreariness, went
at last, and the lovely spring from the soft Pacific found its
gradual way to us.  Accustomed as I was to gentler climates and
more easy changes, I lost myself in admiration of this my first
Californian spring.  The flowers, the leagues and leagues of
flowers, that burst into color and harmony--purple, yellow, and
delicate lilac, woven with bright crimson threads, and fringed with
emerald-green by the banks, and blue by the course of rivers, while
deepened here and there by wooded shelter and cool places, with the
silver-gray of the soft Pacific waning in far distance, and silken
vapor drawing toward the carding forks of the mountain range; and
over all the never-wearying azure of the limpid sky: child as I
was, and full of little worldly troubles on my own account, these
grand and noble sights enlarged me without any thinking.

The wheat and the maize were grown apace, and beans come into full
blossom, and the peaches swinging in the western breeze were almost
as large as walnuts, and all things in their prime of freshness,
ere the yellow dust arrived, when a sudden melting of snow in some
gully sent a strong flood down our Blue River.  The saw-mill
happened to be hard at work; and before the gear could be lifted,
some damage was done to the floats by the heavy, impetuous rush of
the torrent.  Uncle Sam was away, and so was Firm; from which,
perhaps, the mischief grew.  However, the blame was all put on the
river, and little more was said of it.

The following morning I went down before even Firm was out-of-
doors, under some touch, perhaps, of natural desire to know things.
The stream was as pure and bright as ever, hastening down its
gravel-path of fine granite just as usual, except that it had more
volume and a stronger sense of freshness.  Only the bent of the
grasses and the swath of the pendulous twigs down stream remained
to show that there must have been some violence quite lately.

All Mr. Gundry's strengthening piles and shores were as firm as
need be, and the clear blue water played around them as if they
were no constraint to it.  And none but a practiced eye could see
that the great wheel had been wounded, being undershot, and lifted
now above the power of the current, according to the fine old plan
of locking the door when the horse is gone.

When I was looking up and wondering where to find the mischief,
Martin, the foreman, came out and crossed the plank, with his mouth
full of breakfast.

"Show me," I said, with an air, perhaps, of very young importance,
"where and what the damage is.  Is there any strain to the iron-
work?"

"Lor' a mercy, young missus!" he answered, gruffly, being by no
means a polished man, "where did you ever hear of ironwork?
Needles and pins is enough for you.  Now don't you go and make no
mischief."

"I have no idea what you mean," I answered.  "If you have been
careless, that is no concern of mine."

"Careless, indeed!  And the way I works, when others is a-snorin'
in their beds!  I might just as well do nort, every bit, and get
more thanks and better wages.  That's the way of the world all
over.  Come Saturday week, I shall better myself."

"But if it's the way of the world all over, how will you better
yourself, unless you go out of the world altogether!"  I put this
question to Martin with the earnest simplicity of the young,
meaning no kind of sarcasm, but knowing that scarcely a week went
by without his threatening to "better himself."  And they said that
he had done so for seven years or more.

"Don't you be too sharp," he replied, with a grim smile, partly at
himself, perhaps.  "If half as I heard about you is true, you'll
want all your sharpness for yourself, Miss Remy.  And the
Britishers are worse than we be."

"Well, Martin, I am sure you would help me," I said, "if you saw
any person injuring me.  But what is it I am not to tell your
master?"

"My master, indeed!  Well, you need not tell old Gundry any thing
about what you have seen.  It might lead to hard words; and hard
words are not the style of thing I put up with.  If any man tries
hard words with me, I knocks him down, up sticks, and makes
tracks."

I could not help smiling at the poor man's talk.  Sawyer Gundry
could have taken him with one hand and tossed him over the
undershot wheel.

"You forget that I have not seen any thing," I said, "and
understand nothing but 'needles and pins.'  But, for fear of doing
any harm, I will not even say that I have been down here, unless I
am asked about it."

"Miss Remy, you are a good girl, and you shall have the mill some
day.  Lord, don't your little great eyes see the job they are a-
doin' of?  The finest stroke in all Californy, when the stubborn
old chap takes to quartz-crushing."

All this was beyond me, and I told him so, and we parted good
friends, while he shook his long head and went home to feed many
pappooses.  For the strangest thing of all things was, though I
never at that time thought of it, that there was not any one about
this place whom any one could help liking.  Martin took as long as
any body to be liked, until one understood him; but after that he
was one of the best, in many ways that can not be described.  Also
there was a pair of negroes, simply and sweetly delightful.  They
worked all day and they sang all night, though I had not the
pleasure of hearing them; and the more Suan Isco despised them--
because they were black, and she was only brown--the more they made
up to her, not at all because she governed the supply of victuals.
It was childish to have such ideas, though Suan herself could never
get rid of them.  The truth, as I came to know afterward, was that
a large, free-hearted, and determined man was at the head of every
thing.  Martin was the only one who ever grumbled, and he had
established a long right to do so by never himself being grumbled
at.

"I'll be bound that poor fellow is in a sad way," Mr. Gundry said
at breakfast-time.  "He knows how much he is to blame, and I fear
that he won't eat a bit for the day.  Martin is a most conscientious
man.  He will offer to give up his berth, although it would be his
simple ruin."

I was wise enough not to say a word, though Firm looked at me
keenly.  He knew that I had been down at the mill, and expected me
to say something.

"We all must have our little mistakes," continued Sawyer Gundry;
"but I never like to push a man when he feels it.  I shall not say
a syllable to Martin; and, Ephraim, you will do the like.  When a
fellow sticks well to his work like Martin, never blame him for a
mere accident."

Firm, according to his habit, made no answer when he did not quite
agree.  In talking with his own age he might have argued, but he
did not argue with his grandfather.

"I shall just go down and put it right myself.  Martin is a poor
hand at repairing.  Firm, you go up the gulch, and see if the fresh
has hurt the hurdles.  Missy, you may come with me, if you please,
and sketch me at work in the mill-wheel.  You have drawn that wheel
such a sight of times, you must know every feather of it better
than the man who made it."

"Uncle Sam, you are too bad," I said.  "I have never got it right,
and I never shall."

I did not dare as yet to think what really proved to be true in the
end--that I could not draw the wheel correctly because itself was
incorrect.  In spite of all Mr. Gundry's skill and labor and
ingenuity, the wheel was no true circle.  The error began in the
hub itself, and increased, of course, with the distance; but still
it worked very well, like many other things that are not perfect.

Having no idea of this as yet, and doubting nothing except my own
perception of "perspective," I sat down once more in my favorite
spot, and waited for the master to appear as an active figure in
the midst of it.  The air was particularly bright and clear, even
for that pure climate, and I could even see the blue-winged flies
darting in and out of the oozy floats.  But half-way up the
mountains a white cloud was hanging, a cloud that kept on changing
shape.  I only observed it as a thing to put in for my background,
because I was fond of trying to tone and touch up my sketches with
French chalks.

Presently I heard a harsh metallic sound and creaking of machinery.
The bites, or clamps, or whatever they are called, were being put
on, to keep the wheel from revolving with the Sawyer's weight.
Martin, the foreman, was grumbling and growling, according to his
habit, and peering through the slot, or channel of stone, in which
the axle worked, and the cheery voice of Mr. Gundry was putting
down his objections.  Being much too large to pass through the
slot, Mr. Gundry came round the corner of the building, with a
heavy leathern bag of tools strapped round his neck, and his canvas
breeches girt above his knees.  But the foreman staid inside to
hand him the needful material into the wheel.

The Sawyer waded merrily down the shallow blue water, for he was
always like a boy when he was at work, and he waved his little
skull-cap to me, and swung himself up into the wheel, as if he were
nearer seventeen than seventy.  And presently I could only see his
legs and arms as he fell to work.  Therefore I also fell to work,
with my best attempts at penciling, having been carefully taught
enough of drawing to know that I could not draw.  And perhaps I
caught from the old man's presence and the sound of his activity
that strong desire to do my best which he seemed to impart to every
one.

At any rate, I was so engrossed that I scarcely observed the
changing light, except as a hindrance to my work and a trouble to
my distance, till suddenly some great drops fell upon my paper and
upon my hat, and a rush of dark wind almost swept me from the log
upon which I sat.  Then again all was a perfect calm, and the young
leaves over the stream hung heavily on their tender foot-stalks,
and the points of the breeze-swept grass turned back, and the
ruffle of all things smoothed itself.  But there seemed to be a
sense of fear in the waiting silence of earth and air.

This deep, unnatural stillness scared me, and I made up my mind to
run away.  But the hammer of the Sawyer sounded as I had never
heard it sound.  He was much too hard at work to pay any heed to
sky or stream, and the fall of his strokes was dead and hollow, as
if the place resented them.

"Come away, come away," I cried, as I ran and stood on the opposite
bank to him; "there is something quite wrong in the weather, I am
sure.  I entreat you to come away at once, Uncle Sam.  Every thing
is so strange and odd."

"Why, what's to do now?" asked the Sawyer, coming to my side of the
wheel and looking at me, with his spectacles tilted up, and his
apron wedged in a piece of timber, and his solid figure resting in
the impossibility of hurry.  "Missy, don't you make a noise out
there.  You can't have your own way always."

"Oh, Uncle Sam, don't talk like that.  I am in such a fright about
you.  Do come out and look at the mountains."

"I have seen the mountains often enough, and I am up to every trick
of them.  There may be a corn or two of rain; no more.  My sea-weed
was like tinder.  There can't be no heavy storm when it is like
that.  Don't you make pretense, missy, to know what is beyond you."

Uncle Sam was so seldom cross that I always felt that he had a
right to be so.  And he gave me one of his noble smiles to make up
for the sharpness of his words, and then back he went to his work
again.  So I hoped that I was altogether wrong, till a bolt of
lightning, like a blue dagger, fell at my very feet, and a crash of
thunder shook the earth and stunned me.  These opened the sluice of
the heavens, and before I could call out I was drenched with rain.
Clinging to a bush, I saw the valley lashed with cloudy blasts, and
a whirling mass of spiral darkness rushing like a giant toward me.
And the hissing and tossing and roaring mixed whatever was in sight
together.

Such terror fell upon me at first that I could not look, and could
scarcely think, but cowered beneath the blaze of lightning as a
singed moth drops and shivers.  And a storm of wind struck me from
my hold, so that I fell upon the wet earth.  Every moment I
expected to be killed, for I never could be brave in a thunder-
storm, and had not been told much in France of God's protection
around me.  And the darts of lightning hissed and crossed like a
blue and red web over me.  So I laid hold of a little bent of weed,
and twisted it round my dabbled wrist, and tried to pray to the
Virgin, although I had often been told it was vanity.

Then suddenly wiping my eyes, I beheld a thing which entirely
changed me.  A vast, broad wall of brown water, nearly as high as
the mill itself, rushed down with a crest of foam from the
mountains.  It seemed to fill up all the valley and to swallow up
all the trees; a whole host of animals fled before it, and birds,
like a volley of bullets, flew by.  I lost not a moment in running
away, and climbing a rock and hiding.  It was base, ungrateful, and
a nasty thing to do; but I did it almost without thinking.  And if
I had staid to cry out, what good could I have done--only to be
swept away?

Now, as far as I can remember any thing out of so much horror, I
must have peeped over the summit of my rock when the head of the
deluge struck the mill.  But whether I saw it, or whether I knew it
by any more summary process, such as outruns the eyes sometimes, is
more than I dare presume to say.  Whichever way I learned it, it
was thus:

A solid mass of water, much bigger than the mill itself, burst on
it, dashed it to atoms, leaped off with it, and spun away the great
wheel anyhow, like the hoop of a child sent trundling.  I heard no
scream or shriek; and, indeed, the bellow of a lion would have been
a mere whisper in the wild roar of the elements.  Only, where the
mill had been, there was nothing except a black streak and a boil
in the deluge.  Then scores of torn-up trees swept over, as a bush-
harrow jumps on the clods of the field; and the unrelenting flood
cast its wrath, and shone quietly in the lightning.

"Oh, Uncle Sam!  Uncle Sam!" I cried.  But there was not a sign to
be seen of him; and I thought of his gentle, good, obstinate ways,
and my heart was almost broken.  "What a brute--what a wretch I
am!" I kept saying, as if I could have helped it; and my fear of
the lightning was gone, and I stood and raved with scorn and
amazement.

In this misery of confusion it was impossible to think, and
instinct alone could have driven my despair to a desperate venture.
With my soaked clothes sticking between my legs, I ran as hard as
they would go, by a short-cut over a field of corn, to a spot where
the very last bluff or headland jutted into the river.  This was a
good mile below the mill according to the bends of channel, but
only a furlong or so from the rock upon which I had taken refuge.
However, the flood was there before me, and the wall of water
dashed on to the plains, with a brindled comb behind it.

Behind it also came all the ruin of the mill that had any floatage,
and bodies of bears and great hogs and cattle, some of them alive,
but the most part dead.  A grand black bull tossed back his horns,
and looked at me beseechingly: he had frightened me often in quiet
days, but now I was truly grieved for him.  And then on a wattle of
brush-wood I saw the form of a man--the Sawyer.

His white hair draggled in the wild brown flood, and the hollow of
his arms was heaped with froth, and his knotted legs hung helpless.
Senseless he lay on his back, and sometimes the wash of the waves
went over him.  His face was livid, but his brave eyes open, and a
heavy weight hung round his neck.  I had no time to think, and
deserve no praise, for I knew not what I did.  But just as an eddy
swept him near me, I made a desperate leap at him, and clutched at
something that tore my hands, and then I went under the water.  My
senses, however, were not yet gone, and my weight on the wattle
stopped it, and I came up gurgling, and flung one arm round a fat,
woolly sheep going by me.  The sheep was water-logged, and could
scarcely keep his own poor head from drowning, and he turned his
mild eyes and looked at me, but I could not spare him.  He struck
for the shore in forlorn hope, and he towed us in some little.

It is no good for me to pretend to say how things were managed for
us, for of course I could do nothing.  But the sheep must have
piloted us to a tree, whose branches swept the torrent.  Here I let
him go, and caught fast hold; and Uncle Sam's raft must have stuck
there also, for what could my weak arm have done?  I remember only
to have felt the ground at last, as the flood was exhausted; and
good people came and found him and me, stretched side by side, upon
rubbish and mud.



CHAPTER X

A NUGGET


In a sacred corner (as soon as ever we could attend to any thing)
we hung up the leathern bag of tools, which had done much more
toward saving the life of Uncle Sam than I did; for this had served
as a kind of kedge, or drag, upon his little craft, retarding it
from the great roll of billows, in which he must have been drowned
outright.  And even as it was, he took some days before he was like
himself again.

Firm, who had been at the head of the valley, repairing some broken
hurdles, declared that a water-spout had burst in the bosom of the
mountain gorge where the Blue River has its origin, and the whole
of its power got ponded back by a dam, which the Sawyer himself had
made, at about five furlongs above the mill.  Ephraim, being
further up the gulch, and high above the roaring flood, did his
utmost with the keen edge of his eyes to pierce into the mischief;
but it rained so hard, and at the same time blew so violently
around him, that he could see nothing of what went on, but hoped
for the best, with uneasiness.

Now when the Sawyer came round so well as to have a clear mind of
things, and learn that his mill was gone and his business lost, and
himself, at this ripe time of life, almost driven to begin the
world again, it was natural to expect that he ought to indulge in a
good deal of grumbling.  Many people came to comfort him, and to
offer him deep condolence and the truest of true sympathy, and
every thing that could be thought of, unless it were a loan of
money.  Of that they never thought, because it was such a trifling
matter; and they all had confidence in his power to do any thing
but pay them.  They told him that he was a young man still, and
Providence watched over him; in a year or two he would be all the
better for this sad visitation.  And he said yes to their excellent
advice, and was very much obliged to them.  At the same time it was
clear to me, who watched him like a daughter, that he became heavy
in his mind, and sighed, as these kind friends, one after the
other, enjoyed what he still could do for them, but rode away out
of his gate with too much delicacy to draw purse-strings.  Not that
he would have accepted a loan from the heartiest heart of all of
them, only that he would have liked the offer, to understand their
meaning.  And several of them were men--as Firm, in his young
indignation, told me--who had been altogether set up in life by the
kindness of Sampson Gundry.

Perhaps the Sawyer, after all his years, had no right to be vexed
by this.  But whether he was right or wrong, I am sure that it
preyed upon his mind, though he was too proud to speak of it.  He
knew that he was not ruined, although these friends assumed that he
must be; and some of them were quite angry with him because they
had vainly warned him.  He could not remember these warnings, yet
he contradicted none of them; and fully believing in the goodness
of the world, he became convinced that he must have been hard in
the days of his prosperity.

No sooner was he able to get about again than he went to San
Francisco to raise money on his house and property for the
rebuilding of the mill.  Firm rode with him to escort him back, and
so did Martin, the foreman; for although the times were not so bad
as they used to be some ten years back, in the height of the gold
fever, it still was a highly undesirable thing for a man who was
known to have money about him to ride forth alone from San
Francisco, or even Sacramento town.  And having mentioned the
foreman Martin, in justice to him I ought to say that although his
entire loss from the disaster amounted only to a worn-out waistcoat
of the value of about twenty cents, his vehemence in grumbling
could only be equaled by his lofty persistence.  By his great
activity in running away and leaving his employer to meet the
brunt, he had saved not only himself, but his wife and children and
goods and chattels.  This failed, however, to remove or even
assuage his regret for the waistcoat; and he moaned and threatened
to such good purpose that a speedy subscription was raised, which
must have found him in clothes for the rest of his life, as well as
a silver tea-pot with an inscription about his bravery.

When the three were gone, after strict injunctions from Mr. Gundry,
and his grandson too, that I was on no account to venture beyond
calling distance from the house, for fear of being run away with, I
found the place so sad and lonesome that I scarcely knew what to
do.  I had no fear of robbers, though there were plenty in the
neighborhood; for we still had three or four men about, who could
be thoroughly trusted, and who staid with us on half wages rather
than abandon the Sawyer in his trouble.  Suan Isco, also, was as
brave as any man, and could shoot well with a rifle.  Moreover, the
great dog Jowler was known and dreaded by all his enemies.  He
could pull down an Indian, or two half-castes, or three Mexicans,
in about a second; and now he always went about with me, having
formed a sacred friendship.

Uncle Sam had kissed me very warmly when he said "good-by," and
Firm had shown some disposition to follow his example; but much as
I liked and admired Firm, I had my own ideas as to what was
unbecoming, and now in my lonely little walks I began to think
about it.  My father's resting-place had not been invaded by the
imperious flood, although a line of driftage, in a zigzag swath,
lay near the mound.  This was my favorite spot for thinking, when I
felt perplexed and downcast in my young unaided mind.  For although
I have not spoken of my musings very copiously, any one would do me
wrong who fancied that I was indifferent.  Through the great
kindness of Mr. Gundry and other good friends around me, I had no
bitter sense as yet of my own dependence and poverty.  But the vile
thing I had heard about my father, the horrible slander and wicked
falsehood--for such I was certain it must be--this was continually
in my thoughts, and quite destroyed my cheerfulness.  And the worst
of it was that I never could get my host to enter into it.
Whenever I began, his face would change and his manner grow
constrained, and his chief desire always seemed to lead me to some
other subject.

One day, when the heat of the summer came forth, and the peaches
began to blush toward it, and bronze-ribbed figs grew damask-gray
with a globule of sirup in their eyes, and melons and pumpkins
already had curved their fluted stalks with heaviness, and the dust
of the plains was beginning to fly, and the bright spring flowers
were dead more swiftly even than they first were born, I sat with
Suan Isco at my father's cross, and told her to make me cry with
some of all the many sad things she knew.  She knew a wondrous
number of things insatiably sad and wild; and the quiet way in
which she told them (not only without any horror, but as if they
were rightly to be expected), also the deep and rather guttural
tone of voice, and the stillness of the form, made it impossible to
help believing verily every word she said.

That there should be in the world such things, so dark, unjust, and
full of woe, was enough to puzzle a child brought up among the
noblest philosophers; whereas I had simply been educated by good
unpretentious women, who had partly retired from the world, but not
to such a depth as to drown all thought of what was left behind
them.  These were ready at any time to return upon good opportunity;
and some of them had done so, with many tears, when they came into
property.

"Please to tell me no more now," I said at last to Suan; "my eyes
are so sore they will be quite red, and perhaps Uncle Sam will come
home to-night.  I am afraid he has found some trouble with the
money, or he ought to have been at home before.  Don't you think
so, Suan?"

"Yes, yes; trouble with the money.  Always with the white mans
that."

"Very well.  I shall go and look for some money.  I had a most
wonderful dream last night.  Only I must go quite alone.  You had
better go and look to the larder, Suan.  If they come, they are
sure to be hungry."

"Yes, yes; the white mans always hungry, sep when thirsty."

The Indian woman, who had in her heart a general contempt for the
white race, save those of our own household, drew her bright-
colored shawl around her, and set off with her peculiar walk.  Her
walk was not ungraceful, because it was so purely natural; but it
differed almost as much as the step of a quadruped from what we are
taught.  I, with heavy thoughts but careless steps, set off on my
wanderings.  I wanted to try to have no set purpose, course, or
consideration, but to go wherever chance should lead me, without
choice, as in my dream.  And after many vague turns, and even
closings of rebellious eyes, I found myself, perhaps by the force
of habit, at the ruins of the mill.

I seemed to recognize some resemblance (which is as much as one can
expect) to the scene which had been in my sleep before me.  But
sleeping I had seen roaring torrents; waking, I beheld a quiet
stream.  The little river, as blue as ever, and shrinking from all
thoughts of wrath, showed nothing in its pure gaze now but a
gladness to refresh and cool.  In many nicely sheltered corners it
was full of soft reflection as to the good it had to do; and then,
in silver and golden runnels, on it went to do it.  And the happy
voice and many sweetly flashing little glances told that it knew of
the lovely lives beside it, created and comforted by itself.

But I looked at the dark ruin it had wrought, and like a child I
was angry with it for the sake of Uncle Sam.  Only the foundations
and the big heavy stones of the mill were left, and the clear
bright water purled around, or made little eddies among them.  All
were touched with silvery sound, and soft caressing dimples.  But I
looked at the passionate mountains first, to be sure of no more
violence; for if a burned child dreads the fire, one half drowned
may be excused for little faith in water.  The mountains in the
sunshine looked as if nothing could move their grandeur, and so I
stepped from stone to stone, in the bed of the placid brightness.

Presently I came to a place where one of the great black piles,
driven in by order of the Sawyer, to serve as a back-stay for his
walls, had been swept by the flood from its vertical sinking, but
had not been swept away.  The square tarred post of mountain pine
reclined down stream, and gently nodded to the current's impact.
But overthrown as it was, it could not make its exit and float
away, as all its brethren had done.  At this I had wondered before,
and now I went to see what the reason was.  By throwing a short
piece of plank from one of the shattered foundations into a nick in
the shoulder of the reclining pile, I managed to get there and sit
upon it, and search for its obstruction.

The water was flowing smoothly toward me, and as clear as crystal,
being scarcely more than a foot in depth.  And there, on the upper
verge of the hole, raised by the leverage of the butt from the
granite sand of the river-bed, I saw a great bowlder of rich yellow
light.  I was so much amazed that I cried out at once, "Oh! what a
beautiful great yellow fish!"  And I shouted to Jowler, who had
found where I was, and followed me, as usual.  The great dog was
famous for his love of fishing, and had often brought a fine salmon
forth.

Jowler was always a zealous fellow, and he answered eagerly to my
call by dashing at once into the water, and following the guidance
of my hand.  But when he saw what I pointed at, he was bitterly
disappointed, and gave me to understand as much by looking at me
foolishly.  "Now don't be a stupid dog," I said; "do what I tell
you immediately.  Whatever it is, bring it out, Sir."

Jowler knew that I would be obeyed whenever I called him "Sir;" so
he ducked his great head under the water, and tugged with his teeth
at the object.  His back corded up, and his tail grew rigid with
the intensity of his labor, but the task was quite beyond him.  He
could not even stir the mighty mass at which he struggled, but he
bit off a little projecting corner, and came to me with it in his
mouth.  Then he laid his dripping jaws on my lap, and his ears fell
back, and his tail hung down with utter sense of failure.

I patted his broad intelligent forehead, and wiped his black eyes
with his ears, and took from his lips what he offered to me.  Then
I saw that his grinders were framed with gold, as if he had been to
a dentist regardless of expense, and into my hand he dropped a lump
of solid glittering virgin ore.  He had not the smallest idea of
having done any thing worthy of human applause; and he put out his
long red tongue and licked his teeth to get rid of uneatable dross,
and gave me a quiet nudge to ask what more I wanted of him.



CHAPTER XI

ROVERS


From Jowler I wanted nothing more.  Such matters were too grand for
him.  He had beaten the dog of Hercules, who had only brought the
purple dye--a thing requiring skill and art and taste to give it
value.  But gold does well without all these, and better in their
absence.  From handling many little nuggets, and hearkening to Suan
Isco's tales of treachery, theft, and murder done by white men for
the sake of this, I knew that here I had found enough to cost the
lives of fifty men.

At present, however, I was not possessed with dread so much as I
was with joy, and even a secret exultation, at the power placed in
my hands.  For I was too young to moralize or attempt philosophy.
Here I had a knowledge which the wisest of mankind might envy, much
as they despise it when they have no chance of getting it.  I
looked at my father's grave, in the shadow of the quiet peach-
trees, and I could not help crying as I thought that this was come
too late for him.  Then I called off Jowler, who wished (like a
man) to have another tug at it; and home I ran to tell my news, but
failing of breath, had time to think.

It was lucky enough that this was so, for there might have been the
greatest mischief; and sadly excited as I was, the trouble I had
seen so much of came back to my beating heart and told me to be
careful.  But surely there could be no harm in trusting Suan Isco.
However, I looked at her several times, and was not quite so sure
about it.  She was wonderfully true and faithful, and scarcely
seemed to concede to gold its paramount rank and influence.  But
that might only have been because she had never known the want of
it, or had never seen a lump worth stealing, which I was sure that
this must be; and the unregenerate state of all who have never been
baptized had been impressed on me continually.  How could I
mistrust a Christian, and place confidence in an Indian?  Therefore
I tried to sleep without telling any one, but was unable.

But, as it happened, my good discovery did not keep me so very long
awake, for on the following day our troop of horsemen returned from
San Francisco.  Of course I have done very foolish things once and
again throughout my life, but perhaps I never did any thing more
absurd than during the whole of that day.  To begin with, I was up
before the sun, and down at the mill, and along the plank, which I
had removed overnight, but now replaced as my bridge to the pine-
wood pile.  Then I gazed with eager desire and fear--which was the
stronger I scarcely knew--for the yellow under-gleam, to show the
safety of my treasure.  There it lay, as safe as could be, massive,
grand, and beautiful, with tones of varying richness as the ripples
varied over it.  The pale light of the morning breathed a dewy
lustre down the banks; the sun (although unrisen yet) drew furrows
through the mountain gaps; the birds from every hanging tree
addressed the day with melody; the crystal water, purer than
religion's brightest dream, went by; and here among them lay,
unmoved, unthought of, and inanimate, the thing which to a human
being is worth all the rest put together.

This contemplation had upon me an effect so noble that here I
resolved to spend my time, for fear of any robbery.  I was afraid
to gaze more than could be helped at this grand sight, lest other
eyes should spy what was going on, and long to share it.  And after
hurrying home to breakfast and returning in like haste, I got a
scare, such as I well deserved, for being so extremely foolish.

The carpentry of the mill-wheel had proved so very stanch and
steadfast that even in that raging deluge the whole had held
together.  It had been bodily torn from its hold and swept away
down the valley; but somewhere it grounded, as the flood ebbed out,
and a strong team had tugged it back again.  And the Sawyer had
vowed that, come what would, his mill should work with the self-
same wheel which he with younger hands had wrought.  Now this wheel
(to prevent any warp, and save the dry timber from the sun) was
laid in a little shady cut, where water trickled under it.  And
here I had taken up my abode to watch my monster nugget.

I had pulled my shoes and stockings off, and was paddling in the
runnel, sheltered by the deep rim of the wheel, and enjoying the
water.  Little fish darted by me, and lovely spotted lizards played
about, and I was almost beginning even to forget my rock of gold.
In self-defense it is right to say that for the gold, on my own
account, I cared as much as I might have done for a fig worm-eaten.
It was for Uncle Sam, and all his dear love, that I watched the
gold, hoping in his sad disaster to restore his fortunes.  But
suddenly over the rim of the wheel (laid flat in the tributary
brook) I descried across the main river a moving company of
horsemen.

These men could have nothing to do with Uncle Sam and his party,
for they were coming from the mountain-side, while he would return
by the track across the plains.  And they were already so near that
I could see their dress quite plainly, and knew them to be Mexican
rovers, mixed with loose Americans.  There are few worse men on the
face of the earth than these, when in the humor, and unluckily they
seem almost always to be in that humor.  Therefore, when I saw
their battered sun-hats and baggy slouching boots, I feared that
little ruth, or truth, or mercy dwelt between them.

On this account I shrank behind the shelter of the mill-wheel, and
held my head in one trembling hand, and with the other drew my
wind-tossed hair into small compass.  For my blood ran cold at the
many dreadful things that came into my mind.  I was sure that they
had not spied me yet, and my overwhelming desire was to decline all
introduction.

I counted fourteen gentlemen, for so they always styled themselves,
and would pistol any man who expressed a contrary opinion.
Fourteen of them rode to the brink of the quiet blue river on the
other side; and there they let their horses drink, and some
dismounted and filled canteens, and some of longer reach stooped
from the saddle and did likewise.  But one, who seemed to be the
captain, wanted no water for his rum.

"Cut it short, boys," I heard him say, with a fine South
Californian twang (which, as well as his free swearing, I will
freely omit).  "If we mean to have fair play with the gal, now or
never's the time for it: old Sam may come home almost any time."

What miserable cowards!  Though there were so many of them, they
really had no heart to face an old man known for courage.
Frightened as I was, perhaps good indignation helped me to flutter
no more, and not faint away, but watch those miscreants steadily.

The horses put down their sandy lips over and over again to drink,
scarcely knowing when they ought to stop, and seemed to get thicker
before my eyes.  The dribbling of the water from their mouths
prepared them to begin again, till the riders struck the savage
unroweled spur into their refreshment.  At this they jerked their
noses up, and looked at one another to say that they expected it,
and then they lifted their weary legs and began to plash through
the river.

It is a pretty thing to see a skillful horse plod through a stream,
probing with his eyes the depth, and stretching his head before his
feet, and at every step he whisks his tail to tell himself that he
is right.  In my agony of observation all these things I heeded,
but only knew that I had done so when I thought long afterward.  At
the moment I was in such a fright that my eyes worked better than
my mind.  However, even so, I thought of my golden millstone, and
was aware that they crossed below, and could not see it.

They gained the bank upon our side within fifty yards of where I
crouched; and it was not presence of mind, but abject fear, which
kept me crouching.  I counted them again as they leaped the bank
and seemed to look at me.  I could see the dark array of eyes, and
could scarcely keep from shrieking.  But my throat was dry and made
no sound, and a frightened bird set up a scream, which drew off
their attention.

In perils of later days I often thought of this fear, and almost
felt that the hand of Heaven had been stretched forth on purpose to
help my helplessness.

For the moment, however, I lay as close as if under the hand of the
evil one; and the snorting of the horses passed me, and wicked
laughter of the men.  One was telling a horrible tale, and the rest
rejoicing in it; and the bright sun, glowing on their withered
skin, discovered perhaps no viler thing in all the world to shine
upon.  One of them even pointed at my mill-wheel with a witty
gibe--at least, perhaps, it was wit to him--about the Sawyer's
misfortune; but the sun was then in his eyes, and my dress was just
of the color of the timber.  So on they rode, and the pleasant turf
(having lately received some rain) softly answered to the kneading
of their hoofs as they galloped away to surround the house.

I was just at the very point of rising and running up into the dark
of the valley, when a stroke of arithmetic stopped me.  Fourteen
men and fourteen horses I had counted on the other side; on this
side I could not make any more than thirteen of them.  I might have
made a mistake; but still I thought I would stop just a minute to
see.  And in that minute I saw the other man walking slowly on the
opposite bank.  He had tethered his horse, and was left as outpost
to watch and give warning of poor Uncle Sam's return.

At the thought of this, my frightened courage, in some extraordinary
way, came back.  I had played an ignoble part thus far, as almost
any girl might have done.  But now I resolved that, whatever might
happen, my dear friend and guardian should not be entrapped and
lose his life through my cowardice.  We had been expecting him all
the day; and if he should come and fall into an ambush, I only
might survive to tell the tale.  I ought to have hurried and warned
the house, as my bitter conscience told me; but now it was much too
late for that.  The only amends that I could make was to try and
warn our travelers.

Stooping as low as I could, and watching my time to cross the more
open places when the sentry was looking away from me, I passed up
the winding of the little watercourse, and sheltered in the swampy
thicket which concealed its origin.  Hence I could see for miles
over the plain--broad reaches of corn land already turning pale,
mazy river fringed with reed, hamlets scattered among clustering
trees, and that which I chiefly cared to see, the dusty track from
Sacramento.

Whether from ignorance of the country or of Mr. Gundry's plans, the
sentinel had been posted badly.  His beat commanded well enough the
course from San Francisco; but that from Sacramento was not equally
clear before him.  For a jut of pine forest ran down from the
mountains and cut off a part of his view of it.  I had not the
sense or the presence of mind to perceive this great advantage, but
having a plain, quick path before me, forth I set upon it.  Of
course if the watchman had seen me, he would have leaped on his
horse and soon caught me; but of that I scarcely even thought, I
was in such confusion.

When I had run perhaps a mile (being at that time very slight, and
of active figure), I saw a cloud of dust, about two miles off,
rising through the bright blue haze.  It was rich yellow dust of
the fertile soil, which never seems to cake or clot.  Sometimes you
may walk for miles without the smallest fear of sinking, the earth
is so elastic.  And yet with a slight exertion you may push a
walking-stick down through it until the handle stops it.  My heart
gave a jump: that cloud of dust was a sign of men on horseback.
And who could it be but Uncle Sam and Firm and the foreman Martin?

As soon as it began to show itself, it proved to be these very
three, carelessly lounging on their horses' backs, overcome with
heat and dust and thirst.  But when they saw me there all alone
under the fury of the sun, they knew that something must have gone
amiss, and were all wide awake in a moment.

"Well, now," said the Sawyer, when I had told my tale as well as
short breath allowed, "put this thing over your head, my dear, or
you may gain a sun-stroke.  I call it too bad of them skunks to
drive you in Californy noon, like this."

"Oh, Uncle Sam, never think of me; think of your house and your
goods and Suan, and all at those bad men's mercy!"

"The old house ain't afire yet," he answered, looking calmly under
his hand in that direction.  "And as for Suan, no fear at all.  She
knows how to deal with such gallowses; and they will keep her to
cook their dinner.  Firm, my lad, let us go and embrace them.  They
wouldn't 'a made much bones of shooting us down if we hadn't known
of it, and if they had got miss afore the saddle.  But if they
don't give bail, as soon as they see me ride up to my door, my
name's not Sampson Gundry.  Only you keep out of the way, Miss
Remy.  You go to sleep a bit, that's a dear, in the graywitch
spinny yonder, and wait till you hear Firm sound the horn.  And
then come you in to dinner-time; for the Lord is always over you."

I hastened to the place which he pointed out--a beautiful covert of
birch-trees--but to sleep was out of the question, worn out though
I was with haste and heat, and (worst of all) with horror.  In a
soft mossy nest, where a breeze from the mountains played with the
in and out ways of the wood, and the murmurous dream of genial
insects now was beginning to drowse upon the air, and the heat of
the sun could almost be seen thrilling through the alleys like a
cicale's drum--here, in the middle of the languid peace, I waited
for the terror of the rifle-crack.

For though Uncle Sam had spoken softly, and made so little of the
peril he would meet, I had seen in his eyes some token of the deep
wrath and strong indignation which had kept all his household and
premises safe.  And it seemed a most ominous sign that Firm had
never said a word, but grasped his gun, and slowly got in front of
his grandfather.



CHAPTER XII

GOLD AND GRIEF


It may have been an hour, but it seemed an age, ere the sound of
the horn, in Firm's strong blast, released me from my hiding-place.
I had heard no report of fire-arms, nor perceived any sign of
conflict; and certainly the house was not on fire, or else I must
have seen the smoke.  For being still in great alarm, I had kept a
very sharp lookout.

Ephraim Gundry came to meet me, which was very kind of him.  He
carried his bugle in his belt, that he might sound again for me, if
needful.  But I was already running toward the house, having made
up my mind to be resolute.  Nevertheless, I was highly pleased to
have his company, and hear what had been done.

"Please to let me help you," he said, with a smile.  "Why, miss,
you are trembling dreadfully.  I assure you there is no cause for
that."

"But you might have been killed, and Uncle Sam, and Martin, and
every body.  Oh, those men did look so horrible!"

"Yes, they always do till you come to know them.  But bigger
cowards were never born.  If they can take people by surprise, and
shoot them without any danger, it is a splendid treat to them.  But
if any one like grandfather meets them face to face in the
daylight, their respect for law and life returns.  It is not the
first visit they have paid us.  Grandfather kept his temper well.
It was lucky for them that he did."

Remembering that the Rovers must have numbered nearly three to one,
even if all our men were stanch, I thought it lucky for ourselves
that there had been no outbreak.  But Firm seemed rather sorry that
they had departed so easily.  And knowing that he never bragged, I
began to share his confidence.

"They must be shot, sooner or later," he said, "unless, indeed,
they should be hanged.  Their manner of going on is out of date in
these days of settlement.  It was all very well ten years ago.  But
now we are a civilized State, and the hand of law is over us.  I
think we were wrong to let them go.  But of course I yield to the
governor.  And I think he was afraid for your sake.  And to tell
the truth, I may have been the same."

Here he gave my arm a little squeeze, which appeared to me quite
out of place; therefore I withdrew and hurried on.  Before he could
catch me I entered the door, and found the Sawyer sitting calmly
with his own long pipe once more, and watching Suan cooking.

"They rogues have had all the best of our victuals," he said, as
soon as he had kissed me.  "Respectable visitors is my delight, and
welcome to all of the larder; but at my time of life it goes agin
the grain to lease out my dinner to galley-rakers.  Suan, you are
burning the fat again."

Suan Isco, being an excellent cook (although of quiet temper),
never paid heed to criticism, but lifted her elbow and went on.
Mr. Gundry knew that it was wise to offer no further meddling,
although it is well to keep them up to their work by a little
grumbling.  But when I came to see what broken bits were left for
Suan to deal with, I only wondered that he was not cross.

"Thank God for a better meal than I deserve," he said, when they
all had finished.  "Suan, you are a treasure, as I tell you every
day a'most.  Now if they have left us a bottle of wine, let us have
it up.  We be all in the dumps.  But that will never do, my lad."

He patted Firm on the shoulder, as if he were the younger man of
the two, and his grandson went down to the wreck of the cellar;
while I, who had tried to wait upon them in an eager, clumsy way,
perceived that something was gone amiss, something more serious and
lasting than the mischief made by the robber troop.  Was it that
his long ride had failed, and not a friend could be found to help
him?

When Martin and the rest were gone, after a single glass of wine,
and Ephraim had made excuse of something to be seen to, the Sawyer
leaned back in his chair, and his cheerful face was troubled.  I
filled his pipe and lit it for him, and waited for him to speak,
well knowing his simple and outspoken heart.  But he looked at me
and thanked me kindly, and seemed to be turning some grief in his
mind.

"It ain't for the money," he said at last, talking more to himself
than to me; "the money might 'a been all very well and useful in a
sort of way.  But the feelin'--the feelin' is the thing I look at,
and it ought to have been more hearty.  Security!  Charge on my
land, indeed!  And I can run away, but my land must stop behind!
What security did I ask of them?  'Tis enough a'most to make a
rogue of me."

"Nothing could ever do that, Uncle Sam," I exclaimed, as I came and
sat close to him, while he looked at me bravely, and began to
smile.

"Why, what was little missy thinking of?" he asked.  "How solid she
looks!  Why, I never see the like!"

"Then you ought to have seen it, Uncle Sam.  You ought to have seen
it fifty times, with every body who loves you.  And who can help
loving you, Uncle Sam?"

"Well, they say that I charged too much for lumber, a-cuttin' on
the cross, and the backstroke work.  And it may 'a been so, when I
took agin a man.  But to bring up all that, with the mill strown
down, is a cowardly thing, to my thinking.  And to make no count of
the beadin' I threw in, whenever it were a straightforrard job, and
the turpsy knots, and the clogging of the teeth--'tis a bad bit to
swallow, when the mill is strown."

"But the mill shall not be strown, Uncle Sam.  The mill shall be
built again.  And I will find the money."

Mr. Gundry stared at me and shook his head.  He could not bear to
tell me how poor I was, while I thought myself almost made of
money.  "Five thousand dollars you have got put by for me," I
continued, with great importance.  "Five thousand dollars from the
sale and the insurance fund.  And five thousand dollars must be
five-and-twenty thousand francs.  Uncle Sam, you shall have every
farthing of it.  And if that won't build the mill again, I have got
my mother's diamonds."

"Five thousand dollars!" cried the Sawyer, in amazement, opening
his great gray eyes at me.  And then he remembered the tale which
he had told, to make me seem independent.  "Oh yes, to be sure, my
dear; now I recollect.  To be sure--to be sure--your own five
thousand dollars.  But never will I touch one cent of your nice
little fortune; no, not to save my life.  After all, I am not so
gone in years but what I can build the mill again myself.  The Lord
hath spared my hands and eyes, and gifted me still with machinery.
And Firm is a very handy lad, and can carry out a job pretty
fairly, with better brains to stand over him, although it has not
pleased the Lord to gift him with sense of machinery, like me.  But
that is all for the best, no doubt.  If Ephraim had too much of
brains, he might have contradicted me.  And that I could never
abide, God knows, from any green young jackanapes."

"Oh, Uncle Sam, let me tell you something--something very
important!"

"No, my dear, nothing more just now.  It has done me good to have a
little talk, and scared the blue somethings out of me.  But just go
and ask whatever is become of Firm.  He was riled with them
greasers.  It was all I could do to keep the boy out of a
difficulty with them.  And if they camp any where nigh, it is like
enough he may go hankerin' after them.  The grand march of
intellect hathn't managed yet to march old heads upon young
shoulders.  And Firm might happen to go outside the law."

The thought of this frightened me not a little; for Firm, though
mild of speech, was very hot of spirit at any wrong, as I knew from
tales of Suan Isco, who had brought him up and made a glorious idol
of him.  And now, when she could not say where he was, but only was
sure that he must be quite safe (in virtue of a charm from a great
medicine man which she had hung about him), it seemed to me,
according to what I was used to, that in these regions human life
was held a great deal too lightly.

It was not for one moment that I cared about Firm, any more than is
the duty of a fellow-creature.  He was a very good young man, and
in his way good-looking, educated also quite enough, and polite,
and a very good carver of a joint; and when I spoke, he nearly
always listened.  But of course he was not to be compared as yet to
his grandfather, the true Sawyer.

When I ran back from Suan Isco, who was going on about her charm,
and the impossibility of any one being scalped who wore it, I found
Mr. Gundry in a genial mood.  He never made himself uneasy about
any trifles.  He always had a very pure and lofty faith in the ways
of Providence, and having lost his only son Elijah, he was sure
that he never could lose Firm.  He had taken his glass of hot
whiskey and water, which always made him temperate; and if he felt
any of his troubles deeply, he dwelt on them now from a high point
of view.

"I may 'a said a little too much, my dear, about the badness of
mankind," he observed, with his pipe lying comfortably on his
breast; "all sayings of that sort is apt to go too far.  I ought to
have made more allowance for the times, which gets into a ticklish
state, when a old man is put about with them.  Never you pay no
heed whatever to any harsh words I may have used.  All that is a
very bad thing for young folk."

"But if they treated you badly, Uncle Sam, how can you think that
they treated you well?"

He took some time to consider this, because he was true in all his
thoughts; and then he turned off to something else.

"Why, the smashing of the mill may have been a mercy, although in
disguise to the present time of sight.  It will send up the price
of scantlings, and we was getting on too fast with them.  By the
time we have built up the mill again we shall have more orders than
we know how to do with.  When I come to reckon of it, to me it
appears to be the reasonable thing to feel a lump of grief for the
old mill, and then to set to and build a stronger one.  Yes, that
must be about the right thing to do.  And we'll have all the
neighbors in when we lay foundations."

"But what will be the good of it, Uncle Sam, when the new mill may
at any time be washed away again?"

"Never, at any time," he answered, very firmly, gazing through the
door as if he saw the vain endeavor.  "That little game can easily
be stopped, for about fifty dollars, by opening down the bank
toward the old track of the river.  The biggest waterspout that
ever came down from the mountains could never come anigh the mill,
but go right down the valley.  It hath been in my mind to do it
often, and now that I see the need, I will.  Firm and I will begin
tomorrow."

"But where is all the money to come from, Uncle Sam?  You said that
all your friends had refused to help you."

"Never mind, my dear.  I will help myself.  It won't be the first
time, perhaps, in my life."

"But supposing that I could help you, just some little?  Supposing
that I had found the biggest lump of gold ever found in all
California?"

Mr. Gundry ought to have looked surprised, and I was amazed that he
did not; but he took it as quietly as if I had told him that I had
just picked up a brass button of his; and I thought that he doubted
my knowledge, very likely, even as to what gold was.

"It is gold, Uncle Sam, every bit of it gold--here is a piece of
it; just look--and as large, I am sure, as this table.  And it may
be as deep as this room, for all that one can judge to the
contrary.  Why, it stopped the big pile from coming to the top,
when even you went down the river."

"Well, now, that explains a thing or two," said the Sawyer, smiling
peacefully, and beginning to think of another pipe, if preparation
meant any thing.  "Two things have puzzled me about that stump,
and, indeed, I might say three things.  Why did he take such a time
to drive? and why would he never stand up like a man? and why
wouldn't he go away when he ought to?"

"Because he had the best of all reasons, Uncle Sam.  He was
anchored on his gold, as I have read in French, and he had a good
right to be crooked about it, and no power could get him away from
it."

"Hush, my dear, hush!  It is not at all good for young people to
let their minds run on so.  But this gold looks very good indeed.
Are you sure that it is a fair sample, and that there is any more
of it?"

"How can you be so dreadfully provoking, Uncle Sam, when I tell you
that I saw it with my own eyes?  And there must be at least half a
ton of it."

"Well, half a hundred-weight will be enough for me.  And you shall
have all the rest, my dear--that is, if you will spare me a bit,
Miss Remy.  It all belongs to you by discovery, according to the
diggers' law.  And your eyes are so bright about it, miss, that the
whole of your heart must be running upon it."

"Then you think me as bad as the rest of the world!  How I wish
that I had never seen it!  It was only for you that I cared about
it--for you, for you; and I will never touch a scrap of it."

Mr. Gundry had only been trying me, perhaps.  But I did not see it
in that light, and burst into a flood of childish tears, that he
should misunderstand me so.  Gold had its usual end, in grief.
Uncle Sam rose up to soothe me and to beg my pardon, and to say
that perhaps he was harsh because of the treatment he had received
from his friends.  He took me in his arms and kissed me; but before
I could leave off sobbing, the crack of a rifle rang through the
house, and Suan Isco, with a wail, rushed out.



CHAPTER XIII

THE SAWYER'S PRAYER


The darkness of young summer night was falling on earth and tree
and stream.  Every thing looked of a different form and color from
those of an hour ago, and the rich bloom of shadow mixed with
color, and cast by snowy mountains, which have stored the purple
adieu of the sun, was filling the air with delicious calm.  The
Sawyer ran out with his shirt sleeves shining, so that any sneaking
foe might shoot him; but, with the instinct of a settler, he had
caught up his rifle.  I stood beneath a carob-tree, which had been
planted near the porch, and flung fantastic tassels down, like the
ear-rings of a negress.  And not having sense enough to do good, I
was only able to be frightened.

Listening intently, I heard the sound of skirring steps on the
other side of and some way down the river; and the peculiar tread,
even thus far off, was plainly Suan Isco's.  And then in the
stillness a weary and heavy foot went toiling after it.  Before I
could follow, which I longed to do, to learn at once the worst of
it, I saw the figure of a man much nearer, and even within twenty
yards of me, gliding along without any sound.  Faint as the light
was, I felt sure that it was not one of our own men, and the barrel
of a long gun upon his shoulder made a black line among silver
leaves.  I longed to run forth and stop him, but my courage was not
prompt enough, and I shamefully shrank away behind the trunk of the
carob-tree.  Like a sleuth, compact, and calm-hearted villain, he
went along without any breath of sound, stealing his escape with
skill, till a white bower-tent made a background for him, and he
leaped up and fell flat without a groan.  The crack of a rifle came
later than his leap, and a curl of white smoke shone against a
black rock, and the Sawyer, in the distance, cried, "Well, now!" as
he generally did when satisfied.

So scared was I that I caught hold of a cluster of pods to steady
me; and then, without any more fear for myself, I ran to see
whether it was possible to help.  But the poor man lay beyond
earthly help; he was too dead to palpitate.  His life must have
left him in the air, and he could not even have felt his fall.

In violent terror, I burst into tears, and lifted his heavy head,
and strove to force his hot hands open, and did I know not what,
without thinking, laboring only to recall his life.

"Are you grieving for the skulk who has shot my Firm?" said a stern
voice quite unknown to me; and rising, I looked at the face of Mr.
Gundry, unlike the countenance of Uncle Sam.  I tried to speak to
him, but was too frightened.  The wrath of blood was in his face,
and all his kind desires were gone.

"Yes, like a girl, you are sorry for a man who has stained this
earth, till his only atonement is to stain it with his blood.
Captain Pedro, there you lie, shot, like a coward, through the
back.  I wish you were alive to taste my boots.  Murderer of men
and filthy ravisher of women, miscreant of God, how can I keep from
trampling on you?"

It never had been in my dream that a good man could so entirely
forget himself.  I wanted to think that it must be somebody else,
and not our Uncle Sam.  But he looked toward the west, as all men
do when their spirits are full of death, and the wan light showed
that his chin was triple.

Whether it may have been right or wrong, I made all haste to get
away.  The face of the dead man was quite a pleasant thing,
compared with the face of the old man living.  He may not have
meant it, and I hope he never did, but beyond all controversy he
looked barbarous for the moment.

As I slipped away, to know the worst, there I saw him standing
still, longing to kick the vile man's corpse, but quieted by the
great awe of death.  If the man had stirred, or breathed, or even
moaned, the living man would have lost all reverence in his fury.
But the power of the other world was greater than even revenge
could trample on.  He let it lie there, and he stooped his head,
and went away quite softly.

My little foolish heart was bitterly visited by a thing like this.
The Sawyer, though not of great human rank, was gifted with the
largest human nature that I had ever met with.  And though it was
impossible as yet to think, a hollow depression, as at the loss of
some great ideal, came over me.

Returning wretchedly to the house, I met Suan Isco and two men
bringing the body of poor Firm.  His head and both his arms hung
down, and they wanted somebody to lift them; and this I ran to do,
although they called out to me not to meddle.  The body was carried
in, and laid upon three chairs, with a pillow at the head; and then
a light was struck, and a candle brought by somebody or other.  And
Suan Isco sat upon the floor, and set up a miserable Indian dirge.

"Stow away that," cried Martin of the mill, for he was one of those
two men; "wait till the lad is dead, and then pipe up to your
liking.  I felt him try to kick while we carried him along.  He
come forth on a arrand of that sort, and he seem to 'a been
disappointed.  A very fine young chap I call him, for to try to do
it still, howsomever his mind might be wandering.  Missy, keep his
head up."

I did as I was told, and watched poor Firm as if my own life hung
upon any sign of life in him.  When I look back at these things, I
think that fright and grief and pity must have turned an excitable
girl almost into a real woman.  But I had no sense of such things
then.

"I tell you he ain't dead," cried Martin; "no more dead than I be.
He feels the young gal's hand below him, and I see him try to turn
up his eyes.  He has taken a very bad knock, no doubt, and trouble
about his breathing.  I seed a fellow scalped once, and shot
through the heart; but he came all round in about six months, and
protected his head with a document.  Firm, now, don't you be a
fool.  I have had worse things in my family."

Ephraim Gundry seemed to know that some one was upbraiding him.  At
any rate, his white lips trembled with a weak desire to breathe,
and a little shadow of life appeared to flicker in his open eyes.
And on my sleeve, beneath his back, some hot bright blood came
trickling.

"Keep him to that," said Martin, with some carpenter sort of
surgery; "less fear of the life when the blood begins to run.
Don't move him, missy; never mind your arm.  It will be the saving
of him."

I was not strong enough to hold him up, but Suan ran to help me;
and they told me afterward that I fell faint, and no doubt it must
have been so.  But when the rest were gone, and had taken poor Firm
to his straw mattress, the cold night air must have flowed into the
room, and that, perhaps, revived me.  I went to the bottom of the
stairs and listened, and then stole up to the landing, and heard
Suan Isco, who had taken the command, speaking cheerfully in her
worst English.  Then I hoped for the best, and, without any
knowledge, wandered forth into the open air.

Walking quite as in a dream this time (which I had vainly striven
to do when seeking for my nugget), I came to the bank of the
gleaming river, and saw the water just in time to stop from
stepping into it.  Careless about this and every other thing for
the moment, I threw myself on the sod, and listened to the mournful
melody of night.  Sundry unknown creatures, which by day keep timid
silence, were sending timid sounds into the darkness, holding quiet
converse with themselves, or it, or one another.  And the silvery
murmur of the wavelets soothed the twinkling sleep of leaves.

I also, being worn and weary, and having a frock which improved
with washing, and was spoiled already by nursing Firm, was well
content to throw myself into a niche of river-bank and let all
things flow past me.  But before any thing had found time to flow
far, or the lullaby of night had lulled me, there came to me a
sadder sound than plaintive Nature can produce without her Master's
aid, the saddest sound in all creation--a strong man's wail.

Child as I was--and, perhaps, all the more for that reason as
knowing so little of mankind--I might have been more frightened,
but I could not have been a bit more shocked, by the roaring of a
lion.  For I knew in a moment whose voice it was, and that made it
pierce me tenfold.  It was Uncle Sam, lamenting to himself, and to
his God alone, the loss of his last hope on earth.  He could not
dream that any other than his Maker (and his Maker's works, if ever
they have any sympathy) listened to the wild outpourings of an aged
but still very natural heart, which had always been proud of
controlling itself.  I could see his great frame through a willow-
tree, with the sere grass and withered reeds around, and the faint
gleam of fugitive water beyond.  He was kneeling toward his
shattered mill, having rolled his shirt sleeves back to pray, and
his white locks shone in the starlight; then, after trying several
times, he managed to pray a little.  First (perhaps partly from
habit), he said the prayer of Our Lord pretty firmly, and then he
went on to his own special case, with a doubting whether he should
mention it.  But as he went on he gathered courage, or received it
from above, and was able to say what he wanted.

"Almighty Father of the living and the dead, I have lived long, and
shall soon be dead, and my days have been full of trouble.  But I
never had such trouble as this here before, and I don't think I
ever shall get over it.  I have sinned every day of my life, and
not thought of Thee, but of victuals, and money, and stuff; and
nobody knows, but myself and Thou, all the little bad things inside
of me.  I cared a deal more to be respectable and get on with my
business than to be prepared for kingdom come.  And I have just
been proud about the shooting of a villain, who might 'a gone free
and repented.  There is nobody left to me in my old age.  Thou hast
taken all of them.  Wife, and son, and mill, and grandson, and my
brother who robbed me--the whole of it may have been for my good,
but I have got no good out of it.  Show me the way for a little
time, O Lord, to make the best of it; and teach me to bear it like
a man, and not break down at this time of life.  Thou knowest what
is right.  Please to do it.  Amen."



CHAPTER XIV

NOT FAR TO SEEK


In the present state of controversies most profoundly religious,
the Lord alone can decide (though thousands of men would hurry to
pronounce) for or against the orthodoxy of the ancient Sawyer's
prayer.  But if sound doctrine can be established by success (as it
always is), Uncle Sam's theology must have been unusually sound;
for it pleased a gracious Power to know what he wanted, and to
grant it.

Brave as Mr. Gundry was, and much-enduring and resigned, the latter
years of his life on earth must have dragged on very heavily, with
abstract resignation only, and none of his blood to care for him.
Being so obstinate a man, he might have never admitted this, but
proved against every one's voice, except his own, his special
blessedness.  But this must have been a trial to him, and happily
he was spared from it.

For although Firm had been very badly shot, and kept us for weeks
in anxiety about him, his strong young constitution and well-
nourished frame got over it.  A truly good and learned doctor came
from Sacramento, and we hung upon his words, and found that there
he left us hanging.  And this was the wisest thing perhaps that he
could do, because in America medical men are not absurdly expected,
as they are in England, to do any good, but are valued chiefly upon
their power of predicting what they can not help.  And this man of
science perceived that he might do harm to himself and his family
by predicting amiss, whereas he could do no good to his patient by
predicting rightly.  And so he foretold both good and evil, to meet
the intentions of Providence.

He had not been sent for in vain, however; and to give him his due,
he saved Ephraim's life, for he drew from the wound a large bullet,
which, if left, must have poisoned all his circulation, although it
was made of pure silver.  The Sawyer wished to keep this silver
bullet as a token, but the doctor said that it belonged to him
according to miners' law; and so it came to a moderate argument.
Each was a thoroughly stubborn man, according to the bent of all
good men, and reasoning increased their unreason.  But the doctor
won--as indeed he deserved, for the extraction had been delicate--
because, when reason had been exhausted, he just said this:

"Colonel Gundry, let us have no more words.  The true owner is your
grandson.  I will put it back where I took it from."

Upon this, the Sawyer being tickled, as men very often are in sad
moments, took the doctor by the hand, and gave him the bullet
heartily.  And the medical man had a loop made to it, and wore it
upon his watch chain.  And he told the story so often (saying that
another man perhaps might have got it out, but no other man could
have kept it), that among a great race who judge by facts it
doubled his practice immediately.

The leader of the robbers, known far and wide as "Captain Pedro,"
was buried where he fell; and the whole so raised Uncle Sam's
reputation that his house was never attacked again; and if any bad
characters were forced by circumstances to come near him, they
never asked for any thing stronger than ginger-beer or lemonade,
and departed very promptly.  For as soon as Ephraim Gundry could
give account of his disaster, it was clear that Don Pedro owed his
fate to a bottle of the Sawyer's whiskey.  Firm had only intended
to give him a lesson for misbehavior, being fired by his
grandfather's words about swinging me on the saddle.  This idea had
justly appeared to him to demand a protest; to deliver which he at
once set forth with a valuable cowhide whip.  Coming thus to the
Rovers' camp, and finding their captain sitting in the shade to
digest his dinner, Firm laid hold of him by the neck, and gave way
to feelings of severity.  Don Pedro regretted his misconduct, and
being lifted up for the moment above his ordinary view, perceived
that he might have done better, and shaped the pattern of his
tongue to it.  Firm, hearing this, had good hopes of him; yet
knowing how volatile repentance is, he strove to form a well-marked
track for it.  And when the captain ceased to receive cowhide, he
must have had it long enough to miss it.

Now this might have ended honorably and amicably for all concerned,
if the captain had known when he was well off.  Unluckily he had
purloined a bottle of Mr. Gundry's whiskey, and he drew the cork
now to rub his stripes, and the smell of it moved him to try it
inside.  And before very long his ideas of honor, which he had
sense enough to drop when sober, began to come into his eyes again,
and to stir him up to mischief.  Hence it was that he followed
Firm, who was riding home well satisfied, and appeased his honor by
shooting in cold blood, and justice by being shot anyhow.

It was beautiful, through all this trying time, to watch Uncle
Sam's proceedings: he appeared so delightfully calm and almost
careless whenever he was looked at.  And then he was ashamed of
himself perpetually, if any one went on with it.  Nobody tried to
observe him, of course, or remark upon any of his doings, and for
this he would become so grateful that he would long to tell all his
thoughts, and then stop.  This must have been a great worry to him,
seeing how open his manner was; and whenever he wanted to hide any
thing, he informed us of that intention.  So that we exhorted Firm
every day to come round and restore us to our usual state.  This
was the poor fellow's special desire; and often he was angry with
himself, and made himself worse again by declaring that he must be
a milksop to lie there so long.  Whereas, it was much more near the
truth that few other men, even in the Western States, would ever
have got over such a wound.  I am not learned enough to say exactly
where the damage was, but the doctor called it, I think, the
sternum, and pronounced that "a building-up process" was required,
and must take a long time, if it ever could be done.

It was done at last, thanks to Suan Isco, who scarcely ever left
him by day or night, and treated him skillfully with healing herbs.
But he, without meaning it, vexed her often by calling for me--a
mere ignorant child.  Suan was dreadfully jealous of this, and
perhaps I was proud of that sentiment of hers, and tried to justify
it, instead of laboring to remove it, as would have been the more
proper course.  And Firm most ungratefully said that my hand was
lighter than poor Suan's, and every thing I did was better done,
according to him, which was shameful on his part, and as untrue as
any thing could be.  However, we yielded to him in all things while
he was so delicate; and it often made us poor weak things cry to be
the masters of a tall strong man.

Firm Gundry received that shot in May, about ten days before the
twelvemonth was completed from my father's death.  The brightness
of summer and beauty of autumn went by without his feeling them,
and while his system was working hard to fortify itself by walling
up, as the learned man had called it.  There had been some
difficulties in this process, caused partly, perhaps, by our too
lavish supply of the raw material; and before Firm's gap in his
"sternum" was stopped, the mountains were coming down upon us, as
we always used to say when the snow-line stooped.  In some seasons
this is a sharp time of hurry, broken with storms, and capricious,
while men have to slur in the driving weather tasks that should
have been matured long since.  But in other years the long descent
into the depth of winter is taken not with a jump like that, but
gently and softly and windingly, with a great many glimpses back at
the summer, and a good deal of leaning on the arm of the sun.

And so it was this time.  The autumn and the winter for a fortnight
stood looking quietly at each other.  They had quite agreed to
share the hours, to suit the arrangements of the sun.  The nights
were starry and fresh and brisk, without any touch of tartness; and
the days were sunny and soft and gentle, without any sense of
languor.  It was a lovely scene--blue shadows gliding among golden
light.

The Sawyer came forth, and cried, "What a shame!  This makes me
feel quite young again.  And yet I have done not a stroke of work.
No excuse; make no excuse.  I can do that pretty well for myself.
Praise God for all His mercies.  I might do worse, perhaps, than
have a pipe."

Then Firm came out to surprise him, and to please us all with the
sight of himself.  He steadied his steps with one great white hand
upon his grandfather's Sunday staff, and his clear blue eyes were
trembling with a sense of gratitude and a fear of tears.  And I
stepped behind a red strawberry-tree, for my sense of respect for
him almost made me sob.

Then Jowler thought it high time to appear upon the scene, and
convince us that he was not a dead dog yet.  He had known
tribulation, as his master had, and had found it a difficult thing
to keep from the shadowy hunting ground of dogs who have lived a
conscientious life.  I had wondered at first what his reason could
have been for not coming forward, according to his custom, to meet
that troop of robbers.  But his reason, alas! was too cogent to
himself, though nobody else in that dreadful time could pay any
attention to him.  The Rovers, well knowing poor Jowler's repute,
and declining the fair mode of testing it, had sent in advance a
very crafty scout, a half-bred Indian, who knew as much about dogs
as they could ever hope to know about themselves.  This rogue
approached faithful Jowler--so we were told long afterward--not in
an upright way, but as if he had been a brother quadruped.  And he
took advantage of the dog's unfeigned surprise and interest to
accost him with a piece of kidney containing a powerful poison.
According to all sound analogy, this should have stopped the dear
fellow's earthly tracks; but his spirit was such that he simply
went away to nurse himself up in retirement.  Neither man nor dog
can tell what agonies he suffered; and doubtless his tortures of
mind about duty unperformed were the worst of all.  These things
are out of human knowledge in its present unsympathetic state.
Enough that poor Jowler came home at last, with his ribs all up and
his tail very low.

Like friends who have come together again, almost from the jaws of
death, we sat in the sunny noon, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
The trees above us looked proud and cheerful, laying aside the mere
frippery of leaves with a good grace and contented arms, and a
surety of having quite enough next spring.  Much of the fruity
wealth of autumn still was clustering in our sight, heavily
fetching the arched bough down to lessen the fall, when fall they
must.  And against the golden leaves of maple behind the
unpretending roof a special wreath of blue shone like a climbing
Ipomaea.  But coming to examine this, one found it to be nothing
more nor less than the smoke of the kitchen chimney, busy with a
quiet roasting job.

This shows how clear the air was; but a thousand times as much
could never tell how clear our spirits were.  Nobody made any
"demonstration," or cut any frolicsome capers, or even said any
thing exuberant.  The steadfast brooding breed of England, which
despises antics, was present in us all, and strengthened by a soil
whose native growth is peril, chance, and marvel.  And so we nodded
at one another, and I ran over and courtesied to Uncle Sam, and he
took me to him.

"You have been a dear good child," he said, as he rose, and looked
over my head at Firm.  "My own granddarter, if such there had been,
could not have done more to comfort me, nor half so much, for aught
I know.  There is no picking and choosing among the females, as God
gives them.  But he has given you for a blessing and saving to my
old age, my dearie."

"Oh, Uncle Sam, now the nugget!" I cried, desiring like a child to
escape deep feeling, and fearing any strong words from Firm.  "You
have promised me ever so long that I should be the first to show
Firm the nugget."

"And so you shall, my dear, and Firm shall see it before he is an
hour older, and Jowler shall come down to show us where it is."

Firm, who had little faith in the nugget, but took it for a dream
of mine, and had proved conclusively from his pillow that it could
not exist in earnest, now with a gentle, satirical smile declared
his anxiety to see it; and I led him along by his better arm,
faster, perhaps, than he ought to have walked.

In a very few minutes we were at the place, and I ran eagerly to
point it; but behold, where the nugget had been, there was nothing
except the white bed of the river!  The blue water flowed very
softly on its way, without a gleam of gold to corrupt it.

"Oh, nobody will ever believe me again!" I exclaimed, in the
saddest of sad dismay.  "I dreamed about it first, but it never can
have been a dream throughout.  You know that I told you about it,
Uncle Sam, even when you were very busy, and that shows that it
never could have been a dream."

"You told me about it, I remember now," Mr. Gundry answered, dryly;
"but it does not follow that there was such a thing.  My dear, you
may have imagined it; because it was the proper time for it to
come, when my good friends had no money to lend.  Your heart was so
good that it got into your brain, and you must not be vexed, my
dear child; it has done you good to dream of it."

"I said so all along," Firm observed.  "Miss Rema felt that it
ought to be, and so she believed that it must be, there.  She is
always so warm and trustful."

"Is that all you are good for?" I cried, with no gratitude for his
compliment.  "As sure as I stand here, I saw a great bowlder of
gold, and so did Jowler, and I gave you the piece that he brought
up.  Did you take them all in a dream, Uncle Sam?  Come, can you
get over that?"

I assure you that for the moment I knew not whether I stood upon my
feet or head, until I perceived an extraordinary grin on the
Sawyer's ample countenance; but Firm was not in the secret yet, for
he gazed at me with compassion, and Uncle Sam looked at us both as
if he were balancing our abilities.

"Send your dog in, missy," at last he said.  "He is more your dog
than mine, I believe, and he obeys you like a Christian.  Let him
go and find it if he can."

At a sign from me, the great dog dashed in, and scratched with all
four feet at once, and made the valley echo with the ring of mighty
barkings; and in less than two minutes there shone the nugget, as
yellow and as big as ever.

"Ha! ha!  I never saw a finer thing," shouted Uncle Sam, like a
school-boy.  "I were too many for you, missy dear; but the old dog
wollops the whole of us.  I just shot a barrow-load of gravel on
your nugget, to keep it all snug till Firm should come round; and
if the boy had never come round, there the gold might have waited
the will of the Almighty.  It is a big spot, anyhow."

It certainly was not a little spot, though they all seemed to make
so light of it--which vexed me, because I had found it, and was as
proud as if I had made it.  Not by any means that the Sawyer was
half as careless as he seemed to be; he put on much of this for my
sake, having very lofty principles, especially concerning the duty
of the young.  Young people were never to have small ideas, so far
as he could help it, particularly upon such matters as Mammon, or
the world, or fashion; and not so very seldom he was obliged to
catch himself up in his talking, when he chanced to be going on and
forgetting that I, who required a higher vein of thought for my
youth, was taking his words downright; and I think that all this
had a great deal to do with his treating all that gold in such an
exemplary manner; for if it had really mattered nothing, what made
him go in the dark and shoot a great barrow-load of gravel over it?



CHAPTER XV

BROUGHT TO BANK


The sanity of a man is mainly tested among his neighbors and
kindred by the amount of consideration which he has consistently
given to cash.  If money has been the chief object of his life, and
he for its sake has spared nobody, no sooner is he known to be
successful than admiration overpowers all the ill-will he has
caused.  He is shrewd, sagacious, long-headed, and great; he has
earned his success, and few men grudge, while many seek to get a
slice of it; but he, as a general rule, declines any premature
distribution, and for this custody of his wealth he is admired all
the more by those who have no hope of sharing it.

As soon as ever it was known that Uncle Sam had lodged at his
banker's a tremendous lump of gold, which rumor declared to be
worth at least a hundred thousand dollars, friends from every side
poured in, all in hot haste, to lend him their last farthing.  The
Sawyer was pleased with their kindness, but thought that his
second-best whiskey met the merits of the case.  And he was more
particular than usual with his words; for, according to an old
saying of the diggers, a big nugget always has children, and, being
too heavy to go very far, it is likely to keep all its little ones
at home.  Many people, therefore, were longing to seek for the
frogs of this great toad; for so in their slang the miners called
them, with a love of preternatural history.  But Mr. Gundry allowed
no search for the frogs, or even the tadpoles, of his patriarchal
nugget.  And much as he hated the idea of sowing the seeds of
avarice in any one, he showed himself most consistent now in
avoiding that imputation; for not only did he refuse to show the
bed of his great treasure, after he had secured it, but he fenced
the whole of it in, and tarred the fence, and put loopholes in it;
and then he established Jowler where he could neither be shot nor
poisoned, and kept a man with a double-barreled rifle in the ruin
of the mill, handy to shoot, but not easy to be shot; and this was
a resolute man, being Martin himself, who had now no business.  Of
course Martin grumbled; but the worse his temper was, the better
for his duty, as seems to be the case with a great many men; and if
any one had come to console him in his grumbling, never would he
have gone away again.

It would have been reckless of me to pretend to say what any body
ought to do; from the first to the last I left every thing to those
who knew so much better; at the same time I felt that it might have
done no harm if I had been more consulted, though I never dreamed
of saying so, because the great gold had been found by me, and
although I cared for it scarcely more than for the tag of a boot-
lace, nobody seemed to me able to enter into it quite as I did; and
as soon as Firm's danger and pain grew less, I began to get rather
impatient, but Uncle Sam was not to be hurried.

Before ever he hoisted that rock of gold, he had made up his mind
for me to be there, and he even put the business off, because I
would not come one night, for I had a superstitious fear on account
of its being my father's birthday.  Uncle Sam had forgotten the
date, and begged my pardon for proposing it; but he said that we
must not put it off later than the following night, because the
moonlight would be failing, and we durst not have any kind of lamp,
and before the next moon the hard weather might begin.  All this
was before the liberal offers of his friends, of which I have
spoken first, although they happened to come after it.

While the Sawyer had been keeping the treasure perdu, to abide the
issue of his grandson's illness, he had taken good care both to
watch it and to form some opinion of its shape and size; for,
knowing the pile which I had described, he could not help finding
it easily enough; and indeed the great fear was that others might
find it, and come in great force to rob him; but nothing of that
sort had happened, partly because he held his tongue rigidly, and
partly, perhaps, because of the simple precaution which he had
taken.

Now, however, it was needful to impart the secret to one man at
least; for Firm, though recovering, was still so weak that it might
have killed him to go into the water, or even to exert himself at
all; and strong as Uncle Sam was, he knew that even with hoisting-
tackle, he alone could never bring that piece of bullion to bank;
so, after much consideration, he resolved to tell Martin of the
mill, as being the most trusty man about the place, as well as the
most surly; but he did not tell him until every thing was ready,
and then he took him straightway to the place.

Here, in the moonlight, we stood waiting, Firm and myself and Suan
Isco, who had more dread than love of gold, and might be useful to
keep watch, or even to lend a hand, for she was as strong as an
ordinary man.  The night was sultry, and the fire-flies (though
dull in the radiance of the moon) darted, like soft little
shooting-stars, across the still face of shadow, and the flood of
the light of the moon was at its height, submerging every thing.

While we were whispering and keeping in the shade for fear of
attracting any wanderer's notice, we saw the broad figure of the
Sawyer rising from a hollow of the bank, and behind him came Martin
the foreman, and we soon saw that due preparation had been made,
for they took from under some drift-wood (which had prevented us
from observing it) a small movable crane, and fixed it on a
platform of planks which they set up in the river-bed.

"Palefaces eat gold," Suan Isco said, reflectively, and as if to
satisfy herself.  "Dem eat, drink, die gold; dem pull gold out of
one other's ears.  Welly hope Mellican mans get enough gold now."

"Don't be sarcastic, now, Suan," I answered; "as if it were
possible to have enough!"

"For my part," said Firm, who had been unusually silent all the
evening, "I wish it had never been found at all.  As sure as I
stand here, mischief will come of it.  It will break up our
household.  I hope it will turn out a lump of quartz, gilt on the
face, as those big nuggets do, ninety-nine out of a hundred.  I
have had no faith in it all along."

"Because I found it, Mr. Firm, I suppose," I answered, rather
pettishly, for I never had liked Firm's incessant bitterness about
my nugget.  "Perhaps if you had found it, Mr. Firm, you would have
had great faith in it."

"Can't say, can't say," was all Firm's reply; and he fell into the
silent vein again.

"Heave-ho! heave-ho! there, you sons of cooks!" cried the Sawyer,
who was splashing for his life in the water.  "I've tackled 'un
now.  Just tighten up the belt, to see if he biteth centre-like.
You can't lift 'un!  Lord bless 'ee, not you.  It 'll take all I
know to do that, I guess; and Firm ain't to lay no hand to it.
Don't you be in such a doggoned hurry.  Hold hard, can't you?"

For Suan and Martin were hauling for their lives, and even I caught
hold of a rope-end, but had no idea what to do with it, when the
Sawyer swung himself up to bank, and in half a minute all was
orderly.  He showed us exactly where to throw our weight, and he
used his own to such good effect that, after some creaking and
groaning, the long horn of the crane rose steadily, and a mass of
dripping sparkles shone in the moonlight over the water.

"Hurrah! what a whale!  How the tough ash bends!" cried Uncle Sam,
panting like a boy, and doing nearly all the work himself.
"Martin, lay your chest to it.  We'll grass him in two seconds.
Californy never saw a sight like this, I reckon."

There was plenty of room for us all to stand round the monster and
admire it.  In shape it was just like a fat toad, squatting with
his shoulders up and panting.  Even a rough resemblance to the head
and the haunches might be discovered, and a few spots of quartz
shone here and there on the glistening and bossy surface.  Some of
us began to feel and handle it with vast admiration; but Firm, with
his heavy boots, made a vicious kick at it, and a few bright
scales, like sparks, flew off.

"Why, what ails the lad?" cried the Sawyer, in some wrath; "what
harm hath the stone ever done to him?  To my mind, this here lump
is a proof of the whole creation of the world, and who hath lived
long enough to gainsay?  Here this lump hath lain, without changing
color, since creation's day; here it is, as big and heavy as when
the Lord laid hand to it.  What good to argue agin such facts?
Supposin' the world come out o' nothing, with nobody to fetch it,
or to say a word of orders, how ever could it 'a managed to get a
lump of gold like this in it?  They clever fellers is too clever.
Let 'em put all their heads together, and turn out a nugget, and
I'll believe them."

Uncle Sam's reasoning was too deep for any but himself to follow.
He was not long in perceiving this, though we were content to
admire his words without asking him to explain them; so he only
said, "Well, well," and began to try with both hands if he could
heft this lump.  He stirred it, and moved it, and raised it a
little, as the glisten of the light upon its roundings showed; but
lift it fairly from the ground he could not, however he might bow
his sturdy legs and bend his mighty back to it; and, strange to
say, he was pleased for once to acknowledge his own discomfiture.

"Five hundred and a half I used to lift to the height of my knee-
cap easily; I may 'a fallen off now a hundred-weight with years,
and strings in my back, and rheumatics; but this here little toad
is a clear hundredweight out and beyond my heftage.  If there's a
pound here, there's not an ounce under six hundred-weight, I'll lay
a thousand dollars.  Miss Rema, give a name to him.  All the
thundering nuggets has thundering names."

"Then this shall be called 'Uncle Sam,'" I answered, "because he is
the largest and the best of all."

"It shall stand, miss," cried Martin, who was in great spirits, and
seemed to have bettered himself forever.  "You could not have given
it a finer name, miss, if you had considered for a century.  Uncle
Sam is the name of our glorious race, from the kindness of our
natur'.  Every body's uncle we are now, in vartue of superior
knowledge, and freedom, and giving of general advice, and stickin'
to all the world, or all the good of it.  Darned if old Sam aren't
the front of creation!"

"Well, well," said the Sawyer, "let us call it 'Uncle Sam,' if the
dear young lady likes it; it would be bad luck to change the name;
but, for all that, we must look uncommon sharp, or some of our
glorious race will come and steal it afore we unbutton our eyes."

"Pooh!" cried Martin; but he knew very well that his master's words
were common-sense; and we left him on guard with a double-barreled
gun, and Jowler to keep watch with him.  And the next day he told
us that he had spent the night in such a frame of mind from
continual thought that when our pet cow came to drink at daybreak,
it was but the blowing of her breath that saved her from taking a
bullet between her soft tame eyes.

Now it could not in any kind of way hold good that such things
should continue; and the Sawyer, though loath to lose sight of the
nugget, perceived that he must not sacrifice all the morals of the
neighborhood to it, and he barely had time to dispatch it on its
road at the bottom of a load of lumber, with Martin to drive, and
Jowler to sit up, and Firm to ride behind, when a troop of mixed
robbers came riding across, with a four-wheel cart and two sturdy
mules--enough to drag off every thing.  They had clearly heard of
the golden toad, and desired to know more of him; but Uncle Sam,
with his usual blandness, met these men at the gate of his yard,
and upon the top rail, to ease his arm, he rested a rifle of heavy
metal, with seven revolving chambers.  The robbers found out that
they had lost their way, and Mr. Gundry answered that so they had,
and the sooner they found it in another direction, the better it
would be for them.  They thought that he had all his men inside,
and they were mighty civil, though we had only two negroes to help
us, and Suan Isco, with a great gun cocked.  But their curiosity
was such that they could not help asking about the gold; and,
sooner than shoot them, Uncle Sam replied that, upon his honor, the
nugget was gone.  And the fame of his word was so well known that
these fellows (none of whom could tell the truth, even at
confession) believed him on the spot, and begged his pardon for
trespassing on his premises.  They hoped that he would not say a
word to the Vigilance Committee, who hanged a poor fellow for
losing his road; and he told them that if they made off at once,
nobody should pursue them; and so they rode off very happily.



CHAPTER XVI

FIRM AND INFIRM


Strange as it may appear, our quiet little home was not yet
disturbed by that great discovery of gold.  The Sawyer went up to
the summit of esteem in public opinion; but to himself and to us he
was the same as ever.  He worked with his own hard hands and busy
head just as he used to do; for although the mill was still in
ruins, there was plenty of the finer work to do, which always
required hand-labor.  And at night he would sit at the end of the
table furthest from the fire-place, with his spectacles on, and his
red cheeks glowing, while he designed the future mill, which was to
be built in the spring, and transcend every mill ever heard,
thought, or dreamed of.

We all looked forward to a quiet winter, snug with warmth and cheer
in-doors, and bright outside with sparkling trees, brisk air, and
frosty appetite, when a foolish idea arose which spoiled the
comfort at least of two of us.  Ephraim Gundry found out, or
fancied, that he was entirely filled with love of a very young
maid, who never dreamed of such things, and hated even to hear of
them; and the maid, unluckily, was myself.

During the time of his ailment I had been with him continually,
being only too glad to assuage his pain, or turn his thoughts away
from it.  I partly suspected that he had incurred his bitter wound
for my sake; though I never imputed his zeal to more than a young
man's natural wrath at an outrage.  But now he left me no longer in
doubt, and made me most uncomfortable.  Perhaps I was hard upon
him, and afterward I often thought so, for he was very kind and
gentle; but I was an orphan child, and had no one to advise me in
such matters.  I believe that he should have considered this, and
allowed me to grow a little older; but perhaps he himself was too
young as yet and too bashful to know how to manage things.  It was
the very evening after his return from Sacramento, and the beauty
of the weather still abode in the soft warm depth around us.  In
every tint of rock and tree and playful glass of river a quiet
clearness seemed to lie, and a rich content of color.  The grandeur
of the world was such that one could only rest among it, seeking
neither voice nor thought.

Therefore I was more surprised than pleased to hear my name ring
loudly through the echoing hollows, and then to see the bushes
shaken, and an eager form leap out.  I did not answer a word, but
sat with a wreath of white bouvardia and small adiantum round my
head, which I had plaited anyhow.

"What a lovely dear you are!" cried Firm, and then he seemed
frightened at his own words.

"I had no idea that you would have finished your dinner so soon as
this, Mr. Firm."

"And you did not want me.  You are vexed to see me.  Tell the
truth, Miss Rema."

"I always tell the truth," I answered; "and I did not want to be
disturbed just now.  I have so many things to think of."

"And not me among them.  Oh no, of course you never think of me,
Erema."

"It is very unkind of you to say that," I answered, looking clearly
at him, as a child looks at a man.  "And it is not true, I assure
you, Firm.  Whenever I have thought of dear Uncle Sam, I very often
go on to think of you, because he is so fond of you."

"But not for my own sake, Erema; you never think of me for my own
sake."

"But yes, I do, I assure you, Mr. Firm; I do greatly.  There is
scarcely a day that I do not remember how hungry you are, and I
think of you."

"Tush!" replied Firm, with a lofty gaze.  "Even for a moment that
does not in any way express my meaning.  My mind is very much above
all eating when it dwells upon you, Erema.  I have always been fond
of you, Erema."

"You have always been good to me, Firm," I said, as I managed to
get a great branch between us.  "After your grandfather, and Suan
Isco, and Jowler, I think that I like you best of almost any body
left to me.  And you know that I never forget your slippers."

"Erema, you drive me almost wild by never understanding me.  Now
will you just listen to a little common-sense?  You know that I am
not romantic."

"Yes, Firm; yes, I know that you never did any thing wrong in any
way."

"You would like me better if I did.  What an extraordinary thing it
is!  Oh, Erema, I beg your pardon."

He had seen in a moment, as men seem to do, when they study the
much quicker face of a girl, that his words had keenly wounded me--
that I had applied them to my father, of whom I was always
thinking, though I scarcely ever spoke of him.  But I knew that
Firm had meant no harm, and I gave him my hand, though I could not
speak.

"My darling," he said, "you are very dear to me--dearer than all
the world besides.  I will not worry you any more.  Only say that
you do not hate me."

"How could I?  How could any body?  Now let us go in and attend to
Uncle Sam.  He thinks of every body before himself."

"And I think of every body after myself.  Is that what you mean,
Erema?"

"To be sure! if you like.  You may put any meaning on my words that
you think proper.  I am accustomed to things of that sort, and I
pay no attention whatever, when I am perfectly certain that I am
right."

"I see," replied Firm, applying one finger to the side of his nose
in deep contemplation, which, of all his manners, annoyed me most.
"I see how it is; Miss Rema is always perfectly certain that she is
right, and the whole of the rest of the world quite wrong.  Well,
after all, there is nothing like holding a first-rate opinion of
one's self."

"You are not what I thought of you," I cried, being vexed beyond
bearance by such words, and feeling their gross injustice.  "If you
wish to say any thing more, please to leave it until you recover
your temper.  I am not quite accustomed to rudeness."

With these words, I drew away and walked off, partly in earnest and
partly in joke, not wishing to hear another word; and when I looked
back, being well out of sight, there he sat still, with his head on
his hands, and my heart had a little ache for him.

However, I determined to say no more, and to be extremely careful.
I could not in justice blame Ephraim Gundry for looking at me very
often.  But I took good care not to look at him again unless he
said something that made me laugh, and then I could scarcely help
it.  He was sharp enough very soon to find out this; and then he
did a thing which was most unfair, as I found out long afterward.
He bought an American jest-book, full of ideas wholly new to me,
and these he committed to heart, and brought them out as his own
productions.  If I had only known it, I must have been exceedingly
sorry for him.  But Uncle Sam used to laugh and rub his hands,
perhaps for old acquaintance' sake; and when Uncle Sam laughed,
there was nobody near who could help laughing with him.  And so I
began to think Firm the most witty and pleasant of men, though I
tried to look away.

But perhaps the most careful and delicate of things was to see how
Uncle Sam went on.  I could not understand him at all just then,
and thought him quite changed from my old Uncle Sam; but afterward,
when I came to know, his behavior was as clear and shallow as the
water of his own river.  He had very strange ideas about what he
generally called "the female kind."  According to his ideas (and
perhaps they were not so unusual among mankind, especially
settlers), all "females" were of a good but weak and consistently
inconsistent sort.  The surest way to make them do whatever their
betters wanted, was to make them think that it was not wanted, but
was hedged with obstacles beyond their power to overcome, and so to
provoke and tantalize them to set their hearts upon doing it.  In
accordance with this idea (than which there can be none more
mistaken), he took the greatest pains to keep me from having a word
to say to Firm; and even went so far as to hint, with winks and
nods of pleasantry, that his grandson's heart was set upon the
pretty Miss Sylvester, the daughter of a man who owned a herd of
pigs, much too near our saw-mills, and herself a young woman of
outrageous dress, and in a larger light contemptible.  But when
Mr. Gundry, without any words, conveyed this piece of news to
me, I immediately felt quite a liking for gaudy but harmless
Pennsylvania--for so her parents had named her when she was too
young to help it; and I heartily hoped that she might suit Firm,
which she seemed all the more likely to do as his conduct could not
be called noble.  Upon that point, however, I said not a word,
leaving him purely to judge for himself, and feeling it a great
relief that now he could not say any thing more to me.  I was glad
that his taste was so easily pleased, and I told Suan Isco how glad
I was.

This I had better have left unsaid, for it led to a great
explosion, and drove me away from the place altogether before the
new mill was finished, and before I should otherwise have gone from
friends who were so good to me; not that I could have staid there
much longer, even if this had never come to pass; for week by week
and month by month I was growing more uneasy: uneasy not at my
obligations or dependence upon mere friends (for they managed that
so kindly that I seemed to confer the favor), but from my own sense
of lagging far behind my duty.

For now the bright air, and the wholesome food, and the pleasure of
goodness around me, were making me grow, without knowledge or
notice, into a tall and not altogether to be overlooked young
woman.  I was exceedingly shy about this, and blushed if any one
spoke of it; but yet in my heart I felt it was so; and how could I
help it?  And when people said, as rough people will, and even
Uncle Sam sometimes, "Handsome is as handsome does," or "Beauty is
only skin-deep," and so on, I made it my duty not to be put out,
but to bear it in mind and be thankful.  And though I had no idea
of any such influence at the moment, I hope that the grandeur of
nature around and the lofty style of every thing may have saved me
from dwelling too much on myself, as Pennsylvania Sylvester did.

Now the more I felt my grown-up age and health and buoyant vigor,
the surer I knew that the time was come for me to do some good with
them; not to benefit the world in general, in a large and scattery
way (as many young people set out to do, and never get any
further), but to right the wrong of my own house, and bring home
justice to my own heart.  This may be thought a partial and paltry
object to set out with; and it is not for me to say otherwise.  At
the time, it occurred to me in no other light except as my due
business, and I never took any large view at all.  But even now I
do believe (though not yet in pickle of wisdom) that if every body,
in its own little space and among its own little movements, will
only do and take nothing without pure taste of the salt of justice,
no reeking atrocity of national crimes could ever taint the heaven.

Such questions, however, become me not.  I have only to deal with
very little things, sometimes too slim to handle well, and too hazy
to be woven; and if they seem below my sense and dignity to treat
of, I can only say that they seemed very big at the time when I had
to encounter them.

For instance, what could be more important, in a little world of
life, than for Uncle Sam to be put out, and dare even to think ill
of me?  Yet this he did; and it shows how shallow are all those
theories of the other sex which men are so pleased to indulge in.
Scarcely any thing could be more ridiculous from first to last,
when calmly and truly considered, than the firm belief which no
power of reason could for the time root out of him.

Uncle Sam, the dearest of all mankind to me, and the very kindest,
was positively low-enough to believe, in his sad opinion of the
female race, that my young head was turned because of the wealth to
which I had no claim, except through his own justice.  He had
insisted at first that the whole of that great nugget belonged to
me by right of sole discovery.  I asked him whether, if any
stranger had found it, it would have been considered his, and
whether he would have allowed a "greaser," upon finding, to make
off with it.  At the thought of this, Mr. Gundry gave a little
grunt, and could not go so far as to maintain that view of it.  But
he said that my reasoning did not fit; that I was not a greaser,
but a settled inhabitant of the place, and entitled to all a
settler's rights; that the bed of the river would have been his
grave but for the risk of my life, and therefore whatever I found
in the bed of the river belonged to me, and me only.

In argument he was so much stronger than I could ever attempt to be
that I gave it up, and could only say that if he argued forever it
could never make any difference.  He did not argue forever, but
only grew obstinate and unpleasant, so that I yielded at last to
own the half share of the bullion.

Very well.  Every body would have thought, who has not studied the
nature of men or been dragged through it heavily, that now there
could be no more trouble between two people entirely trusting each
other, and only anxious that the other should have the best of it.
Yet, instead of that being the case, the mischief, the myriad
mischief, of money set in, until I heartily wished sometimes that
my miserable self was down in the hole which the pelf had left
behind it.

For what did Uncle Sam take into his head (which was full of
generosity and large ideas, so loosely packed that little ones grew
between them, especially about womankind)--what else did he really
seem to think, with the downright stubbornness of all his thoughts,
but that I, his poor debtor and pensioner and penniless dependent,
was so set up and elated by this sudden access of fortune that
henceforth none of the sawing race was high enough for me to think
of?  It took me a long time to believe that so fair and just a man
ever could set such interpretation upon me.  And when it became too
plain that he did so, truly I know not whether grief or anger was
uppermost in my troubled heart.



CHAPTER XVII

HARD AND SOFT


Before very long it was manifest enough that Mr. Gundry looked down
upon Miss Sylvester with a large contempt.  But while this raised
my opinion of his judgment, it almost deprived me of a great
relief--the relief of supposing that he wished his grandson to
marry this Pennsylvania.  For although her father, with his pigs
and cattle, and a low sort of hostelry which he kept, could settle
"a good pile of dollars" upon her, and had kept her at the
"learnedest ladies' college" even in San Francisco till he himself
trembled at her erudition, still it was scarcely to be believed
that a man of the Sawyer's strong common-sense and disregard of
finery would ever accept for his grandchild a girl made of
affectation, vulgarity, and conceit.  And one day, quite in the
early spring, he was so much vexed with the fine lady's airs that
he left no doubt about his meaning.

Miss Sylvester was very proud of the figure she made on horseback;
and having been brought up, perhaps as a child, to ride after pigs
and so on, she must have had fine opportunities of acquiring a
graceful style of horsemanship.  And now she dashed through thick
and thin in a most commanding manner, caring no more for a snow-
drift than ladies do for a scraping of the road.  No one with the
least observation could doubt that this young woman was extremely
anxious to attract Firm Gundry's notice; and therefore, on the day
above spoken of, once more she rode over, with her poor father in
waiting upon her as usual.

Now I know very well how many faults I have, and to deny them has
never been my practice; but this is the honest and earnest truth,
that no smallness of mind, or narrowness of feeling, or want of
large or fine sentiments made me bolt my door when that girl was in
the house.  I simply refused, after seeing her once, to have any
thing more to say to her; by no means because of my birth and
breeding (which are things that can be most easily waived when the
difference is acknowledged), nor yet on account of my being brought
up in the company of ladies, nor even by reason of any dislike
which her bold brown eyes put into me.  My cause was sufficient and
just and wise.  I felt myself here as a very young girl, in safe
and pure and honest hands, yet thrown on my own discretion, without
any feminine guidance whatever.  And I had learned enough from the
wise French sisters to know at a glance that Miss Sylvester was not
a young woman who would do me good.

Even Uncle Sam, who was full of thought and delicate care about me,
so far as a man can understand, and so far as his simple shrewdness
went, in spite of all his hospitable ways and open universal
welcome, though he said not a word (as on such a point he was quite
right in doing)--even he, as I knew by his manner, was quite
content with my decision.  But Firm, being young and in many ways
stupid, made a little grievance of it.  And, of course, Miss
Sylvester made a great one.

"Oh, I do declare, I am going away," through my open window I heard
her exclaim in her sweetly affected tone, at the end of that long
visit, "without even having the honor of saying a kind word to your
young visitor.  Do not wait for me, papa; I must pay my devoirs.
Such a distinguished and travelled person can hardly be afflicted
with mauvaise honte.  Why does she not rush to embrace me?  All the
French people do; and she is so French!  Let me see her, for the
sake of my accent."

"We don't want no French here, ma'am," replied Uncle Sam, as
Sylvester rode off, "and the young lady wants no Doctor Hunt.  Her
health is as good as your own, and you never catch no French
actions from her.  If she wanted to see you, she would 'a come
down."

"Oh, now, this is too barbarous!  Colonel Gundry, you are the most
tyrannous man; in your own dominions an autocrat.  Every body says
so, but I never would believe it.  Oh, don't let me go away with
that impression.  And you do look so good-natured!"

"And so I mean to look, Miss Penny, until you are out of sight."

The voice of the Sawyer was more dry than that of his oldest and
rustiest saw.  The fashionable and highly finished girl had no idea
what to make of him; but gave her young horse a sharp cut, to show
her figure as she reined him; and then galloping off, she kissed
her tan gauntlet with crimson net-work down it, and left Uncle Sam
to revolve his rudeness, with the dash of the wet road scattered in
the air.

"I wouldn't 'a spoke to her so course," he said to Firm, who now
returned from opening the gate and delivering his farewell, "if she
wasn't herself so extra particular, gild me, and sky-blue my
mouldings fine.  How my mother would 'a stared at the sight of such
a gal!  Keep free of her, my lad, keep free of her.  But no harm to
put her on, to keep our missy alive and awake, my boy."

Immediately I withdrew from ear-shot, more deeply mortified than I
can tell, and perhaps doing Firm an injustice by not waiting for
his answer.  I knew not then how lightly men will speak of such
delicate subjects; and it set me more against all thoughts of Firm
than a month's reflection could have done.  When I came to know
more of the world, I saw that I had been very foolish.  At the
time, however, I was firmly set in a strong resolve to do that
which alone seemed right, or even possible--to quit with all speed
a place which could no longer be suited for me.

For several days I feared to say a single word about it, while
equally I condemned myself for having so little courage.  But it
was not as if there were any body to help me, or tell me what to
do; sometimes I was bold with a surety of right, and then again I
shook with the fear of being wrong.  Because, through the whole of
it, I felt how wonderfully well I had been treated, and what a
great debt I owed of kindness; and it seemed to be only a nasty
little pride which made me so particular.  And being so unable to
settle for myself, I waited for something to settle it.

Something came, in a way which I had not by any means expected.  I
had told Suan Isco how glad I was that Firm had fixed his liking
steadily upon Miss Sylvester.  If any woman on earth could be
trusted not to say a thing again, that one was this good Indian.
Not only because of her provident habits, but also in right of the
difficulty which encompassed her in our language.  But she managed
to get over both of these, and to let Mr. Ephraim know, as cleverly
as if she had lived in drawing-rooms, whatever I had said about
him.  She did it for the best; but it put him in a rage, which he
came at once to have out with me.

"And so, Miss Erema," he said, throwing down his hat upon the table
of the little parlor, where I sat with an old book of Norman
ballads, "I have your best wishes, then, have I, for a happy
marriage with Miss Sylvester?"

I was greatly surprised at the tone of his voice, while the flush
on his cheeks and the flash of his eyes, and even his quick heavy
tread, showed plainly that his mind was a little out of balance.
He deserved it, however, and I could not grieve.

"You have my best wishes," I replied, demurely, "for any state of
life to which you may be called.  You could scarcely expect any
less of me than that."

"How kind you are!  But do you really wish that I should marry old
Sylvester's girl?"

Firm, as he asked this question, looked so bitterly reproachful (as
if he were saying, "Do you wish to see me hanged?"), while his eyes
took a form which reminded me so of the Sawyer in a furious puzzle,
that it was impossible for me to answer as lightly as I meant to
do.

"No, I can not say, Firm, that I wish it at all; unless your heart
is set on it--"

"Don't you know, then, where my heart is set?" he asked me, in a
deep voice, coming nearer, and taking the ballad-book from my
hands.  "Why will you feign not to know, Erema, who is the only one
I can ever think of twice?  Above me, I know, in every possible
way--birth and education and mind and appearance, and now far above
me in money as well.  But what are all these things?  Try to think
if only you could like me.  Liking gets over every thing, and
without it nothing is any thing.  Why do I like you so, Erema?  Is
it because of your birth, and teaching, and manners, and sweet
looks, and all that, or even because of your troubles?"

"How can I tell, Firm--how can I tell?  Perhaps it is just because
of myself.  And why do you do it at all, Firm?"

"Ah, why do I do it?  How I wish I knew!  Perhaps then I might cure
it.  To begin with, what is there, after all, so very wonderful
about you?"

"Oh, nothing, I should hope.  Most surely nothing.  It would grieve
me to be at all wonderful.  That I leave for American ladies."

"Now you don't understand me.  I mean, of course, that you are
wonderfully good and kind and clever; and your eyes, I am sure, and
your lips and smile, and all your other features--there is nothing
about them that can be called any thing else but wonderful."

"Now, Firm, how exceedingly foolish you are!  I did hope that you
knew better."

"Erema, I never shall know better.  I never can swerve or change,
if I live to be a hundred and fifty.  You think me presumptuous, no
doubt, from what you are brought up to.  And you are so young that
to seek to bind you, even if you loved me, would be an unmanly
thing.  But now you are old enough, and you know your own mind
surely well enough, just to say whether you feel as if you could
ever love me as I love you."

He turned away, as if he felt that he had no right to press me so,
and blamed himself for selfishness; and I liked him better for
doing that than for any thing he had done before.  Yet I knew that
I ought to speak clearly, and though my voice was full of tears, I
tried.

"Dear Firm," I said, as I took his hand and strove to look at him
steadily, "I like and admire you very much; and by-and-by--by-and-
by, I might, that is, if you did not hurry me.  Of all the
obstacles you have mentioned, none is worth considering.  I am
nothing but a poor castaway, owing my life to Uncle Sam and you.
But one thing there is which could never be got over, even if I
felt as you feel toward me.  Never can I think of little matters,
or of turning my thoughts to--to any such things as you speak of,
as long as a vile reproach and wicked imputation lies on me.  And
before even that, I have to think of my father, who gave his life
for me.  Firm, I have been here too long delaying, and wasting my
time in trifles.  I ought to have been in Europe long ago.  If I am
old enough for what you talk of, I am old enough to do my duty.  If
I am old enough for love, as it is called, I am old enough for
hate.  I have more to do with hate than love, I think."

"Erema," cried Firm, "what a puzzle you are!  I never even dreamed
that you could be so fierce.  You are enough to frighten Uncle Sam
himself."

"If I frighten you, Firm, that is quite enough.  You see now how
vain it is to say another word."

"I do not see any thing of the sort.  Come back, and look at me
quite calmly."

Being frightened at the way in which I had spoken, and having
passed the prime of it, I obeyed him in a moment, and came up
gently and let him look at me to his liking.  For little as I
thought of such things till now, I seemed already to know more
about them, or at least to wonder--which is the stir of the curtain
of knowledge.  I did not say any thing, but labored to think
nothing and to look up with unconscious eyes.  But Firm put me out
altogether by his warmth, and made me flutter like a stupid little
bird.

"My darling," he said, smoothing back my hair with a kindness such
as I could not resent, and quieting me with his clear blue eyes,
"you are not fit for the stormy life to which your high spirit is
devoting you.  You have not the hardness and bitterness of mind,
the cold self-possession and contempt of others, the power of
dissembling and the iron will--in a word, the fundamental
nastiness, without which you never could get through such a job.
Why, you can not be contemptuous even to me!"

"I should hope not.  I should earn your contempt, if I could."

"There, you are ready to cry at the thought.  Erema, do not mistake
yourself.  Remember that your father would never have wished it--
would have given his life ten thousand times over to prevent it.
Why did he bring you to this remote, inaccessible part of the world
except to save you from further thought of evil?  He knew that we
listen to no rumors here, no social scandals, or malignant lies;
but we value people as we find them.  He meant this to be a haven
for you; and so it shall be if you will only rest; and you shall be
the queen of it.  Instead of redressing his memory now, you would
only distress his spirit.  What does he care for the world's gossip
now?  But he does care for your happiness.  I am not old enough to
tell you things as I should like to tell them.  I wish I could--how
I wish I could!  It would make all the difference to me."

"It would make no difference, Firm, to me; because I should know it
was selfishness.  Not selfishness of yours, I mean, for you never
could be selfish; but the vilest selfishness of mine, the same as
starved my father.  You can not see things as I see them, or else
you would not talk so.  When you know that a thing is right, you do
it.  Can you tell me otherwise?  If you did, I should despise you."

"If you put it so, I can say no more.  You will leave us forever,
Erema?"

"No, not forever.  If the good God wills it, I will come back when
my work is done.  Forgive me, dear Firm, and forget me."

"There is nothing to forgive, Erema; but a great deal I never can
hope to forgot."



CHAPTER XVIII

OUT OF THE GOLDEN GATE


Little things, or what we call little, always will come in among
great ones, or at least among those which we call great.  Before I
passed the Golden Gate in the clipper ship Bridal Veil (so called
from one of the Yosemite cascades) I found out what I had long
wished to know--why Firm had a crooked nose.  At least, it could
hardly be called crooked if any body looked aright at it; but still
it departed from the bold straight line which nature must have
meant for it, every thing else about him being as straight as could
be required.  This subject had troubled me more than once, though
of course it had nothing whatever to do with the point of view
whence I regarded him.

Suan Isco could not tell me, neither could Martin of the mill; I
certainly could not ask Firm himself, as the Sawyer told me to do
when once I put the question, in despair, to him.  But now, as we
stood on the wharf exchanging farewells, perhaps forever, and tears
of anguish were in my eyes, and my heart was both full and empty,
ample and unexpected light was thrown on the curvature of Firm's
nose.

For a beautiful girl, of about my own age, and very nicely dressed,
came up and spoke to the Sawyer (who stood at my side), and then,
with a blush, took his grandson's hand.  Firm took off his hat to
her very politely, but allowed her to see perhaps by his manner
that he was particularly engaged just now; and the young lady, with
a quick glance at me, walked off to rejoin her party.  But a
garrulous old negro servant, who seemed to be in attendance upon
her, ran up and caught Firm by his coat, and peered up curiously at
his face.

"How young massa's poor nose dis long time?  How him feel, spose
now again?" he inquired, with a deferential grin.  "Young massa
ebber able take a pinch of good snuff?  He! he! missy berry heavy
den?  Missy no learn to dance de nose polka den?"

"What on earth does he mean?" I could not help asking, in spite of
our sorrowful farewell, as the negro went on with sundry other
jokes and cackles at his own facetiousness.  And then Uncle Sam, to
divert my thoughts, while I waited for signal to say good-by, told
me how Firm got a slight twist to his nose.

Ephraim Gundry had been well taught, in all the common things a man
should learn, at a good quiet school at Frisco, which distinguished
itself from all other schools by not calling itself a college.  And
when he was leaving to begin home life, with as much put into him
as he could manage--for his nature was not bookish--when he was
just seventeen years old, and tall and straight and upright, but
not set into great bodily strength, which could not yet be
expected, a terrible fire broke out in a great block of houses
newly occupied, over against the school-house front.  Without
waiting for master's leave or matron's, the boys, in the
Californian style, jumped over the fencing and went to help.  And
they found a great crowd collected, and flames flaring out of the
top of the house.  At the top of the house, according to a stupid
and therefore general practice, was the nursery, made of more
nurses than children, as often happens with rich people.  The
nurses had run away for their lives, taking two of the children
with them; but the third, a fine little girl of ten, had been left
behind, and now ran to the window with red hot flames behind her.
The window was open, and barbs of fire, like serpents' tongues,
played over it.

"Jump, child, jump! for God's sake, jump!" cried half a hundred
people, while the poor scared creature quivered on the ledge, and
shrank from the frightful depth below.  At last, stung by a
scorching volley, she gathered her night-gown tight, and leaped,
trusting to the many faces and many arms raised toward her.  But
though many gallant men were there, only one stood fast just where
she fell, and that one was the youth, Firm Gundry.  Upon him she
fell, like a stone from heaven, and though he held up his arms in
the smoky glare, she came down badly: badly, at least, for him,
but, as her father said, providentially; for one of her soles, or
heels, alighted on the bridge of Ephraim's young nose.  He caught
her on his chest, and forgetful of himself, he bore her to her
friends triumphantly, unharmed, and almost smiling.  But the
symmetry of an important part of his face was spoiled forever.

When I heard of this noble affair, and thought of my own
pusillanimous rendering--for verily I had been low enough, from
rumors of Firm's pugnacity, to attribute these little defects of
line to some fisticuffs with some miner--I looked at Firm's nose
through the tears in my eyes, and had a great mind not to go away
at all.  For what is the noblest of all things in man--as I
bitterly learned thereafter, and already had some guesses?  Not the
power of moving multitudes with eloquence or by orders; not the
elevation of one tribe through the lowering of others, nor even the
imaginary lift of all by sentiments as yet above them: there may be
glory in all of these, but the greatness is not with them.  It
remains with those who behave like Firm, and get their noses
broken.

However, I did not know those things at that time of life, though I
thought it right for every man to be brave and good; and I could
not help asking who the young lady was, as if that were part of the
heroism.  The Sawyer, who never was unready for a joke, of however
ancient quality, gave a great wink at Firm (which I failed to
understand), and asked him how much the young lady was worth.  He
expected that Firm would say, "Five hundred thousand dollars"--
which was about her value, I believe--and Uncle Sam wanted me to
hear it; not that he cared a single cent himself, but to let me
know what Firm could do.

Firm, however, was not to be led into any trap of that sort.  He
knew me better than the old man did, and that nothing would stir me
to jealousy, and he quite disappointed the Sawyer.

"I have never asked what she is worth," he said, with a glance of
contempt at money; "but she scarcely seems worth looking at,
compared--compared with certain others."

In the distance I saw the young lady again, attempting no
attraction, but walking along quite harmlessly, with the talkative
negro after her.  It would have been below me to pursue the
subject, and I waited for others to re-open it; but I heard no more
about her until I had been for more than a week at sea, and was
able again to feel interest.  Then I heard that her name was Annie
Banks, of the firm of Heniker, Banks, and Co., who owned the ship I
sailed in.

But now it was nothing to me who she was, or how beautiful, or how
wealthy, when I clung for the last time to Uncle Sam, and implored
him not to forget me.  Over and over again he promised to be full
of thoughts of me, even when the new mill was started, which would
be a most trying time.  He bowed his tall white head into my
sheveled hair, and blessed and kissed me, although I never deserved
it, and a number of people were looking on.  Then I laid my hand in
Firm's, and he did not lift it to his lips, or sigh, but pressed it
long and softly, and looked into my eyes without a word.  And I
knew that there would be none to love like them, wherever I might
go.

But the last of all to say "good-by" was my beloved Jowler.  He
jumped into the boat after me (for we were obliged to have a boat,
the ship having laden further down), and he put his fore-paws on my
shoulders, and whined and drooped his under-jaw.  And when he
looked at me as he used, to know whether I was in fun or earnest,
with more expression in his bright brown eyes than any human being
has, I fell back under his weight and sobbed, and could not look at
any one.

We had beautiful weather, and the view was glorious, as we passed
the Golden Gate, the entrance to what will one day be the capital
of the world, perhaps.  For, as our captain said, all power and
human energy and strength are always going westward, and when they
come here they must stop, or else they would be going eastward
again, which they never yet have done.  His argument may have been
right or wrong--and, indeed, it must have been one or the other--
but who could think of such things now, with a grander thing than
human power--human love fading away behind?  I could not even bear
to see the glorious mountains sinking, but ran below and cried for
hours, until all was dark and calm.

The reason for my sailing by this particular ship, and, indeed,
rather suddenly, was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr.
Gundry, who had spent some years in California, was now returning
to England by the Bridal Veil.  This was Major Hockin, an officer
of the British army, now on half-pay, and getting on in years.  His
wife was going home with him; for their children were married and
settled in England, all but one, now in San Francisco.  And that
one being well placed in the firm of Heniker, Banks, and Co., had
obtained for his father and mother passage upon favorable terms,
which was, as we say, "an object to them."

For the Major, though admirably connected (as his kinship to
Colonel Gundry showed), and having a baronet not far off (if the
twists of the world were set aside), also having served his
country, and received a furrow on the top of his head, which made
him brush his hair up, nevertheless, or all the more for that, was
as poor as a British officer must be without official sesame.  How
he managed to feed and teach a large and not clever family, and
train them all to fight their way in a battle worse than any of his
own, and make gentlemen and ladies of them, whatever they did or
wherever they went, he only knew, and his faithful wife, and the
Lord who helps brave poverty.  Of such things he never spoke,
unless his temper was aroused by luxury and self-indulgence and
laziness.

But now he was a little better off, through having his children off
his hands, and by means of a little property left him by a distant
relative.  He was on his way home to see to this; and a better man
never returned to England, after always standing up for her.

Being a child in the ways of the world, and accustomed to large
people, I could not make out Major Hockin at first, and thought him
no more than a little man with many peculiarities.  For he was not
so tall as myself, until he put his high-heeled boots on, and he
made such a stir about trifles at which Uncle Sam would have only
grunted, that I took him to be nothing more than a fidgety old
campaigner.  He wore a black-rimmed double eyeglass with blue side-
lights at his temples, and his hat, from the shape of his forehead,
hung back; he had narrow white wiry whiskers, and a Roman nose, and
most prominent chin, and keen gray eyes with gingery brows, which
contracted, like sharp little gables over them, whenever any thing
displeased him.  Rosy cheeks, tight-drawn, close-shaven, and
gleaming with friction of yellow soap, added vigor to the general
expression of his face, which was firm and quick and straightforward.
The weather being warm, and the tropics close at hand, Major Hockin
was dressed in a fine suit of Nankin, spruce and trim, and
beautifully made, setting off his spare and active figure, which,
though he was sixty-two years of age, seemed always to be ready
for a game of leap-frog.

We were three days out of the Golden Gate, and the hills of the
coast ridge were faint and small, and the spires of the lower
Nevada could only be caught when the hot haze lifted; and every
body lay about in our ship where it seemed to afford the least
smell and heat, and nobody for a moment dreamed--for we really all
were dreaming--of any body with energy enough to be disturbed about
any thing, when Major Hockin burst in upon us all (who were trying
not to be red-hot in the feeble shade of poop awnings), leading by
the hand an ancient woman, scarcely dressed with decency, and
howling in a tone very sad to hear.

"This lady has been robbed!" cried the Major; "robbed, not fifteen
feet below us.  Robbed, ladies and gentlemen, of the most cherished
treasures of her life, the portrait of her only son, the savings of
a life of honest toil, her poor dead husband's tobacco-box, and a
fine cut of Colorado cheese."

"Ten pounds and a quarter, gospel true!" cried the poor woman,
wringing her hands, and searching for any kind face among us.

"Go to the captain," muttered one sleepy gentleman.  "Go to the
devil," said another sleepy man: "what have we to do with it?"

"I will neither go to the captain," replied the Major, very
distinctly, "nor yet to the devil, as a fellow who is not a man has
dared to suggest to me--"

"All tied in my own pocket-handkerchief!" the poor old woman began
to scream; "the one with the three-cornered spots upon 'un.  Only
two have I ever owned in all my life, and this was the very best of
'em.  Oh dear! oh dear! that ever I should come to this exposing of
my things!"

"Madam, you shall have justice done, as sure as my name is Hockin.
Gentlemen and ladies, if you are not all asleep, how would you like
to be treated so?  Because the weather is a trifle warm, there you
lie like a parcel of Mexicans.  If any body picked your pockets,
would you have life enough to roll over?"

"I don't think I should," said a fat young Briton, with a very
good-natured face; "but for a poor woman I can stand upright.
Major Hockin, here is a guinea for her.  Perhaps more of us will
give a trifle."

"Well done!" cried the Major; "but not so much as that.  Let us
first ascertain all the rights of the case.  Perhaps half a crown
apiece would reach it."

Half a crown apiece would have gone beyond it, as we discovered
afterward, for the old lady's handkerchief was in her box, lost
under some more of her property; and the tide of sleepy charity
taking this direction under such vehement impulse, several other
steerage passengers lost their goods, but found themselves too late
in doing so.  But the Major was satisfied, and the rude man who had
told him to go amiss, begged his pardon, and thus we sailed on
slowly and peaceably.



CHAPTER XIX

INSIDE THE CHANNEL


That little incident threw some light upon Major Hockin's
character.  It was not for himself alone that he was so particular,
or, as many would call it, fidgety, to have every thing done
properly; for if any thing came to his knowledge which he thought
unfair to any one, it concerned him almost as much as if the wrong
had been done to his own home self.  Through this he had fallen
into many troubles, for his impressions were not always accurate;
but they taught him nothing, or rather, as his wife said, "the
Major could not help it."  The leading journals of the various
places in which Major Hockin sojourned had published his letters of
grievances sometimes, in the absence of the chief editor, and had
suffered in purse by doing so.  But the Major always said,
"Ventilate it, ventilate the subject, my dear Sir; bring public
opinion to bear on it."  And Mrs. Hockin always said that it was
her husband to whom belonged the whole credit of this new and
spirited use of the fine word "ventilation."

As betwixt this faithful pair, it is scarcely needful perhaps to
say that the Major was the master.  His sense of justice dictated
that, as well as his general briskness.  Though he was not at all
like Mr. Gundry in undervaluing female mind, his larger experience
and more frequent intercourse with our sex had taught him to do
justice to us; and it was pleasant to hear him often defer to the
judgment of ladies.  But this he did more, perhaps, in theory than
in practice; yet it made all the ladies declare to one another that
he was a perfect gentleman.  And so he was, though he had his
faults; but his faults were such as we approve of.

But Mrs. Hockin had no fault in any way worth speaking of.  And
whatever she had was her husband's doing, through her desire to
keep up with him.  She was pretty, even now in her sixtieth year,
and a great deal prettier because she never tried to look younger.
Silver hair, and gentle eyes, and a forehead in which all the cares
of eight children had scarcely imprinted a wrinkle, also a kind
expression of interest in whatever was spoken of, with a quiet
voice and smile, and a power of not saying too much at a time,
combined to make this lady pleasant.

Without any fuss or declaration, she took me immediately under her
care; and I doubt not that, after two years passed in the society
of Suan Isco and the gentle Sawyer, she found many things in me to
amend, which she did by example and without reproof.  She shielded
me also in the cleverest way from the curiosity of the saloon,
which at first was very trying.  For the Bridal Veil being a well-
known ship both for swift passages and for equipment, almost every
berth was taken, and when the weather was calm, quite a large
assembly sat down to dinner.  Among these, of course, were some
ill-bred people, and my youth and reserve and self-consciousness,
and so on, made my reluctant face the mark for many a long and
searching gaze.  My own wish had been not to dine thus in public;
but hearing that my absence would only afford fresh grounds for
curiosity, I took my seat between the Major and his wife, the
former having pledged himself to the latter to leave every thing to
her management.  His temper was tried more than once to its utmost--
which was not a very great distance--but he kept his word, and did
not interfere; and I having had some experience with Firm, eschewed
all perception of glances.  And as for all words, Mrs. Hockin met
them with an obtuse obliqueness; so that after a day or two it was
settled that nothing could be done about "Miss Wood."

It had been a very sore point to come to, and cost an unparalleled
shed of pride, that I should be shorn of two-thirds of my name, and
called "Miss Wood," like almost anybody else.  I refused to
entertain such a very poor idea, and clung to the name which had
always been mine--for my father would never depart from it--and I
even burst into tears, which would, I suppose, be called
"sentimental;" but still the stern fact stared me in the face--I
must go as "Miss Wood," or not go at all.  Upon this Major Hockin
had insisted; and even Colonel Gundry could not move him from his
resolution.

Uncle Sam had done his utmost, as was said before, to stop me from
wishing to go at all; but when he found my whole heart bent upon
it, and even my soul imperiled by the sense of neglecting life's
chief duty, his own stern sense of right came in and sided with my
prayers to him.  And so it was that he let me go, with pity for my
youth and sex, but a knowledge that I was in good hands, and an
inborn, perhaps "Puritanical" faith, that the Lord of all right
would see to me.

The Major, on the other hand, had none of this.  He differed from
Uncle Sam as much as a trim-cut and highly cultured garden tree
differs from a great spreading king of the woods.  He was not
without a strict sense of religion, especially when he had to march
men to church; and he never even used a bad word, except when
wicked facts compelled him.  When properly let alone, and allowed
to nurse his own opinions, he had a respectable idea that all
things were certain to be ordered for the best; but nothing enraged
him so much as to tell him that when things went against him, or
even against his predictions.

It was lucky for me, then, that Major Hockin had taken a most
adverse view of my case.  He formed his opinions with the greatest
haste, and with the greatest perseverance stuck to them; for he was
the most generous of mankind, if generous means one quite full of
his genus.  And in my little case he had made up his mind that the
whole of the facts were against me.  "Fact" was his favorite word,
and one which he always used with great effect, for nobody knows
very well what it means, as it does not belong to our language.
And so when he said that the facts were against me, who was there
to answer that facts are not truth?

This fast-set conclusion of his was known to me not through
himself, but through his wife.  For I could not yet bring myself to
speak of the things that lay close at my heart to him, though I
knew that he must be aware of them.  And he, like a gentleman, left
me to begin.  I could often see that he was ready and quite eager
to give me the benefit of his opinion, which would only have turned
me against him, and irritated him, perhaps, with me.  And having no
home in England, or, indeed, I might say, any where, I was to live
with the Major and his wife, supposing that they could arrange it
so, until I should discover relatives.

We had a long and stormy voyage, although we set sail so fairly;
and I thought that we never should round Cape Horn in the teeth of
the furious northeast winds; and after that we lay becalmed, I have
no idea in what latitude, though the passengers now talked quite
like seamen, at least till the sea got up again.  However, at last
we made the English Channel, in the dreary days of November, and
after more peril there than any where else, we were safely docked
at Southampton.  Here the Major was met by two dutiful daughters,
bringing their husbands and children, and I saw more of family life
(at a distance) than had fallen to my lot to observe before; and
although there were many little jars and brawls and cuts at one
another, I was sadly inclined to wish sometimes for some brothers
and sisters to quarrel with.

But having none to quarrel with, and none to love, except good Mrs.
Hockin, who went away by train immediately, I spent such a wretched
time in that town that I longed to be back in the Bridal Veil in
the very worst of weather.  The ooze of the shore and the reek of
the water, and the dreary flatness of the land around (after the
glorious heaven-clad heights, which made me ashamed of littleness),
also the rough, stupid stare of the men, when I went about as an
American lady may freely do in America, and the sharpness of every
body's voice (instead of the genial tones which those who can not
produce them call "nasal," but which from a higher view are
cordial)--taken one after other, or all together, these things made
me think, in the first flush of thought, that England was not a
nice country.  After a little while I found that I had been a great
deal too quick, as foreigners are with things which require quiet
comprehension.  For instance, I was annoyed at having a stupid
woman put over me, as if I could not mind myself--a cook, or a
nurse, or housekeeper, or something very useful in the Hockin
family, but to me a mere incumbrance, and (as I thought in my wrath
sometimes) a spy.  What was I likely to do, or what was any one
likely to do to me, in a thoroughly civilized country, that I could
not even stay in private lodgings, where I had a great deal to
think of, without this dull creature being forced upon me?  But the
Major so ordered it, and I gave in.

There I must have staid for the slowest three mouths ever passed
without slow starvation finishing my growth, but not knowing how to
"form my mind," as I was told to do.  Major Hockin came down once
or twice to see me, and though I did not like him, yet it was
almost enough to make me do so to see a little liveliness.  But I
could not and would not put up with a frightful German baron of
music, with a polished card like a toast-rack, whom the Major tried
to impress on me.  As if I could stop to take music lessons!

"Miss Wood," said Major Hockin, in his strongest manner, the last
time he came to see me, "I stand to you in loco parentis.  That
means, with the duties, relationships, responsibilities, and what
not, of the unfortunate--I should say rather of the beloved--parent
deceased.  I wish to be more careful of you than of a daughter of
my own--a great deal more careful, ten times, Miss Wood; I may say
a thousand times more careful, because you have not had the
discipline which a daughter of mine would have enjoyed.  And you
are so impulsive when you take an idea!  You judge every body by
your likings.  That leads to error, error, error."

"My name is not Miss Wood," I answered; "my name is 'Erema
Castlewood.'  Whatever need may have been on board ship for nobody
knowing who I am, surely I may have my own name now."

When any body says "surely," at once up springs a question; nothing
being sure, and the word itself at heart quite interrogative.  The
Major knew all those little things which manage women so manfully.
So he took me by the hand and led me to the light and looked at me.

I had not one atom of Russian twist or dyed China grass in my hair,
nor even the ubiquitous aid of horse and cow; neither in my face or
figure was I conscious of false presentment.  The Major was welcome
to lead me to the light and to throw up all his spectacles and gaze
with all his eyes.  My only vexation was with myself, because I
could not keep the weakness--which a stranger should not see--out
of my eyes, upon sudden remembrance who it was that used to have
the right to do such things to me.  This it was, and nothing else,
that made me drop my eyes, perhaps.

"There, there, my dear!" said Major Hockin, in a softer voice than
usual.  "Pretty fit you are to combat with the world, and defy the
world, and brave the world, and abolish the world--or at least the
world's opinion!  'Bo to a goose,' you can say, my dear; but no
'bo' to a gander.  No, no; do quietly what I advise--by-the-bye,
you have never asked my advice."

I can not have been hypocritical, for of all things I detest that
most; but in good faith I said, being conquered by the Major's
relaxation of his eyes,

"Oh, why have you never offered it to me?  You knew that I never
could ask for it."

For the moment he looked surprised, as if our ideas had gone
crosswise; and then he remembered many little symptoms of my faith
in his opinions; which was now growing inevitable, with his wife
and daughters, and many grandchildren--all certain that he was a
Solomon.

"Erema," he said, "you are a dear good girl, though sadly, sadly
romantic.  I had no idea that you had so much sense.  I will talk
with you, Erema, when we both have leisure."

"I am quite at leisure, Major Hockin," I replied, "and only too
happy to listen to you."

"Yes, yes, I dare say.  You are in lodgings.  You can do exactly as
you please.  But I have a basin of ox-tail soup, a cutlet, and a
woodcock waiting for me at the Cosmopolitan Hotel.  Bless me!  I am
five minutes late already.  I will come and have a talk with you
afterward."

"Thank you," I said; "we had better leave it.  It seems of no
importance, compared--compared with--"

"My dinner!" said the Major; but he was offended, and so was I a
little, though neither of us meant to vex the other.



CHAPTER XX

BRUNTSEA


It would be unfair to Major Hockin to take him for an extravagant
man or a self-indulgent one because of the good dinner he had
ordered, and his eagerness to sit down to it.  Through all the best
years of his life he had been most frugal, abstemious, and self-
denying, grudging every penny of his own expense, but sparing none
for his family.  And now, when he found himself so much better off,
with more income and less outlay, he could not be blamed for
enjoying good things with the wholesome zest of abstinence.

For, coming to the point, and going well into the matter, the Major
had discovered that the "little property" left to him, and which he
was come to see to, really was quite a fine estate for any one who
knew how to manage it, and would not spare courage and diligence.
And of these two qualities he had such abundance that, without any
outlet, they might have turned him sour.

The property lately devised to him by his cousin, Sir Rufus Hockin,
had long been far more plague than profit to that idle baronet.
Sir Rufus hated all exertion, yet could not comfortably put up with
the only alternative--extortion.  Having no knowledge of his cousin
Nick (except that he was indefatigable), and knowing his own son to
be lazier even than himself had been, longing also to inflict even
posthumous justice upon the land agent, with the glad consent of
his heir he left this distant, fretful, and naked spur of land to
his beloved cousin Major Nicholas Hockin.

The Major first heard of this unexpected increase of his belongings
while he was hovering, in the land of gold, between his desire to
speculate and his dread of speculation.  At once he consulted our
Colonel Gundry, who met him by appointment at Sacramento; and Uncle
Sam having a vast idea of the value of land in England, which the
Major naturally made the most of, now being an English land-owner,
they spent a most pleasant evening, and agreed upon the line marked
out by Providence.

Thus it was that he came home, bringing (by kind arrangement) me,
who was much more trouble than comfort to him, and at first
disposed to be cold and curt.  And thus it was that I was left so
long in that wretched Southampton, under the care of a very kind
person who never could understand me.  And all this while (as I
ought to have known, without any one to tell me) Major Hockin was
testing the value and beating the bounds of his new estate, and
prolonging his dinner from one to two courses, or three if he had
been travelling.  His property was large enough to afford him many
dinners, and rich enough (when rightly treated) to insure their
quality.

Bruntsea is a quiet little village on the southeast coast of
England, in Kent or in Sussex, I am not sure which, for it has a
constitution of its own, and says that it belongs to neither.  It
used to be a place of size and valor, furnishing ships, and finding
money for patriotic purposes.  And great people both embarked and
landed, one doing this and the other that, though nobody seems to
have ever done both, if history is to be relied upon.  The glory of
the place is still preserved in a seal and an immemorial stick,
each of which is blessed with marks as incomprehensible as could be
wished, though both are to be seen for sixpence.  The name of the
place is written in more than forty different ways, they say; and
the oldest inhabitant is less positive than the youngest how to
spell it.

This village lies in the mouth, or rather at the eastern end of the
mouth, of a long and wide depression among the hills, through which
a sluggish river wins its muddy consummation.  This river once went
far along the sea-brink, without entering (like a child who is
afraid to bathe), as the Adur does at Shoreham, and as many other
rivers do.  And in those days the mouth and harbor were under the
cliff at Bruntsea, whence its seal and corporation, stick, and
other blessings.  But three or four centuries ago the river was
drawn by a violent storm, like a badger from his barrel, and forced
to come straight out and face the sea, without any three miles of
dalliance.  The time-serving water made the best of this, forsook
its ancient bed (as classic nymphs and fountains used to do), and
left poor Bruntsea with a dry bank, and no haven for a cockle-
shell.  A new port, such as it is, incrusted the fickle jaw of the
river; piles were driven and earth-works formed, lest the water
should return to its old love; and Bruntsea, as concerned her
traffic, became but a mark of memory.  Her noble corporation never
demanded their old channel, but regarded the whole as the will of
the Lord, and had the good sense to insist upon nothing except
their time-honored ceremonies.

In spite of all these and their importance, land became of no value
there.  The owner of the Eastern Manor and of many ancient rights,
having no means of getting at them, sold them for an "old song,"
which they were; and the buyer was one of the Hockin race, a
shipwrecked mariner from Cornwall, who had been kindly treated
there, and took a fancy accordingly.  He sold his share in some
mine to pay for it, settled here, and died here; and his son,
getting on in the world, built a house, and took to serious
smuggling.  In the chalk cliff's eastward he found holes of honest
value to him, capable of cheap enlargement (which the Cornish holes
were not), and much more accessible from France.  Becoming a
magistrate and deputy-lieutenant, he had the duty and privilege of
inquiring into his own deeds, which enabled him to check those few
who otherwise might have competed with him.  He flourished, and
bought more secure estates; and his son, for activity against
smugglers, was made a gentle baronet.

These things now had passed away, and the first fee-simple of the
Hockin family became a mere load and incumbrance.  Sir George and
Sir Robert and Sir Rufus, one after another, did not like the hints
about contraband dealings which met them whenever they deigned to
come down there, till at last the estate (being left to an agent)
cost a great deal more than he ever paid in.  And thus--as should
have been more briefly told--the owner was our Major Hockin.

No wonder that this gentleman, with so many cares to attend to, had
no time at first to send for me.  And no wonder that when he came
down to see me, he was obliged to have good dinners.  For the work
done by him in those three months surprised every body except
himself, and made in old Bruntsea a stir unknown since the time of
the Spanish Armada.  For he owned the house under the eastern
cliff, and the warren, and the dairy-farm inland, and the slope of
the ground where the sea used to come, and fields where the people
grew potatoes gratis, and all the eastern village, where the
tenants paid their rents whenever they found it rational.

A hot young man, in a place like this, would have done a great deal
of mischief.  Either he would have accepted large views, and
applauded this fine communism (if he could afford it, and had no
wife), or else he would have rushed at every body headlong, and
batted them back to their abutments.  Neither course would have
created half the excitement which the Major's did.  At least, there
might have been more talk at first, but not a quarter so much in
sum total.  Of those things, however, there is time enough to
speak, if I dare to say any thing about them.

The things more to my mind (and therefore more likely to be made
plain to another mind) are not the petty flickering phantoms of the
shadow we call human, and which alone we realize, and dwell inside
it and upon it, as if it were all creation; but the infinitely
nobler things of ever-changing but perpetual beauty, and no
selfishness.  These, without deigning to us even sense to be aware
of them, shape our little minds and bodies and our large self-
importance, and fail to know when the lord or king who owns is
buried under them.  To have perception of such mighty truths is
good for all of us: and I never had keener perception of them than
when I sat down on the Major's camp-stool, and saw all his land
around me, and even the sea--where all the fish were his, as soon
as he could catch them--and largely reflected that not a square
foot of the whole world would ever belong to me.

"Bruntlands," as the house was called, perhaps from standing well
above the sea, was sheltered by the curve of the eastern cliff,
which looked down over Bruntsea.  The cliff was of chalk, very
steep toward the sea, and showing a prominent headland toward the
south, but prettily rising in grassy curves from the inland and
from the westward.  And then, where it suddenly chined away from
land-slope into sea-front, a long bar of shingle began at right
angles to it, and, as level as a railroad, went to the river's
mouth, a league or so now to the westward.  And beyond that another
line of white cliffs rose, and looked well till they came to their
headland.  Inside this bank of shingle, from end to end, might be
traced the old course of the river, and to landward of that trough
at the hither end stood, or lay, the calm old village.

Forsaken as it was by the river, this village stuck to its ancient
site and home, and instead of migrating, contracted itself, and
cast off needless members.  Shrunken Bruntsea clung about the
oldest of its churches, while the four others fell to rack and
ruin, and settled into cow-yards and barns, and places where old
men might sit and sigh.  But Bruntsea distinctly and trenchantly
kept the old town's division into east and west.

East Bruntsea was wholly in the Major's manor, which had a special
charter; and most of the houses belonged to him.  This ownership
hitherto had meant only that the landlord should do all the tumble-
down repairs (when the agent reported that they must be done), but
never must enter the door for his rent.  The borough had been
disfranchised, though the snuggest of the snug for generations; and
the freemen, thus being robbed of their rights, had no power to
discharge their duties.  And to complicate matters yet further, for
the few who wished to simplify them, the custom of "borough-
English" prevailed, and governed the descent of dilapidations,
making nice niceties for clever men of law.

"You see a fine property here, Miss Wood," Major Hockin said to me,
as we sat, on the day after I was allowed to come, enjoying the
fresh breeze from the sea and the newness of the February air, and
looking abroad very generally: "a very fine property, but
neglected--shamefully, horribly, atrociously neglected--but capable
of noble things, of grand things, of magnificent, with a trifle of
judicious outlay."

"Oh, please not to talk of outlay, my dear," said good Mrs. Hockin,
gently; "it is such an odious word; and where in the world is it to
come from?"

"Leave that to me.  When I was a boy my favorite copy in my copy-
book was, 'Where there's a will there's a way.'  Miss Wood, what is
your opinion?  But wait, you must have time to understand the
subject.  First we bring a railway--always the first step; why, the
line is already made for it by the course of the old river, and the
distance from Newport three miles and a half.  It ought not to cost
quite 200 pounds a mile--the mere outlay for rails and sleepers.
The land is all mine, and--and of course other landed proprietors'.
Very well: these would all unite, of course; so that not a farthing
need be paid for land, which is the best half of the battle.  We
have the station here--not too near my house; that would never do;
I could not bear the noise--but in a fine central place where
nobody on earth could object to it--lively, and close at hand for
all of them.  Unluckily I was just too late.  We have lost a
Parliamentary year through that execrable calm--you remember all
about it.  Otherwise we would have had Billy Puff stabled at
Bruntsea by the first of May.  But never mind; we shall do it all
the better and cheaper by taking our time about it.  Very well: we
have the railway opened and the trade of the place developed.  We
build a fine terrace of elegant villas, a crescent also, and a
large hotel replete with every luxury; and we form the finest sea-
parade in England by simply assisting nature.  Half London comes
down here to bathe, to catch shrimps, to flirt, and to do the rest
of it.  We become a select, salubrious, influential, and yet
economical place; and then what do we do, Mrs. Hockin?"

"My dear, how can I tell?  But I hope that we should rest and be
thankful."

"Not a bit of it.  I should hope not, indeed.  Erema, what do we do
then?"

"It is useless to ask me.  Well, then, perhaps you set up a
handsome saw-mill!"

"A saw-mill!  What a notion of Paradise!  No; this is what we do--
but remember that I speak in the strictest confidence; dishonest
antagonism might arise, if we ventilated our ideas too soon--Mrs.
Hockin and Miss Wood, we demand the restoration of our river!--the
return of our river to its ancient course."

"I see," said his wife; "oh, how grand that would be! and how
beautiful from our windows!  That really, now, is a noble thought!"

"A just one--simply a just one.  Justice ought not to be noble, my
dear, however rare it may be.  Generosity, magnanimity, heroism,
and so on--those are the things we call noble, my dear."

"And the founding of cities.  Oh, my dear, I remember, when I was
at school, it was always said, in what we called our histories,
that the founders of cities had honors paid them, and altars built,
and divinities done, and holidays held in their honor."

"To that I object," cried the Major, sternly.  "If I founded fifty
cities, I would never allow one holiday.  The Sabbath is enough;
one day in seven--fifteen per cent, of one's whole time; and twenty
per cent, of your Sunday goes in church.  Very right, of course,
and loyal, and truly edifying--Mrs. Hockin's father was a
clergyman, Miss Wood; and the last thing I would ever allow on my
manor would be a Dissenting chapel; but still I will have no new
churches here, and a man who might go against me.  They all want to
pick their own religious views, instead of reflecting who supports
them!  It never used to be so; and such things shall never occur on
my manor.  A good hotel, attendance included, and a sound and
moderate table d'hote; but no church, with a popish bag sent round,
and money to pay, 'without anything to eat.'"

"My dear! my dear!" cried Mrs. Hockin, "I never like you to talk
like that.  You quite forget who my father was, and your own second
son such a very sound priest!"

"A priest!  Don't let him come here," cried the Major, "or I'll let
him know what tonsure is, and read him the order of Melchisedec.  A
priest!  After going round the world three times, to come home and
be hailed as the father of a priest!  Don't let him come near me,
or I'll sacrifice him."

"Now, Major, you are very proud of him," his good wife answered, as
he shook his stick.  "How could he help taking orders when he was
under orders to do so?  And his views are sound to the last degree,
most strictly correct and practical--at least except as to
celibacy."

"He holds that his own mother ought never to have been born!  Miss
Wood, do you call that practical?"

"I have no acquaintance with such things," I replied; "we had none
of them in California.  But is it practical, Major Hockin--of
course you know best in your engineering--I mean, would it not
require something like a tunnel for the river and the railway to
run on the same ground?"

"Why, bless me!  That seems to have escaped my notice.  You have
not been with old Uncle Sam for nothing.  We shall have to appoint
you our chief engineer."



CHAPTER XXI

LISTLESS


It seemed an unfortunate thing for me, and unfavorable to my
purpose, that my host, and even my hostess too, should be so
engrossed with their new estate, its beauties and capabilities.
Mrs. Hockin devoted herself at once to fowls and pigs and the like
extravagant economies, having bought, at some ill-starred moment, a
book which proved that hens ought to lay eggs in a manner to
support themselves, their families, and the family they belonged
to, at the price of one penny a dozen.  Eggs being two shillings a
dozen in Bruntsea, here was a margin for profit--no less than two
thousand per cent, to be made, allowing for all accidents.  The
lady also found another book, divulging for a shilling the author's
purely invaluable secret--how to work an acre of ground, pay house
rent, supply the house grandly, and give away a barrow-load of
vegetables every day to the poor of the parish, by keeping a pig--
if that pig were kept properly.  And after that, pork and ham and
bacon came of him, while another golden pig went on.

Mrs. Hockin was very soft-hearted, and said that she never could
make bacon of a pig like that; and I answered that if she ever got
him it would be unwise to do so.  However, the law was laid down in
both books that golden fowls and diamondic pigs must die the death
before they begin to overeat production; and the Major said, "To be
sure.  Yes, yes.  Let them come to good meat, and then off with
their heads."  And his wife said that she was sure she could do it.
When it comes to a question of tare and tret, false sentiment must
be excluded.

At the moment, these things went by me as trifles, yet made me more
impatient.  Being older now, and beholding what happens with
tolerance and complacence, I am only surprised that my good friends
were so tolerant of me and so complacent.  For I must have been a
great annoyance to them, with my hurry and my one idea.  Happily
they made allowance for me, which I was not old enough to make for
them.

"Go to London, indeed!  Go to London by yourself!" cried the Major,
with a red face, and his glasses up, when I told him one morning
that I could stop no longer without doing something.  "Mary, my
dear, when you have done out there, will you come in and reason--if
you can--with Miss Wood.  She vows that she is going to London, all
alone."

"Oh, Major Hockin--oh, Nicholas dear, such a thing has happened!"
Mrs. Hockin had scarcely any breath to tell us, as she came in
through the window.  "You know that they have only had three
bushels, or, at any rate, not more than five, almost ever since
they came.  Erema, you know as well as I do."

"Seven and three-quarter bushels of barley, at five and ninepence a
bushel, Mary," said the Major, pulling out a pocket-book; "besides
Indian corn, chopped meat, and potatoes."

"And fourteen pounds of paddy," I said--which was a paltry thing of
me; "not to mention a cake of graves, three sacks of brewers'
grains, and then--I forget what next."

"You are too bad, all of you.  Erema, I never thought you would
turn against me so.  And you made me get nearly all of it.  But
please to look here.  What do you call this?  Is this no reward?
Is this not enough?  Major, if you please, what do you call this?
What a pity you have had your breakfast!"

"A blessing--if this was to be my breakfast.  I call that, my dear,
the very smallest egg I have seen since I took sparrows' nests.  No
wonder they sell them at twelve a penny.  I congratulate you upon
your first egg, my dear Mary."

"Well, I don't care," replied Mrs. Hockin, who had the sweetest
temper in the world.  "Small beginnings make large endings; and an
egg must be always small at one end.  You scorn my first egg, and
Erema should have had it if she had been good.  But she was very
wicked, and I know not what to do with it."

"Blow it!" cried the Major.  "I mean no harm, ladies.  I never use
low language.  What I mean is, make a pinhole at each end, give a
puff, and away goes two pennyworth, and you have a cabinet
specimen, which your egg is quite fitted by its cost to be.  But
now, Mary, talk to Miss Wood, if you please.  It is useless for me
to say any thing, and I have three appointments in the town"--he
always called it "the town" now--"three appointments, if not four;
yes, I may certainly say four.  Talk to Miss Wood, my dear, if you
please.  She wants to go to London, which would be absurd.  Ladies
seem to enter into ladies' logic.  They seem to be able to
appreciate it better, to see all the turns, and the ins and outs,
which no man has intellect enough to see, or at least to make head
or tail of.  Good-by for the present; I had better be off."

"I should think you had," exclaimed Mrs. Hockin, as her husband
marched off, with his side-lights on, and his short, quick step,
and well-satisfied glance at the hill which belonged to him, and
the beach, over which he had rights of plunder--or, at least, Uncle
Sam would have called them so, strictly as he stood up for his own.

"Now come and talk quietly to me, my dear," Mrs. Hockin began, most
kindly, forgetting all the marvel of her first-born egg.  "I have
noticed how restless you are, and devoid of all healthy interest in
any thing.  'Listless' is the word.  'Listless' is exactly what I
mean, Erema.  When I was at your time of life, I could never have
gone about caring for nothing.  I wonder that you knew that I even
had a fowl; much more how much they had eaten!"

"I really do try to do all I can, and that is a proof of it," I
said.  "I am not quite so listless as you think.  But those things
do seem so little to me."

"My dear, if you were happy, they would seem quite large, as, after
all the anxieties of my life, I am able now to think them.  It is a
power to be thankful for, or, at least, I often think so.  Look at
my husband!  He has outlived and outlasted more trouble than any
one but myself could reckon up to him; and yet he is as brisk, as
full of life, as ready to begin a new thing to-morrow--when, at our
age, there may be no to-morrow, except in that better world, my
dear, of which it is high time for him and me to think, as I truly
hope we may spare the time to do."

"Oh, don't talk like that," I cried.  "Please, Mrs. Hockin, to talk
of your hens and chicks--at least there will be chicks by-and-by.
I am almost sure there will, if you only persevere.  It seems
unfair to set our minds on any other world till justice has been
done in this."

"You are very young, my child, or you would know that in that case
we never should think of it at all.  But I don't want to preach you
a sermon, Erema, even if I could do so.  I only just want you to
tell me what you think, what good you imagine that you can do."

"It is no imagination.  I am sure that I can right my father's
wrongs.  And I never shall rest till I do so."

"Are you sure that there is any wrong to right?" she asked, in the
warmth of the moment; and then, seeing perhaps how my color
changed, she looked at me sadly, and kissed my forehead.

"Oh, if you had only once seen him," I said; "without any
exaggeration, you would have been satisfied at once.  That he could
ever have done any harm was impossible--utterly impossible.  I am
not as I was.  I can listen to almost any thing now quite calmly.
But never let me hear such a wicked thing again."

"You must not go on like that, Erema, unless you wish to lose all
your friends.  No one can help being sorry for you.  Very few girls
have been placed as you are.  I am sure when I think of my own
daughters I can never be too thankful.  But the very first thing
you have to learn, above all things, is to control yourself."

"I know it--I know it, of course," I said; "and I keep on trying my
very best.  I am thoroughly ashamed of what I said, and I hope you
will try to forgive me."

"A very slight exertion is enough for that.  But now, my dear, what
I want to know is this--and you will excuse me if I ask too much--
what good do you expect to get by going thus to London?  Have you
any friend there, any body to trust, any thing settled as to what
you are to do?"

"Yes, every thing is settled in my own mind," I answered, very
bravely: "I have the address of a very good woman, found among my
father's papers, who nursed his children and understood his nature,
and always kept her faith in him.  There must be a great many more
who do the same, and she will be sure to know them and introduce me
to them; and I shall be guided by their advice."

"But suppose that this excellent woman is dead, or not to be found,
or has changed her opinion?"

"Her opinion she never could change.  But if she is not to be
found, I shall find her husband, or her children, or somebody; and
besides that, I have a hundred things to do.  I have the address of
the agent through whom my father drew his income, though Uncle Sam
let me know as little as he could.  And I know who his bankers were
(when he had a bank), and he may have left important papers there."

"Come, that looks a little more sensible, my dear; bankers may
always be relied upon.  And there may be some valuable plate,
Erema.  But why not let the Major go with you?  His advice is so
invaluable."

"I know that it is, in all ordinary things.  But I can not have him
now, for a very simple reason.  He has made up his mind about my
dear father--horribly, horribly; I can't speak of it.  And he never
changes his mind; and sometimes when I look at him I hate him."

"Erema, you are quite a violent girl, although you so seldom show
it.  Is the whole world divided, then, into two camps--those who
think as you wish and those who are led by their judgment to think
otherwise?  And are you to hate all who do not think as you wish?"

"No, because I do not hate you," I said; "I love you, though you do
not think as I wish.  But that is only because you think your
husband must be right of course.  But I can not like those who have
made up their minds according to their own coldness."

"Major Hockin is not cold at all.  On the contrary, he is a warm-
hearted man--I might almost say hot-hearted."

"Yes, I know he is.  And that makes it ten times worse.  He takes
up every body's case--but mine."

"Sad as it is, you almost make me smile," my hostess answered,
gravely; "and yet it must be very bitter for you, knowing how just
and kind my husband is.  I am sure that you will give him credit
for at least desiring to take your part.  And doing so, at least
you might let him go with you, if only as a good protection."

"I have no fear of any one; and I might take him into society that
he would not like.  In a good cause he would go any where, I know.
But in my cause, of course he would be scrupulous.  Your kindness I
always can rely upon, and I hope in the end to earn his as well."

"My dear, he has never been unkind to you.  I am certain that you
never can say that of him.  Major Hockin unkind to a poor girl like
you!"

"The last thing I wish to claim is any body's pity," I answered,
less humbly than I should have spoken, though the pride was only in
my tone, perhaps.  "If people choose to pity me, they are very
good, and I am not at all offended, because--because they can not
help it, perhaps, from not knowing any thing about me.  I have
nothing whatever to be pitied for, except that I have lost my
father, and have nobody left to care for me, except Uncle Sam in
America."

"Your Uncle Sam, as you call him, seems to be a very wonderful man,
Erema," said Mrs. Hockin, craftily, so far as there could be any
craft in her; "I never saw him--a great loss on my part.  But the
Major went up to meet him somewhere, and came home with the stock
of his best tie broken, and two buttons gone from his waistcoat.
Does Uncle Sam make people laugh so much? or is it that he has some
extraordinary gift of inducing people to taste whiskey?  My husband
is a very--most abstemious man, as you must be well aware, Miss
Wood, or we never should have been as we are, I am sure.  But, for
the first time in all my life, I doubted his discretion on the
following day, when he had--what shall I say?--when he had been
exchanging sentiments with Uncle Sam."

"Uncle Sam never takes too much in any way," I replied to this new
attack; "he knows what he ought to take, and then he stops.  Do you
think that it may have been his 'sentiments,' perhaps, that were
too strong and large for the Major?"

"Erema!" cried Mrs. Hockin, with amazement, as if I had no right to
think or express my thoughts on life so early; "if you can talk
politics at eighteen, you are quite fit to go any where.  I have
heard a great deal of American ladies, and seen not a little of
them, as you know.  But I thought that you called yourself an
English girl, and insisted particularly upon it."

"Yes, that I do; and I have good reason.  I am born of an old
English family, and I hope to be no disgrace to it.  But being
brought up in a number of ways, as I have been without thinking of
it, and being quite different from the fashionable girls Major
Hockin likes to walk with--"

"My dear, he never walks with any body but myself!"

"Oh yes, I remember!  I was thinking of the deck.  There are no
fashionable girls here yet.  Till the terrace is built, and the
esplanade--"

"There shall be neither terrace nor esplanade if the Major is to do
such things upon them."

"I am sure that he never would," I replied; "it was only their
dresses that he liked at all, and that very, to my mind,
extraordinary style, as well as unbecoming.  You know what I mean,
Mrs. Hockin, that wonderful--what shall I call it?--way of looping
up."

"Call me 'Aunt Mary,' my dear, as you did when the waves were so
dreadful.  You mean that hideous Mexican poncho, as they called it,
stuck up here, and going down there.  Erema, what observation you
have!  Nothing ever seems to escape you.  Did you ever see any
thing so indecorous?"

"It made me feel just as if I ought not to look at them," I
answered, with perfect truth, for so it did; "I have never been
accustomed to such things.  But seeing how the Major approved of
them, and liked to be walking up and down between them, I knew that
they must be not only decorous, but attractive.  There is no appeal
from his judgment, is there?"

"I agree with him upon every point, my dear child; but I have
always longed to say a few words about that.  For I can not help
thinking that he went too far."



CHAPTER XXII

BETSY BOWEN


So far, then, there was nobody found to go into my case, and to
think with me, and to give me friendly countenance, with the
exception of Firm Gundry.  And I feared that he tried to think with
me because of his faithful and manly love, more than from balance
of evidence.  The Sawyer, of course, held my father guiltless,
through his own fidelity and simple ways; but he could not enter
into my set thought of a stern duty laid upon me, because to his
mind the opinion of the world mattered nothing so long as a man did
aright.  For wisdom like this, if wisdom it is, I was a great deal
too young and ardent; and to me fair fame was of almost equal value
with clear conscience.  And therefore, wise or foolish, rich or
poor, beloved or unloved, I must be listless about other things,
and restless in all, until I should establish truth and justice.

However, I did my best to be neither ungrateful nor stupidly
obstinate, and, beginning more and more to allow for honest though
hateful opinions, I yielded to dear Mrs. Hockin's wish that I
should not do any thing out of keeping with English ideas and
habits.  In a word, I accepted the Major's kind offer to see me
quite safe in good hands in London, or else bring me straightway
back again.  And I took only just things enough for a day or two,
meaning to come back by the end of the week.  And I kissed Mrs.
Hockin just enough for that.

It would not be a new thing for me to say that "we never know what
is going to happen;" but, new or stale, it was true enough, as old
common sayings of common-sense (though spurned when not wanted)
show themselves.  At first, indeed, it seemed as if I were come for
nothing, at least as concerned what I thought the chief business of
my journey.  The Major had wished to go first to the bank, and
appeared to think nothing of any thing else; but I, on the other
hand, did not want him there, preferring to keep him out of my
money matters, and so he was obliged to let me have my way.

I always am sorry when I have been perverse, and it seemed to serve
me right for willfulness when no Betsy Bowen could be discovered
either at the place which we tried first, or that to which we were
sent thence.  Major Hockin looked at me till I could have cried, as
much as to hint that the whole of my story was all of a piece, all
a wild-goose chase.  And being more curious than ever now to go to
the bank and ransack, he actually called out to the cabman to drive
without delay to Messrs. Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin.  But I
begged him to allow me just one minute while I spoke to the
servant-maid alone.  Then I showed her a sovereign, at which she
opened her mouth in more ways than one, for she told me that
"though she had faithfully promised to say nothing about it,
because of a dreadful quarrel between her mistress and Mrs. Strouss
that was now, and a jealousy between them that was quite beyond
belief, she could not refuse such a nice young lady, if I would
promise faithfully not to tell."  This promise I gave with
fidelity, and returning to the cabman, directed him to drive not to
Messrs. Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin just yet, but to No. 17
European Square, St. Katharine's.

From a maze of streets and rugged corners, and ins and outs nearly
as crooked as those of a narrow human nature, we turned at last
into European Square, which was no square at all, but an oblong
opening pitched with rough granite, and distinguished with a pump.
There were great thoroughfares within a hundred yards, but the
place itself seemed unnaturally quiet upon turning suddenly into
it, only murmurous with distant London din, as the spires of a
shell hold the heavings of the sea.  After driving three or four
times round the pump, for the houses were numbered anyhow, we found
No. 17, and I jumped out.

"Now don't be in such a fierce hurry, Miss Wood," cried the Major,
who was now a little crusty; "English ladies allow themselves to be
handed out, without hurrying the gentlemen who have the honor."

"But I wanted to save you the honor," I said.  "I will come back
immediately, if you will kindly wait."  And with this I ran up the
old steps, and rang and knocked, while several bearded faces came
and gazed through dingy windows.

"Can I see Mrs. Strouss?" I asked, when a queer old man in faded
brown livery came to the door with a candle in his hand, though the
sun was shining.

"I am the Meesther Strouss; when you see me, you behold the good
Meeses Strouss also."

"Thank you, but that will not do," I replied; "my business is with
Mrs. Strouss alone."

He did not seem to like this at first sight, but politely put the
chain-bolt on the door while he retired to take advice; and the
Major looked out of the cab and laughed.

"You had better come back while you can," he said, "though they
seem in no hurry to swallow you."

This was intended to vex me, and I did not even turn my head to
him.  The house looked very respectable, and there were railings to
the area.

"The house is very respectable," continued Major Hockin, who always
seemed to know what I was thinking of, and now in his quick manner
ran up the steps; "just look, the scraper is clean.  You never see
that, or at least not often, except with respectable people,
Erema."

"Pray what would my scraper be? and who is Erema?" cried a strong,
clear voice, as the chain of the door was set free, and a stout,
tall woman with a flush in her cheeks confronted us.  "I never knew
more than one Erema--Good mercy!"

My eyes met hers, and she turned as pale as death, and fell back
into a lobby chair.  She knew me by my likeness to my father,
falling on the memories started by my name; and strong as she was,
the surprise overcame her, at the sound of which up rushed the
small Herr Strouss.

"Vhat are you doing dere, all of you? vhat have you enterprised
with my frau?  Explain, Vilhelmina, or I call de policemans, vhat I
should say de peelers."

"Stop!" cried the Major, and he stopped at once, not for the word,
which would have had no power, although I knew nothing about it
then, but because he had received a sign which assured him that
here was a brother Mason.  In a moment the infuriated husband
vanished into the rational and docile brother.

"Ladies and gentlemans, valk in, if you please," he said, to my
great astonishment; "Vilhelmina and my good self make you velcome
to our poor house.  Vilhelmina, arise and say so."

"Go to the back kitchen, Hans," replied Wilhelmina, whose name was
"Betsy," "and don't come out until I tell you.  You will find work
to do there, and remember to pump up.  I wish to hear things that
you are not to hear, mind you.  Shut yourself in, and if you soap
the door to deceive me, I shall know it."

"Vere goot, vere goot," said the philosophical German; "I never
meddle with nothing, Vilhelmina, no more than vhat I do for de
money and de house."

Betsy, however, was not quite so sure of that.  With no more
ceremony she locked him in, and then came back to us, who could not
make things out.

"My husband is the bravest of the brave," she told us, while she
put down his key on the table; "and a nobler man never lived; I am
sure of that.  But every one of them foreigners--excuse me, Sir,
you are an Englishman?"

"I am," replied the Major, pulling up his little whiskers; "I am
so, madam, and nothing you can say will in any way hurt my
feelings.  I am above nationalities."

"Just so, Sir.  Then you will feel with me when I say that they
foreigners is dreadful.  Oh, the day that I ever married one of
'em--but there, I ought to be ashamed of myself, and my lord's
daughter facing me."

"Do you know me?" I asked, with hot color in my face, and my eyes,
I dare say, glistening.  "Are you sure that you know me?  And then
please to tell me how."

As I spoke I was taking off the close silk bonnet which I had worn
for travelling, and my hair, having caught in a pin, fell round me,
and before I could put it up, or even think of it, I lay in the
great arms of Betsy Bowen, as I used to lie when I was a little
baby, and when my father was in his own land, with a home and wife
and seven little ones.  And to think of this made me keep her
company in crying, and it was some time before we did any thing
else.

"Well, well," replied the Major, who detested scenes, except when
he had made them; "I shall be off.  You are in good hands; and the
cabman pulled out his watch when we stopped.  So did I.  But he is
sure to beat me.  They draw the minute hand on with a magnet, I am
told, while the watch hangs on their badge, and they can swear they
never opened it.  Wonderful age, very wonderful age, since the time
when you and I were young, ma'am."

"Yes, Sir; to be sure, Sir!" Mrs. Strouss replied, as she wiped her
eyes to speak of things; "but the most wonderfulest of all things,
don't you think, is the going of the time, Sir?  No cabby can make
it go faster while he waits, or slower while he is a-driving, than
the minds inside of us manage it.  Why, Sir, it wore only like
yesterday that this here tall, elegant, royal young lady was a-
lying on my breast, and what a hand she was to kick!  And I said
that her hair was sure to grow like this.  If I was to tell you
only half what comes across me--"

"If you did, ma'am, the cabman would make his fortune, and I should
lose mine, which is more than I can afford.  Erema, after dinner I
shall look you up.  I know a good woman when I see her, Mrs.
Strouss, which does not happen every day.  I can trust Miss
Castlewood with you.  Good-by, good-by for the present."

It was the first time he had ever called me by my proper name, and
that made me all the more pleased with it.

"You see, Sir, why I were obliged to lock him in," cried the "good
woman," following to the door, to clear every blur from her
virtues; "for his own sake I done it, for I felt my cry a-coming,
and to see me cry--Lord bless you, the effect upon him is to call
out for a walking-stick and a pint of beer."

"All right, ma'am, all right!" the Major answered, in a tone which
appeared to me unfeeling.  "Cabman, are you asleep there?  Bring
the lady's bag this moment."

As the cab disappeared without my even knowing where to find that
good protector again in this vast maze of millions, I could not
help letting a little cold fear encroach on the warmth of my
outburst.  I had heard so much in America of the dark, subtle
places of London, and the wicked things that happen all along the
Thames, discovered or invented by great writers of their own, that
the neighborhood of the docks and the thought of rats (to which I
could never grow accustomed) made me look with a flash perhaps of
doubt at my new old friend.

"You are not sure of me, Miss Erema," said Mrs. Strouss, without
taking offense.  "After all that has happened, who can blame it on
you?  But your father was not so suspicious, miss.  It might have
been better for him if he had--according, leastways, to my belief,
which a team of wild horses will never drag out."

"Oh, only let me hear you talk of that!" I exclaimed, forgetting
all other things.  "You know more about it than any body I have
ever met with, except my own father, who would never tell a word."

"And quite right he was, miss, according to his views.  But come to
my little room, unless you are afraid.  I can tell you some things
that your father never knew."

"Afraid! do you think I am a baby still?  But I can not bear that
Mr. Strouss should be locked up on my account."

"Then he shall come out," said Mrs. Strouss, looking at me very
pleasantly.  "That was just like your father, Miss Erema.  But I
fall into the foreign ways, being so much with the foreigners."
Whether she thought it the custom among "foreigners" for wives to
lock their husbands in back kitchens was more than she ever took
the trouble to explain.  But she walked away, in her stout, firm
manner, and presently returned with Mr. Strouss, who seemed to be
quite contented, and made me a bow with a very placid smile.

"He is harmless; his ideas are most grand and good," his wife
explained to me, with a nod at him.  "But I could not have you in
with the gentleman, Hans.  He always makes mistakes with the
gentlemen, miss, but with the ladies he behaves quite well."

"Yes, yes, with the ladies I am nearly always goot," Herr Strouss
replied, with diffidence.  "The ladies comprehend me right, all
right, because I am so habitual with my wife.  But the gentlemans
in London have no comprehension of me."

"Then the loss is on their side," I answered, with a smile; and he
said, "Yes, yes, they lose vere much by me."



CHAPTER XXIII

BETSY'S TALE


Now I scarcely know whether it would be more clear to put into
narrative what I heard from Betsy Bowen, now Wilhelmina Strouss, or
to let her tell the whole in her own words, exactly as she herself
told it then to me.  The story was so dark and sad--or at least to
myself it so appeared--that even the little breaks and turns of
lighter thought or livelier manner, which could scarcely fail to
vary now and then the speaker's voice, seemed almost to grate and
jar upon its sombre monotone.  On the other hand, by omitting
these, and departing from her homely style, I might do more of harm
than good through failing to convey impressions, or even facts, so
accurately.  Whereas the gist and core and pivot of my father's
life and fate are so involved (though not evolved) that I would not
miss a single point for want of time or diligence.  Therefore let
me not deny Mrs. Strouss, my nurse, the right to put her words in
her own way.  And before she began to do this she took the trouble
to have every thing cleared away and the trays brought down, that
her boarders (chiefly German) might leave their plates and be
driven to their pipes.

"If you please, Miss Castlewood," Mrs. Strouss said, grandly, "do
you or do you not approve of the presence of 'my man,' as he calls
himself?--an improper expression, in my opinion; such, however, is
their nature.  He can hold his tongue as well as any man, though
none of them are very sure at that.  And he knows pretty nigh as
much as I do, so far as his English can put things together, being
better accustomed in German.  For when we were courting I was fain
to tell him all, not to join him under any false pretenses, miss,
which might give him grounds against me."

"Yes, yes, it is all vere goot and true--so goot and true as can
be."

"And you might find him come very handy, my dear, to run of any
kind of messages.  He can do that very well, I assure you, miss--
better than any Englishman."

Seeing that he wished to stay, and that she desired it, I begged
him to stop, though it would have been more to my liking to hear
the tale alone.

"Then sit by the door, Hans, and keep off the draught," said his
Wilhelmina, kindly.  "He is not very tall, miss, but he has good
shoulders; I scarcely know what I should do without him.  Well,
now, to begin at the very beginning: I am a Welshwoman, as you may
have heard.  My father was a farmer near Abergavenny, holding land
under Sir Watkin Williams, an old friend of your family.  My father
had too many girls, and my mother scarcely knew what to do with the
lot of us.  So some of us went out to service, while the boys staid
at home to work the land.  One of my sisters was lady's-maid to
Lady Williams, Sir Watkin's wife, at the time when your father came
visiting there for the shooting of the moor-fowl, soon after his
marriage with your mother.  What a sweet good lady your mother was!
I never saw the like before or since.  No sooner did I set eyes
upon her but she so took my fancy that I would have gone round the
world with her.  We Welsh are a very hot people, they say--not
cold-blooded, as the English are.  So, wise or foolish, right,
wrong, or what might be, nothing would do for me but to take
service, if I could, under Mrs. Castlewood.  Your father was called
Captain Castlewood then--as fine a young man as ever clinked a
spur, but without any boast or conceit about him; and they said
that your grandfather, the old lord, kept him very close and spare,
although he was the only son.  Now this must have been--let me see,
how long ago?--about five-and-twenty years, I think.  How old are
you now, Miss Erema?  I can keep the weeks better than the years,
miss."

"I was eighteen on my last birthday.  But never mind about the
time--go on."

"But the time makes all the difference, miss, although at the time
we may never think so.  Well, then, it must have been better than
six-and-twenty year agone; for though you came pretty fast, in the
Lord's will, there was eight years between you and the first-born
babe, who was only just a-thinking of when I begin to tell.  But to
come back to myself, as was--mother had got too many of us still,
and she was glad enough to let me go, however much she might cry
over it, as soon as Lady Williams got me the place.  My place was
to wait upon the lady first, and make myself generally useful, as
they say.  But it was not very long before I was wanted in other
more important ways, and having been brought up among so many
children, they found me very handy with the little ones; and being
in a poor way, as they were then--for people, I mean, of their
birth and place--they were glad enough soon to make head nurse of
me, although I was under-two-and-twenty.

"We did not live at the old lord's place, which is under the hills
looking on the river Thames, but we had a quiet little house in
Hampshire; for the Captain was still with his regiment, and only
came to and fro to us.  But a happier little place there could not
be, with the flowers, and the cow, and the birds all day, and the
children running gradually according to their age, and the pretty
brook shining in the valley.  And as to the paying of their way, it
is true that neither of them was a great manager.  The Captain
could not bear to keep his pretty wife close; and she, poor thing,
was trying always to surprise him with other presents besides all
the beautiful babies.  But they never were in debt all round, as
the liars said when the trouble burst; and if they owed two or
three hundred pounds, who could justly blame them?

"For the old lord, instead of going on as he should, and widening
his purse to the number of the mouths, was niggling at them always
for offense or excuse, to take away what little he allowed them.
The Captain had his pay, which would go in one hand, and the lady
had a little money of her own; but still it was cruel for brought-
up people to have nothing better to go on with.  Not that the old
lord was a miser neither; but it was said, and how far true I know
not, that he never would forgive your father for marrying the
daughter of a man he hated.  And some went so far as to say that if
he could have done it, he would have cut your father out of all the
old family estates.  But such a thing never could I believe of a
nobleman having his own flesh and blood.

"But, money or no money, rich or poor, your father and mother, I
assure you, my dear, were as happy as the day was long.  For they
loved one another and their children dearly, and they did not care
for any mixing with the world.  The Captain had enough of that when
put away in quarters; likewise his wife could do without it better
and better at every birth, though once she had been the very gayest
of the gay, which you never will be, Miss Erema.

"Now, my dear, you look so sad and so 'solid,' as we used to say,
that if I can go on at all, I must have something ready.  I am
quite an old nurse now, remember.  Hans, go across the square, and
turn on the left hand round the corner, and then three more streets
toward the right, and you see one going toward the left, and you go
about seven doors down it, and then you see a corner with a lamp-
post."

"Vilhelmina, I do see de lamp-post at de every corner."

"That will teach you to look more bright, Hans.  Then you find a
shop window with three blue bottles, and a green one in the
middle."

"How can be any middle to three, without it is one of them?"

"Then let it be two of them.  How you contradict me!  Take this
little bottle, and the man with a gold braid round a cap, and a
tassel with a tail to it, will fill it for four-pence when you tell
him who you are."

"Yes, yes; I do now comprehend.  You send me vhere I never find de
vay, because I am in de vay, Vilhelmina!"

I was most thankful to Mrs. Strouss for sending her husband
(however good and kind-hearted he might be) to wander among many
shops of chemists, rather than to keep his eyes on me, while I
listened to things that were almost sure to make me want my eyes my
own.  My nurse had seen, as any good nurse must, that, grown and
formed as I might be, the nature of the little child that cries for
its mother was in me still.

"It is very sad now," Mrs. Strouss began again, without replying to
my grateful glance; "Miss Erema, it is so sad that I wish I had
never begun with it.  But I see by your eyes--so like your
father's, but softer, my dear, and less troublesome--that you will
have the whole of it out, as he would with me once when I told him
a story for the sake of another servant.  It was just about a month
before you were born, when the trouble began to break on us.  And
when once it began, it never stopped until all that were left ran
away from it.  I have read in the newspapers many and many sad
things coming over whole families, such as they call 'shocking
tragedies;' but none of them, to my mind, could be more galling
than what I had to see with my very own eyes.

"It must have been close upon the middle of September when old Lord
Castlewood came himself to see his son's house and family at
Shoxford.  We heard that he came down a little on the sudden to see
to the truth of some rumors which had reached him about our style
of living.  It was the first time he had ever been there; for
although he had very often been invited, he could not bear to be
under the roof of the daughter, as he said, of his enemy.  The
Captain, just happening to come home on leave for his autumn
holiday, met his father quite at his own door--the very last place
to expect him.  He afterward acknowledged that he was not pleased
for his father to come 'like a thief in the night.'  However, they
took him in and made him welcome, and covered up their feelings
nicely, as high-bred people do.

"What passed among them was unknown to any but themselves, except
so far as now I tell you.  A better dinner than usual for two was
ready, to celebrate the master's return and the beginning of his
holiday; and the old lord, having travelled far that day, was
persuaded to sit down with them.  The five eldest children (making
all except the baby, for you was not born, miss, if you please)
they were to have sat up at table, as pretty as could be--three
with their high cushioned stools, and two in their arm-chairs
screwed on mahogany, stuffed with horsehair, and with rods in
front, that the little dears might not tumble out in feeding, which
they did--it was a sight to see them!  And how they would give to
one another, with their fingers wet and shining, and saying, 'Oo,
dat for oo.'  Oh dear, Miss Erema, you were never born to see it!
What a blessing for you!  All those six dear darlings laid in their
little graves within six weeks, with their mother planted under
them; and the only wonder is that you yourself was not upon her
breast.

"Pay you no heed to me, Miss Erema, when you see me a-whimpering in
and out while I am about it.  It makes my chest go easy, miss, I do
assure you, though not at the time of life to understand it.  All
they children was to have sat up for the sake of their dear father,
as I said just now; but because of their grandfather all was
ordered back.  And back they come, as good as gold, with Master
George at the head of them, and asked me what milk-teeth was.
Grandpa had said that 'a dinner was no dinner if milk-teeth were
allowed at it.'  The hard old man, with his own teeth false!  He
deserved to sit down to no other dinner--and he never did, miss.

"You may be sure that I had enough to do to manage all the little
ones and answer all their questions; but never having seen a live
lord before, and wanting to know if the children would be like him
before so very long, I went quietly down stairs, and the biggest of
my dears peeped after me.  And then, by favor of the parlor-maid--
for they kept neither butler nor footman now--I saw the Lord
Castlewood, sitting at his ease, with a glass of port-wine before
him, and my sweet mistress (the Captain's wife, and your mother, if
you understand, miss) doing her very best, thinking of her
children, to please him and make the polite to him.  To me he
seemed very much to be thawing to her--if you can understand, miss,
what my meaning is--and the Captain was looking at them with a
smile, as if it were just what he had hoped for.  From my own
eyesight I can contradict the lies put about by nobody knows who,
that the father and the son were at hot words even then.

"And I even heard my master, when they went out at the door, vainly
persuading his father to take such a bed as they could offer him.
And good enough it would have been for ten lords; for I saw nothing
wonderful in him, nor fit to compare any way with the Captain.  But
he would not have it, for no other reason of ill-will or temper,
but only because he had ordered his bed at the Moonstock Inn, where
his coach and four were resting.

"'I expect you to call me in the morning, George,' I heard him say,
as clear as could be, while his son was helping his coat on.  'I am
glad I have seen you.  There are worse than you.  And when the
times get better, I will see what I can do.'

"With him this meant more than it might have done; for he was not a
man of much promises, as you might tell by his face almost, with
his nose so stern, and his mouth screwed down, and the wrinkles the
wrong way for smiling.  I could not tell what the Captain answered,
for the door banged on them, and it woke the baby, who was
dreaming, perhaps, about his lordship's face, and his little teeth
gave him the wind on his chest, and his lungs was like bellows--
bless him!

"Well, that stopped me, Miss Erema, from being truly accurate in my
testimony.  What with walking the floor, and thumping his back, and
rattling of the rings to please him--when they put me on the
Testament, cruel as they did, with the lawyers' eyes eating into
me, and both my ears buzzing with sorrow and fright, I may have
gone too far, with my heart in my mouth, for my mind to keep out of
contradiction, wishful as I was to tell the whole truth in a manner
to hurt nobody.  And without any single lie or glaze of mine, I do
assure you, miss, that I did more harm than good; every body in the
room--a court they called it, and no bigger than my best parlor--
one and all they were convinced that I would swear black was white
to save my master and mistress!  And certainly I would have done
so, and the Lord in heaven thought the better of me, for the sake
of all they children, if I could have made it stick together, as
they do with practice."

At thought of the little good she had done, and perhaps the great
mischief, through excess of zeal, Mrs. Strouss was obliged to stop,
and put her hand to her side, and sigh.  And eager as I was for
every word of this miserable tale, no selfish eagerness could deny
her need of refreshment, and even of rest; for her round cheeks
were white, and her full breast trembled.  And now she was
beginning to make snatches at my hand, as if she saw things she
could only tell thus.



CHAPTER XXIV

BETSY'S TALE--(Continued.)


"I am only astonished, my dear," said my nurse, as soon as she had
had some tea and toast, and scarcely the soft roe of a red herring,
"that you can put up so well, and abide with my instincts in the
way you do.  None of your family could have done it, to my
knowledge of their dispositions, much less the baby that was next
above you.  But it often comes about to go in turns like that;
'one, three, five, and seven is sweet, while two, four, and six is
a-squalling with their feet.'  But the Lord forgive me for an ill
word of them, with their precious little bodies washed, and laying
in their patterns till the judgment-day.

"But putting by the words I said in the dirty little room they
pleased to call a 'court,' and the Testament so filthy that no lips
could have a hold of it, my meaning is to tell you, miss, the very
things that happened, so that you may fairly judge of them.  The
Captain came back from going with his father, I am sure, in less
than twenty minutes, and smoking a cigar in his elegant way, quite
happy and contented, for I saw him down the staircase.  As for sign
of any haste about him, or wiping of his forehead, or fumbling with
his handkerchief, or being in a stew in any sort of way--as the
stupid cook who let him in declared, by reason of her own having
been at the beer-barrel--solemnly, miss, as I hope to go to heaven,
there was nothing of the sort about him.

"He went into the dining-room, and mistress, who had been up stairs
to see about the baby, went down to him; and there I heard them
talking as pleasant and as natural as they always were together.
Not one of them had the smallest sense of trouble hanging over
them; and they put away both the decanters and cruets, and came up
to bed in their proper order, the master stopping down just to
finish his cigar and see to the doors and the bringing up the
silver, because there was no man-servant now.  And I heard him
laughing at some little joke he made as he went into the bedroom.
A happier household never went to bed, nor one with better hopes of
a happy time to come.  And the baby slept beside his parents in his
little cot, as his mother liked to have him, with his blessed mouth
wide open.

"Now we three (cook and Susan and myself) were accustomed to have a
good time of it whenever the master first came home and the
mistress was taken up with him.  We used to count half an hour more
in bed, without any of that wicked bell-clack, and then go on to
things according to their order, without any body to say any thing.
Accordingly we were all snug in bed, and turning over for another
tuck of sleep, when there came a most vicious ringing of the outer
bell.  'You get up, Susan,' I heard the cook say, for there only
was a door between us; and Susan said, 'Blest if I will!  Only
Tuesday you put me down about it when the baker came.'  Not a peg
would either of them stir, no more than to call names on one
another; so I slipped on my things, with the bell going clatter all
the while, like the day of judgment.  I felt it to be hard upon me,
and I went down cross a little--just enough to give it well to a
body I were not afraid of.

"But the Lord in His mercy remember me, miss!  When I opened the
door, I had no blood left.  There stood two men, with a hurdle on
their shoulders, and on the hurdle a body, with the head hanging
down, and the front of it slouching, like a sack that has been
stolen from; and behind it there was an authority with two buttons
on his back, and he waited for me to say something; but to do so
was beyond me.  Not a bit of caution or of fear about my sham
dress-up, as the bad folk put it afterward; the whole of such
thoughts was beyond me outright, and no thought of any thing came
inside me, only to wait and wonder.

"'This corpse belongeth here, as I am informed,' said the man, who
seemed to be the master of it, and was proud to be so.  'Young
woman, don't you please to stand like that, or every duffer in the
parish will be here, and the boys that come hankering after it.
You be off!' he cried out to a boy who was calling some more round
the corner.  'Now, young woman, we must come in if you please, and
the least said the soonest mended.'

"'Oh, but my mistress, my mistress!' I cried; 'and her time up, as
nigh as may be, any day or night before new moon.  'Oh, Mr.
Constable, Mr. Rural Polishman, take it to the tool shed, if you
ever had a wife, Sir.'  Now even this was turned against us as if I
had expected it.  They said that I must have known who it was, and
to a certain length so I did, miss, but only by the dress and the
manner of the corpse, and lying with an attitude there was no
contradicting.

"I can not tell you now, my dear, exactly how things followed.  My
mind was gone all hollow with the sudden shock upon it.  However, I
had thought enough to make no noise immediate, nor tell the other
foolish girls, who would have set up bellowing.  Having years to
deal with little ones brings knowledge of the rest to us.  I think
that I must have gone to master's door, where Susan's orders were
to put his shaving water in a tin, and fetched him out, with no
disturbance, only in his dressing-gown.  And when I told him what
it was, his rosy color turned like sheets, and he just said,
'Hush!' and nothing more.  And guessing what he meant, I ran and
put my things on properly.

"But having time to think, the shock began to work upon me, and I
was fit for nothing when I saw the children smiling up with their
tongues out for their bread and milk, as they used to begin the day
with.  And I do assure you, Miss Erema, my bitterest thought was of
your coming, though unknown whether male or female, but both most
inconvenient then, with things in such a state of things.  You have
much to answer for, miss, about it; but how was you to help it,
though?

"The tool-shed door was too narrow to let the hurdle and the body
in, and finding some large sea-kale pots standing out of use
against the door, the two men (who were tired with the weight and
fright, I dare say) set down their burden upon these, under a row
of hollyhocks, at the end of the row of bee-hives.  And here they
wiped their foreheads with some rags they had for handkerchiefs, or
one of them with his own sleeve, I should say, and, gaining their
breath, they began to talk with the boldness of the sunrise over
them.  But Mr. Rural Polishman, as he was called in those parts,
was walking up and down on guard, and despising of their foolish
words.

"My master, the Captain, your father, miss, came out of a window
and down the cross-walk, while I was at the green door peeping, for
I thought that I might be wanted, if only to take orders what was
to be done inside.  The constable stiffly touched his hat, and
marched to the head of the hurdle, and said,

"'Do you know this gentleman?'

"Your father took no more notice of him than if he had been a stiff
hollyhock, which he might have resembled if he had been good-
looking.  The Captain thought highly of discipline always, and no
kinder gentleman could there be to those who gave his dues to him.
But that man's voice had a low and dirty impertinent sort of a
twang with it.  Nothing could have been more unlucky.  Every thing
depended on that fellow in an ignorant neighborhood like that; and
his lordship, for such he was now, of course, would not even deign
to answer him.  He stood over his head in his upright way by a good
foot, and ordered him here and there, as the fellow had been
expecting, I do believe, to order his lordship.  And that made the
bitterest enemy of him, being newly sent into these parts, and
puffed up with authority.  And the two miller's men could not help
grinning, for he had waved them about like a pair of dogs.

"But to suppose that my master 'was unmoved, and took it brutally'
(as that wretch of a fellow swore afterward), only shows what a
stuck-up dolt he was.  For when my master had examined his father,
and made his poor body be brought in and spread on the couch in the
dining-room, and sent me hot-foot for old Dr. Diggory down at the
bottom of Shoxford, Susan peeped in through the crack of the door,
with the cook to hold her hand behind, and there she saw the
Captain on his knees at the side of his father's corpse, not saying
a word, only with his head down.  And when the doctor came back
with me, with his night-gown positive under his coat, the first
thing he said was, 'My dear Sir--my lord, I mean--don't take on so;
such things will always happen in this world;' which shows that my
master was no brute.

"Then the Captain stood up in his strength and height, without any
pride and without any shame, only in the power of a simple heart,
and he said words fit to hang him:

"'This is my doing!  There is no one else to blame.  If my father
is dead, I have killed him!'

"Several of us now were looking in, and the news going out like a
winnowing woman with no one to shut the door after her; our passage
was crowding with people that should have had a tar-brush in their
faces.  And of course a good score of them ran away to tell that
the Captain had murdered his father.  The milk-man stood there with
his yoke and cans, and his naily boots on our new oil-cloth, and,
not being able to hide himself plainly, he pulled out his slate and
began to make his bill.

"'Away with you all!' your father said, coming suddenly out of the
dining-room, while the doctor was unbuttoning my lord, who was dead
with all his day clothes on; and every body brushed away like flies
at the depth of his voice and his stature.  Then he bolted the
door, with only our own people and the doctor and the constable
inside.  Your mother was sleeping like a lamb, as I could swear,
having had a very tiring day the day before, and being well away
from the noise of the passage, as well as at a time when they must
sleep whenever sleep will come, miss.  Bless her gentle heart, what
a blessing to be out of all that scare of it!

"All this time, you must understand, there was no sign yet what had
happened to his lordship, over and above his being dead.  All of us
thought, if our minds made bold to think, that it must have pleased
the Lord to take his lordship either with an appleplexy or a sudden
heart-stroke, or, at any rate, some other gracious way not having
any flow of blood in it.  But now, while your father was gone up
stairs--for he knew that his father was dead enough--to be sure
that your mother was quiet, and perhaps to smooth her down for
trouble, and while I was run away to stop the ranting of the
children, old Dr. Diggory and that rural officer were handling poor
Lord Castlewood.  They set him to their liking, and they cut his
clothes off--so Susan told me afterward--and then they found why
they were forced to do so, which I need not try to tell you, miss.
Only they found that he was not dead from any wise visitation, but
because he had been shot with a bullet through his heart.

"Old Dr. Diggory came out shaking, and without any wholesome sense
to meet what had arisen, after all his practice with dead men, and
he called out 'Murder!' with a long thing in his hand, till my
master leaped down the stairs, twelve at a time, and laid his
strong hand on the old fool's mouth.

"'Would you kill my wife?' he said; 'you shall not kill my wife.'

"'Captain Castlewood,' the constable answered, pulling out his
staff importantly, 'consider yourself my prisoner.'

"The Captain could have throttled him with one hand, and Susan
thought he would have done it.  But, instead of that, he said,
'Very well; do your duty.  But let me see what you mean by it.'
Then he walked back again to the body of his father, and saw that
he had been murdered.

"But, oh, Miss Erema, you are so pale!  Not a bit of food have you
had for hours.  I ought not to have told you such a deal of it to
once.  Let me undo all your things, my dear, and give you something
cordial; and then lie down and sleep a bit."

"No, thank you, nurse," I answered, calling all my little courage
back.  "No sleep for me until I know every word.  And to think of
all my father had to see and bear!  I am not fit to be his
daughter."



CHAPTER XXV

BETSY'S TALE--(Concluded.)


"Well, now," continued Mrs. Strouss, as soon as I could persuade
her to go on, "if I were to tell you every little thing that went
on among them, miss, I should go on from this to this day week, or
I might say this day fortnight, and then not half be done with it.
And the worst of it is that those little things make all the odds
in a case of that sort, showing what the great things were.  But
only a counselor at the Old Bailey could make head or tail of the
goings on that followed.

"For some reason of his own, unknown to any living being but
himself, whether it were pride (as I always said) or something
deeper (as other people thought), he refused to have any one on
earth to help him, when he ought to have had the deepest lawyer to
be found.  The constable cautioned him to say nothing, as it seems
is laid down in their orders, for fear of crimination.  And he
smiled at this, with a high contempt, very fine to see, but not
bodily wise.  But even that jack-in-office could perceive that the
poor Captain thought of his sick wife up stairs, and his little
children, ten times for one thought he ever gave to his own
position.  And yet I must tell you that he would have no denial,
but to know what it was that had killed his parent.  When old Dr.
Diggory's hands were shaking so that his instrument would not bite
on the thing lodged in his lordship's back, after passing through
and through him, and he was calling for somebody to run for his
assistant, who do you think did it for him, Miss Erema?  As sure as
I sit here, the Captain!  His face was like a rock, and his hands
no less; and he said, 'Allow me, doctor.  I have been in action.'
And he fetched out the bullet--which showed awful nerve, according
to my way of thinking--as if he had been a man with three rows of
teeth.

"'This bullet is just like those of my own pistol!' he cried, and
he sat down hard with amazement.  You may suppose how this went
against him, when all he desired was to know and tell the truth;
and people said that of course he got it out, after a bottleful of
doctors failed, because he knew best how it was put in.'

"'I shall now go and see the place, if you please, or whether you
please or not,' my master said.  'Constable, you may come and point
it out, unless you prefer going to your breakfast.  My word is
enough that I shall not run away.  Otherwise, as you have acted on
your own authority, I shall act on mine, and tie you until you have
obtained a warrant.  Take your choice, my man; and make it quickly,
while I offer it.'

"The rural polishman stared at this, being used on the other hand
to be made much of.  But seeing how capable the Captain was of
acting up to any thing, he made a sulky scrape, and said, 'Sir, as
you please for the present,' weighting his voice on those last
three words, as much as to say, 'Pretty soon you will be
handcuffed.'  'Then,' said my master, 'I shall also insist on the
presence of two persons, simply to use their eyes without any fear
or favor.  One is my gardener, a very honest man, but apt to be
late in the morning.  The other is a faithful servant, who has been
with us for several years.  Their names are Jacob Rigg and Betsy
Bowen.  You may also bring two witnesses, if you choose.  And the
miller's men, of course, will come.  But order back all others.'

"'That is perfectly fair and straightforward, my lord,' the
constable answered, falling naturally into abeyance to orders.  'I
am sure that all of us wishes your lordship kindly out of this rum
scrape.  But my duty is my duty.'

"With a few more words we all set forth, six in number, and no
more; for the constable said that the miller's men, who had first
found the late Lord Castlewood, were witnesses enough for him.  And
Jacob Rigg, whose legs were far apart (as he said) from trenching
celery, took us through the kitchen-garden, and out at a gap, which
saved every body knowing.

"Then we passed through a copse or two, and across a meadow, and
then along the turnpike-road, as far as now I can remember.  And
along that we went to a stile on the right, without any house for a
long way off.  And from that stile a foot-path led down a slope of
grass land to the little river, and over a hand-bridge, and up
another meadow full of trees and bushes, to a gate which came out
into the road again a little to this side of the Moonstock Inn,
saving a quarter of a mile of road, which ran straight up the
valley and turned square at the stone bridge to get to the same
inn.

"I can not expect to be clear to you, miss, though I see it all now
as I saw it then, every tree, and hump, and hedge of it; only about
the distances from this to that, and that to the other, they would
be beyond me.  You must be on the place itself; and I never could
carry distances--no, nor even clever men, I have heard my master
say.  But when he came to that stile he stopped and turned upon all
of us clearly, and as straight as any man of men could be.  'Here I
saw my father last, at a quarter past ten o'clock last night, or
within a few minutes of that time.  I wished to see him to his inn,
but he would not let me do so, and he never bore contradiction.  He
said that he knew the way well, having fished more than thirty
years ago up and down this stream.  He crossed this stile, and we
shook hands over it, and the moon being bright, I looked into his
face, and he said, "My boy, God bless you!"  Knowing his short
ways, I did not even look after him, but turned away, and went
straight home along this road.  Upon my word as an Englishman, and
as an officer of her Majesty, that is all I know of it.  Now let us
go on to the--to the other place.

"We all of us knew in our hearts, I am sure, that the Captain spoke
the simple truth, and his face was grand as he looked at us.  But
the constable thought it his duty to ask,

"'Did you hear no sound of a shot, my lord?  For he fell within a
hundred yards of this.'

"'I heard no sound of any shot whatever.  I heard an owl hooting as
I went home, and then the rattle of a heavy wagon, and the bells of
horses.  I have said enough.  Let us go forward.'

"We obeyed him at once; and even the constable looked right and
left, as if he had been wrong.  He signed to the miller's man to
lead the way, and my lord walked proudly after him.  The path was
only a little narrow track, with the grass, like a front of hair,
falling over it on the upper side and on the under, dropping away
like side curls; such a little path that I was wondering how a
great lord could walk over it.  Then we came down a steep place to
a narrow bridge across a shallow river--abridge made of only two
planks and a rail, with a prop or two to carry them.  And one end
of the handrail was fastened into a hollow and stubby old hawthorn-
tree, overhanging the bridge and the water a good way.  And just
above this tree, and under its shadow, there came a dry cut into
the little river, not more than a yard or two above the wooden
bridge, a water-trough such as we have in Wales, miss, for the
water to run in, when the farmer pleases; but now there was no
water in it, only gravel.

"The cleverest of the miller's men, though, neither of them had
much intellect, stepped down at a beck from the constable, right
beneath the old ancient tree, and showed us the marks on the grass
and the gravel made by his lordship where he fell and lay.  And it
seemed that he must have fallen off the bridge, yet not into the
water, but so as to have room for his body, if you see, miss,
partly on the bank, and partly in the hollow of the meadow trough.

"'Have you searched the place well?' the Captain asked.  'Have you
found any weapon or implement?'

"'We have found nothing but the corpse, so far,' the constable
answered, in a surly voice, not liking to be taught his business.
'My first duty was to save life, if I could.  These men, upon
finding the body, ran for me, and knowing who it was, I came with
it to your house.'

"'You acted for the best, my man.  Now search the place carefully,
while I stand here.  I am on my parole, I shall not run away.
Jacob, go down and help them.'

"Whether from being in the army, or what, your father always spoke
in such a way that the most stiff-neckedest people began without
thinking to obey him.  So the constable and the rest went down,
while the Captain and I stood upon the plank, looking at the four
of them.

"For a long time they looked about, according to their attitudes,
without finding any thing more than the signs of the manner in
which the poor lord fell, and of these the constable pulled out a
book and made a pencil memorial.  But presently Jacob, a spry sort
of man, cried, 'Hulloa! whatever have I got hold of here?  Many a
good craw-fish have I pulled out from this bank when the water
comes down the gully, but never one exactly like this here afore.'

"'Name of the Lord!' cried the constable, jumping behind the
hawthorn stump; 'don't point it at me, you looby!  It's loaded,
loaded one barrel, don't you see?  Put it down, with the muzzle
away from me.'

"'Hand it to me, Jacob,' the Captain said.  'You understand a gun,
and this goes off just the same.'  Constable Jobbins have no fear.
'Yes, it is exactly as I thought.  This pistol is one of the
double-barreled pair which I bought to take to India.  The barrels
are rifled; it shoots as true as any rifle, and almost as hard up
to fifty yards.  The right barrel has been fired, the other is
still loaded.  The bullet I took from my father's body most
certainly came from this pistol.'

"'Can 'e say, can 'e say then, who done it, master?' asked Jacob, a
man very sparing of speech, but ready at a beck to jump at
constable and miller's men, if only law was with him.  'Can 'e give
a clear account, and let me chuck 'un in the river?'

"'No, Jacob, I can do nothing of the kind,' your father answered;
while the rural man came up and faced things, not being afraid of a
fight half so much as he was of an accident; by reason of his own
mother having been blown up by a gunpowder start at Dartford, yet
came down all right, miss, and had him three months afterward,
according to his own confession; nevertheless, he came up now as if
he had always been upright, in the world, and he said, 'My lord,
can you explain all this?'

"Your father looked at him with one of his strange gazes, as if he
were measuring the man while trying his own inward doing of his own
mind.  Proud as your father was, as proud as ever can be without
cruelty, it is my firm belief, Miss Erema, going on a woman's
judgment, that if the man's eyes had come up to my master's sense
of what was virtuous, my master would have up and told him the
depth and contents of his mind and heart, although totally gone
beyond him.

"But Jobbins looked back at my lord with a grin, and his little
eyes, hard to put up with.  'Have you nothing to say, my lord?
Then I am afeared I must ask you just to come along of me.'  And my
master went with him, miss, as quiet as a lamb; which Jobbins said,
and even Jacob fancied, was a conscience sign of guilt.

"Now after I have told you all this, Miss Erema, you know very
nearly as much as I do.  To tell how the grief was broken to your
mother, and what her state of mind was, and how she sat up on the
pillows and cried, while things went on from bad to worse, and a
verdict of 'willful murder' was brought against your father by the
crowner's men, and you come headlong, without so much as the birds
in the ivy to chirp about you, right into the thick of the worst of
it.  I do assure you, Miss Erema, when I look at your bright eyes
and clear figure, the Lord in heaven, who has made many cripples,
must have looked down special to have brought you as you are.  For
trouble upon trouble fell in heaps, faster than I can wipe my eyes
to think.  To begin with, all the servants but myself and gardener
Jacob ran away.  They said that the old lord haunted the house, and
walked with his hand in the middle of his heart, pulling out a
bullet if he met any body, and sighing 'murder' three times, till
every hair was crawling.  I took it on myself to fetch the Vicar of
the parish to lay the evil spirit, as they do in Wales.  A nice
kind gentleman he was as you could see, and wore a velvet skull-
cap, and waited with his legs up.  But whether he felt that the
power was not in him, or whether his old lordship was frightened of
the Church, they never made any opportunity between them to meet
and have it out, miss.

"Then it seemed as if Heaven, to avenge his lordship, rained down
pestilence upon that house.  A horrible disease, the worst I ever
met, broke out upon the little harmless dears, the pride of my
heart and of every body's eyes, for lovelier or better ones never
came from heaven.  They was all gone to heaven in a fortnight and
three days, and laid in the church-yard at one another's side, with
little beds of mould to the measure of their stature, and their
little carts and drums, as they made me promise, ready for the
judgment-day.  Oh, my heart was broken, miss, my heart was broken!
I cried so, I thought I could never cry more.

"But when your dear mother, who knew nothing of all this (for we
put all their illness, by the doctor's orders, away at the further
end of the house), when she was a little better of grievous pain
and misery (for being so upset her time was hard), when she sat up
on the pillow, looking like a bride almost, except that she had
what brides hasn't--a little red thing in white flannel at her
side--then she says to me, 'I am ready, Betsy; it is high time for
all of them to see their little sister.  They always love the baby
so, whenever there is a new one.  And they are such men and women
to it.  They have been so good this time that I have never heard
them once.  And I am sure that I can trust them, Betsy, not to make
the baby cry.  I do so long to see the darlings.  Now do not even
whisper to them not to make a noise.  They are too good to require
it; and it would hurt their little feelings.'

"I had better have been shot, my dear, according as the old lord
was, than have the pain that went through all my heart, to see the
mother so.  She sat up, leaning on one arm, with the hand of the
other round your little head, and her beautiful hair was come out
of its loops, and the color in her cheeks was like a shell.  Past
the fringe of the curtain, and behind it too, her soft bright eyes
were a-looking here and there for the first to come in of her
children.  The Lord only knows what lies I told her, so as to be
satisfied without them.  First I said they were all gone for a
walk; and then that the doctor had ordered them away; and then that
they had got the measles.  That last she believed, because it was
worse than what I had said before of them; and she begged to see
Dr. Diggory about it, and I promised that she should as soon as he
had done his dinner.  And then, with a little sigh, being very
weak, she went down into her nest again, with only you to keep her
company.

"Well, that was bad enough, as any mortal sufferer might have said;
enough for one day at any rate.  But there was almost worse to
come.  For when I was having a little sit down stairs, with my
supper and half pint of ale (that comes like drawing a long breath
to us when spared out of sickrooms, miss), and having no nursery
now on my mind, was thinking of all the sad business, with only a
little girl in the back kitchen come in to muck up the dishes,
there appeared a good knock at the garden door, and I knew it for
the thumb of the Captain.  I locked the young girl up, by knowing
what their tongues are, and then I let your father in, and the
candle-sight of him made my heart go low.

"He had come out of prison; and although not being tried, his
clothes were still in decency, they had great holes in them, and
the gloss all gone to a smell of mere hedges and ditches.  The hat
on his head was quite out of the fashion, even if it could be
called a hat at all, and his beautiful beard had no sign of a comb,
and he looked as old again as he had looked a month ago.

"'I know all about it.  You need not be afraid,' he said, as I took
him to the breakfast-room, where no one up stairs could hear us.
'I know that my children are all dead and buried, except the one
that was not born yet.  Ill news flies quick.  I know all about it.
George, Henrietta, Jack, Alf, little Vi, and Tiny.  I have seen
their graves and counted them, while the fool of a policeman beat
his gloves through the hedge within a rod of me.  Oh yes, I have
much to be thankful for.  My life is in my own hand now.'

"'Oh, master; oh, Captain; oh, my lord!' I cried; 'for the sake of
God in heaven, don't talk like that.  Think of your sweet wife,
your dear lady.'

"'Betsy,' he answered, with his eyes full upon me, noble, yet
frightful to look at, 'I am come to see my wife.  Go and let her
know it, according to your own discretion.'

"My discretion would have been not to let him see her, but go on
and write to her from foreign countries, with the salt sea between
them; but I give you my word that I had no discretion, but from
pity and majesty obeyed him.  I knew that he must have broken
prison, and by good rights ought to be starving.  But I could no
more offer him the cold ham and pullet than take him by his beard
and shake him.

"'Is he come, at last, at last?' my poor mistress said, whose wits
were wandering after her children.  'At last, at last!  Then he
will find them all.'

"'Yes, ma'am, at last, at the last he will,' I answered, while I
thought of the burial service, which I had heard three times in a
week--for the little ones went to their graves in pairs to save
ceremony; likewise of the Epistle of Saint Paul, which is not like
our Lord's way of talking at all, but arguing instead of
comforting.  And not to catch her up in that weak state, I said,
'He will find every one of them, ma'am.'

"'Oh, but I want him for himself, for himself, as much as all the
rest put together,' my dear lady said, without listening to me, but
putting her hand to her ear to hearken for even so much as a mouse
on the stairs.  'Do bring him, Betsy; only bring him, Betsy, and
then let me go where my children are.'

"I was surprised at her manner of speaking, which I would not have
allowed to her, but more than all about her children, which she
could only have been dreaming yet, for nobody else came nigh her
except only me, miss, and you, miss, and for you to breathe words
was impossible.  All you did was to lie very quiet, tucked up into
your mother's side; and as regular as the time-piece went, wide
came your eyes and your mouth to be fed.  If your nature had been
cross or squally, 'baby's coffin No. 7' would have come after all
the other six, which the thief of a carpenter put down on his bill
as if it was so many shavings.

"Well, now, to tell you the downright truth, I have a lot of work
to do to-morrow, miss, with three basketfuls of washing coming
home, and a man about a tap that leaks and floods the inside of the
fender; and if I were to try to put before you the way that those
two for the last time of their lives went on to one another--the
one like a man and the other like a woman, full of sobs and
choking--my eyes would be in such a state to-morrow that the whole
of them would pity and cheat me.  And I ought to think of you as
well, miss, who has been sadly harrowed listening when you was not
born yet.  And to hear what went on, full of weeping, when yourself
was in the world, and able to cry for yourself, and all done over
your own little self, would leave you red eyes and no spirit for
the night, and no appetite in the morning; and so I will pass it
all over, if you please, and let him go out of the backdoor again.

"This he was obliged to do quick, and no mistake, glad as he might
have been to say more words, because the fellows who call
themselves officers, without any commission, were after him.  False
it was to say, as was said, that he got out of Winchester jail
through money.  That story was quite of a piece with the rest.  His
own strength and skill it was that brought him out triumphantly, as
the scratches on his hands and cheeks might show.  He did it for
the sake of his wife, no doubt.  When he heard that the children
were all in their graves, and their mother in the way to follow
them, madness was better than his state of mind, as the officers
told me when they could not catch him--and sorry they would have
been to do it, I believe.

"To overhear my betters is the thing of all things most against my
nature; and my poor lady being unfit to get up, there was nothing
said on the landing, which is the weakest part of gentlefolks.
They must have said 'Good-by' to one another quite in silence, and
the Captain, as firm a man as ever lived, had lines on his face
that were waiting for tears, if nature should overcome bringing up.
Then I heard the words, 'for my sake,' and the other said, 'for
your sake,' a pledge that passed between them, making breath more
long than life is.  But when your poor father was by the back-door,
going out toward the woods and coppices, he turned sharp round, and
he said, 'Betsy Bowen!' and I answered, 'Yes, at your service,
Sir.'  'You have been the best woman in the world,' he said--'the
bravest, best, and kindest.  I leave my wife and my last child to
you.  The Lord has been hard on me, but He will spare me those two.
I do hope and believe He will.'

"We heard a noise of horses in the valley, and the clank of swords--
no doubt the mounted police from Winchester a-crossing of the
Moonstock Bridge to search our house for the runaway.  And the
Captain took my hand, and said, 'I trust them to you.  Hide the
clothes I took off, that they may not know I have been here.  I
trust my wife and little babe to you, and may God bless you,
Betsy!'

"He had changed all his clothes, and he looked very nice, but a
sadder face was never seen.  As he slipped through the hollyhocks I
said to myself, 'There goes a broken-hearted man, and he leaves a
broken heart behind.'  And your dear mother died on the Saturday
night.  Oh my! oh my! how sad it was!"



CHAPTER XXVI

AT THE BANK


In telling that sad tale my faithful and soft-hearted nurse had
often proved her own mistake in saying, as she did, that tears can
ever be exhausted.  And I, for my part, though I could scarcely cry
for eager listening, was worse off perhaps than if I had wetted
each sad fact as it went by.  At any rate, be it this way or that,
a heavy and sore heart was left me, too distracted for asking
questions, and almost too depressed to grieve.

In the morning Mrs. Strouss was bustling here and there and every
where, and to look at her nice Welsh cheeks and aprons, and to hear
how she scolded the butcher's boy, nobody would for a moment
believe that her heart was deeper than her skin, as the saying of
the west country is.  Major Hockin had been to see me last night,
for he never forgot a promise, and had left me in good hands, and
now he came again in the morning.  According to his usual way of
taking up an opinion, he would not see how distracted I was, and
full of what I had heard overnight, but insisted on dragging me off
to the bank, that being in his opinion of more importance than old
stories.  I longed to ask Betsy some questions which had been
crowding into my mind as she spoke, and while I lay awake at night;
however, I was obliged to yield to the business of the morning, and
the good Major's zeal and keen knowledge of the world; and he
really gave me no time to think.

"Yes, I understand all that as well as if I had heard every word of
it," he said, when he had led me helpless into the Hansom cab he
came in, and had slammed down the flood-gates in front of us.  "You
must never think twice of what old women say" (Mrs. Strouss was
some twenty years younger than himself); "they always go prating
and finding mares'-nests, and then they always cry.  Now did she
cry, Erema?"

I would have given a hundred dollars to be able to say, "No, not
one drop;" but the truth was against me, and I said, "How could she
help it?"

"Exactly!" the Major exclaimed, so loudly that the cabman thought
he was ordered to stop.  "No, go on, cabby, if your horse can do
it.  My dear, I beg your pardon, but you are so very simple!  You
have not been among the eye-openers of the west.  This comes of the
obsolete Uncle Sam."

"I would rather be simple than 'cute!'" I replied; "and my own
Uncle Sam will be never obsolete."

Silly as I was, I could never speak of the true Uncle Sam in this
far country without the bright shame of a glimmer in my eyes; and
with this, which I cared not to hide, I took my companion's hand
and stood upon the footway of a narrow and crowded lane.

"Move on! move on!" cried a man with a high-crowned hat japanned at
intervals, and, wondering at his rudeness to a lady, I looked at
him.  But he only said, "Now move on, will you?" without any wrath,
and as if he were vexed at our littleness of mind in standing
still.  Nobody heeded him any more than if he had said, "I am
starving," but it seemed a rude thing among ladies.  Before I had
time to think more about this--for I always like to think of
things--I was led through a pair of narrow swinging doors, and down
a close alley between two counters full of people paying and
receiving money.  The Major, who always knew how to get on, found a
white-haired gentleman in a very dingy corner, and whispered to him
in a confidential way, though neither had ever seen the other
before, and the white-haired gentleman gazed at me as sternly as if
I were a bank-note for at least a thousand pounds; and then he
said, "Step this way, young lady.  Major Hockin, step this way,
Sir."

The young lady "stepped that way" in wonder as to what English
English is, and then we were shown into a sacred little room, where
the daylight had glass reflectors for it, if it ever came to use
them.  But as it cared very little to do this, from angular
disabilities, three bright gas-lights were burning in soft covers,
and fed the little room with a rich, sweet glow.  And here shone
one of the partners of the bank, a very pleasant-looking gentleman,
and very nicely dressed.

"Major Hockin," he said, after looking at the card, "will you
kindly sit down, while I make one memorandum?  I had the pleasure
of knowing your uncle well--at least I believe that the late Sir
Rufus was your uncle."

"Not so," replied the Major, well pleased, however.  "I fear that I
am too old to have had any uncle lately.  Sir Rufus Hockin was my
first cousin."

"Oh, indeed!  To be sure, I should have known it, but Sir Rufus
being much your senior, the mistake was only natural.  Now what can
I do to serve you, or perhaps this young lady--Miss Hockin, I
presume?"

"No," said his visitor, "not Miss Hockin.  I ought to have
introduced her, but for having to make my own introduction.  Mr.
Shovelin, this lady is Miss Erema Castlewood, the only surviving
child of the late Captain George Castlewood, properly speaking,
Lord Castlewood."

Mr. Shovelin had been looking at me with as much curiosity as good
manners and his own particular courtesy allowed.  And I fancied
that he felt that I could not be a Hockin.

"Oh, dear, dear me!" was all he said, though he wanted to say,
"God bless me!" or something more sudden and stronger.  "Lord
Castlewood's daughter--poor George Castlewood!  My dear young lady,
is it possible?"

"Yes, I am my father's child," I said; "and I am proud to hear that
I am like him."

"That you well may be," he answered, putting on his spectacles.
"You are astonished at my freedom, perhaps; you will allow for it,
or at least, you will not be angry with me, when you know that your
father was my dearest friend at Harrow; and that when his great
trouble fell upon him--"

Here Mr. Shovelin stopped, as behooves a man who begins to outrun
himself.  He could not tell me that it was himself who had found
all the money for my father's escape, which cost much cash as well
as much good feeling.  Neither did I, at the time, suspect it,
being all in the dark upon such points.  Not knowing what to say, I
looked from the banker to the Major, and back again.

"Can you tell me the exact time?" the latter asked.  "I am due in
the Temple at 12.30, and I never am a minute late, whatever
happens."

"You will want a swift horse," Mr. Shovelin answered, "or else this
will be an exception to your rule.  It is twenty-one minutes past
twelve now."

"May I leave my charge to you, then, for a while?  She will be very
quiet; she is always so.  Erema, will you wait for me?"

I was not quick enough then to see that this was arranged between
them.  Major Hockin perceived that Mr. Shovelin wished to have a
talk with me about dearer matters than money, having children of
his own, and being (as his eyes and forehead showed) a man of
peculiar views, perhaps, but clearly of general good-will.

"In an hour, in an hour, in less than an hour"--the Major
intensified his intentions always--"in three-quarters of an hour I
shall be back.  Meanwhile, my dear, you will sit upon a stool, and
not say a word, nor make any attempt to do any thing every body is
not used to."

This vexed me, as if I were a savage here; and I only replied with
a very gentle bow, being glad to see his departure; for Major
Hockin was one of those people, so often to be met with, whom any
one likes or dislikes according to the changes of their behavior.
But Mr. Shovelin was different from that.

"Miss Castlewood, take this chair," he said; "a hard one, but
better than a stool, perhaps.  Now how am I to talk to you--as an
inquirer upon business matters, or as the daughter of my old
friend?  Your smile is enough.  Well, and you must talk to me in
the same unreasonable manner.  That being clearly established
between us, let us proceed to the next point.  Your father, my old
friend, wandered from the track, and unfortunately lost his life in
a desolate part of America."

"No; oh no.  It was nothing like that.  He might have been alive,
and here at this moment, if I had not drunk and eaten every bit and
drop of his."

"Now don't, my dear child, don't be so romantic--I mean, look at
things more soberly.  You did as you were ordered, I have no doubt;
George Castlewood always would have that.  He was a most commanding
man.  You do not quite resemble him in that respect, I think."

"Oh, but did he do it, did he do it?" I cried out.  "You were at
school with him, and knew his nature.  Was it possible for him to
do it, Sir?"

"As possible as it is for me to go down to Sevenoaks and shoot my
dear old father, who is spending a green and agreeable old age
there.  Not that your grandfather, if I may say it without causing
pain to you, was either green or agreeable.  He was an uncommonly
sharp old man; I might even say a hard one.  As you never saw him,
you will not think me rude in saying that much.  Your love, of
course, is for your father; and if your father had had a father of
larger spirit about money, he might have been talking to me
pleasantly now, instead of--instead of all these sad things."

"Please not to slip away from me," I said, bluntly, having so often
met with that.  "You believe, as every good person does, that my
father was wholly innocent.  But do tell me who could have done it
instead.  Somebody must have done it; that seems clear."

"Yes," replied Mr. Shovelin, with a look of calm consideration;
"somebody did it, undoubtedly; and that makes the difficulty of the
whole affair.  'Cui bono,' as the lawyers say.  Two persons only
could have had any motive, so far as wealth and fortune go.  The
first and most prominent, your father, who, of course, would come
into every thing (which made the suspicion so hot and strong); and
the other, a very nice gentleman, whom it is wholly impossible to
suspect."

"Are you sure of that?  People have more than suspected--they have
condemned--my father.  After that, I can suspect any body.  Who is
it?  Please to tell me."

"It is the present Lord Castlewood, as he is beginning to be
called.  He would not claim the title, or even put forward his
right in any way, until he had proof of your dear father's death;
and even then he behaved so well--"

"He did it! he did it!" I cried, in hot triumph.  "My father's name
shall be clear of it.  Can there be any doubt that he did it?  How
very simple the whole of it becomes!  Nothing astonishes me, except
the stupidity of people.  He had every thing to gain, and nothing
to lose--a bad man, no doubt--though I never heard of him.  And
putting it all on my father, of course, to come in himself, and
abide his time, till the misery killed my father.  How simple, how
horribly simple, it becomes!"

"You are much too quick, too hot, too sudden.  Excuse me a minute"--
as a silver bell struck--"I am wanted in the next room.  But
before I go, let me give you a glass of cold water, and beg you to
dismiss that new idea from your mind."

I could see, as I took with a trembling hand the water he poured
out for me, that Mr. Shovelin was displeased.  His kind and
handsome face grew hard.  He had taken me for a nice young lady,
never much above the freezing-point, and he had found me boil over
in a moment.  I was sorry to have grieved him; but if he had heard
Betsy Bowen's story, and seen her tell it, perhaps he would have
allowed for me.  I sat down again, having risen in my warmth, and
tried to quiet and command myself by thinking of the sad points
only.  Of these there were plenty to make pictures of, the like of
which had kept me awake all night; and I knew by this time, from
finding so much more of pity than real sympathy, that men think a
woman may well be all tears, but has no right to even the shadow of
a frown.  That is their own prerogative.

And so, when Mr. Shovelin returned, with a bundle of papers which
had also vexed him--to judge by the way in which he threw them
down--I spoke very mildly, and said that I was very sorry for my
display of violence, but that if he knew all, he would pardon me;
and he pardoned me in a moment.

"I was going to tell you, my dear Miss Castlewood," he continued,
gently, "that your sudden idea must be dismissed, for reasons which
I think will content you.  In the first place, the present Lord
Castlewood is, and always has been, an exemplary man, of great
piety and true gentleness; in the next place, he is an invalid, who
can not walk a mile with a crutch to help him, and so he has been
for a great many years; and lastly, if you have no faith in the
rest, he was in Italy at the time, and remained there for some
years afterward.  There he received and sheltered your poor father
after his sad calamity, and was better than a brother to him, as
your father, in a letter to me, declared.  So you see that you must
acquit him."

"That is not enough.  I would beg his pardon on my knees, since he
helped my father, for he must have thought him innocent.  Now, Mr.
Shovelin, you were my father's friend, and you are such a clever
man--"

"How do you know that, young lady?  What a hurry you are always
in!"

"Oh, there can be no doubt about it.  But you must not ask reasons,
if I am so quick.  Now please to tell me what your own conclusion
is.  I can talk of it calmly now; yes, quite calmly, because I
never think of any thing else.  Only tell me what you really
believe, and I will keep it most strictly to myself."

"I am sure you will do that," he answered, smiling, "not only from
the power of your will, my dear, but also because I have nothing to
say.  At first I was strongly inclined to believe (knowing, from my
certainty of your father, that the universal opinion must be wrong)
that the old lord had done it himself; for he always had been of a
headstrong and violent nature, which I am sure will never re-appear
in you.  But the whole of the evidence went against this, and
little as I think of evidence, especially at an inquest, your
father's behavior confirmed what was sworn to.  Your father knew
that his father had not made away with himself in a moment of
passion, otherwise he was not the man to break prison and fly
trial.  He would have said, boldly, 'I am guiltless; there are many
things that I can not explain; I can not help that; I will face it
out.  Condemn me, if you like, and I will suffer.'  From your own
remembrance of your father's nature, is not that certainly the
course he would have taken?"

"I have not an atom of doubt about it.  His flight and persistent
dread of trial puzzle me beyond imagination.  Of his life he was
perfectly reckless, except, at least, for my sake."

"I know that he was," Mr. Shovelin replied; "as a boy he was
wonderfully fearless.  As a man, with a sweet wife and a lot of
children, he might have begun to be otherwise.  But when all those
were gone, and only a poor little baby left--"

"Yes, I suppose I was all that."

"Forgive me.  I am looking back at you.  Who could dream that you
would ever even live, without kith or kin to care for you?  Your
life was saved by some good woman who took you away to Wales.  But
when you were such a poor little relic, and your father could
scarcely have seen you, to have such a mite left must have been
almost a mockery of happiness.  That motive could not have been
strong enough to prevent a man of proud honor from doing what honor
at once demanded.  Your father would have returned and surrendered
as soon as he heard of his dear wife's death, if in the balance
there had been only you."

"Yes, Mr. Shovelin, perhaps he would.  I was never very much as a
counter-balance.  Yet my father loved me."  I could have told him
of the pledge exchanged--"For my sake," and, "Yes, for your sake,"
with love and wedded honor set to fight cold desolate repute--but I
did not say a word about it.

"He loved you afterward, of course.  But a man who has had seven
children is not enthusiastic about a baby.  There must have been a
larger motive."

"But when I was the only one left alive.  Surely I became valuable
then.  I can not have been such a cipher."

"Yes, for a long time you would have been," replied the Saturnian
banker.  "I do not wish to disparage your attractions when you were
a fortnight old.  They may have begun already to be irresistible.
Excuse me; you have led me into the light vein, when speaking of a
most sad matter.  You must blame your self-assertion for it.  All I
wish to convey to you is my belief that something wholly unknown to
us, some dark mystery of which we have no inkling, lies at the
bottom of this terrible affair.  Some strange motive there must
have been, strong enough even to overcome all ordinary sense of
honor, and an Englishman's pride in submitting to the law, whatever
may be the consequence.  Consider that his 'flight from justice,'
as it was called, of course, by every one, condemned his case and
ruined his repute.  Even for that he would not have cared so much
as for his own sense of right.  And though he was a very lively
fellow, as I first remember him, full of tricks and jokes, and so
on, which in this busy age are out of date, I am certain that he
always had a stern sense of right.  One never knows how love
affairs and weakness about children may alter almost any man; but
my firm conviction is that my dear old school-fellow, George
Castlewood, even with a wife and lovely children hanging altogether
upon his life, not only would not have broken jail, but would
calmly have given up his body to be hanged--pardon me, my dear, for
putting it so coarsely--if there had not been something paramount
to override even apparent honor.  What it can have been I have no
idea, and I presume you have none."

"None whatever," I said at once, in answer to his inquiring gaze.
"I am quite taken by surprise; I never even thought of such a
thing.  It has always seemed to me so natural that my dear father,
being shamefully condemned, because appearances were against him,
and nobody could enter into him, should, for the sake of his wife
and children, or even of one child like me, depart or banish
himself, or emigrate, or, as they might call it, run away.
Knowing that he never could have a fair trial, it was the only
straightforward and good and affectionate thing for him to do."

"You can not see things as men see them.  We must not expect it of
you," Mr. Shovelin answered, with a kind but rather too superior
smile, which reminded me a little of dear Uncle Sam when he
listened to what, in his opinion, was only female reason; "but,
dear me, here is Major Hockin come!  Punctuality is the soul of
business."

"So I always declare," cried the Major, who was more than three-
quarters of an hour late, for which in my heart I thanked him.  "My
watch keeps time to a minute, Sir, and its master to a second.
Well, I hope you have settled all questions of finance, and endowed
my young maid with a fortune."

"So far from that," Mr. Shovelin replied, in a tone very different
from that he used to me, "we have not even said one word of
business; all that has been left for your return.  Am I to
understand that you are by appointment or relationship the guardian
of this young lady?"

"God forbid!" cried Major Hockin, shortly.  I thought it very rude
of him, yet I could not help smiling to see how he threw his
glasses up and lifted his wiry crest of hair.  "Not that she is
bad, I mean, but good, very good; indeed, I may say the very best
girl ever known outside of my own family.  My cousin, Colonel
Gundry, who owns an immense estate in the most auriferous district
of all California, but will not spoil his splendid property by
mining, he will--he will tell you the very same thing, Sir."

"I am very glad to hear it," said the banker, smiling at me, while
I wondered what it was, but hoped that it meant my praises.  "Now I
really fear that I must be very brief, though the daughter of my
oldest friend may well be preferred to business.  But now we will
turn at once to business, if you please."



CHAPTER XXVII

COUSIN MONTAGUE


Mr. Shovelin went to a corner of the room, which might be called
his signal-box, having a little row of port-holes like a toy
frigate or accordion, and there he made sounds which brought steps
very promptly, one clerk carrying a mighty ledger, and the other a
small strong-box.

"No plate," Major Hockin whispered to me, shaking his gray crest
with sorrow; "but there may be diamonds, you know, Erema.  One
ounce of diamonds is worth a ton of plate."

"No," said Mr. Shovelin, whose ears were very keen, "I fear that
you will find nothing of mercantile value.  Thank you, Mr.
Robinson; by-and-by perhaps we shall trouble you.  Strictly
speaking, perhaps I should require the presence of your father's
lawyer, or of some one producing probate, ere I open this box, Miss
Castlewood.  But having you here, and Major Hockin, and knowing
what I do about the matter (which is one of personal confidence), I
will dispense with formalities.  We have given your father's
solicitor notice of this deposit, and requested his attention, but
he never has deigned to attend to it; so now we will dispense with
him.  You see that the seal is unbroken; you know your father's
favorite seal, no doubt.  The key is nothing; it was left to my
charge.  You wish that I should open this?"

Certainly I did, and the banker split the seal with an ebony-
handled paper-knife, and very soon unlocked the steel-ribbed box,
whose weight was chiefly of itself.  Some cotton-wool lay on the
top to keep the all-penetrative dust away, and then a sheet of blue
foolscap paper, partly covered with clear but crooked writing, and
under that some little twists of silver paper, screwed as if there
had been no time to tie them, and a packet of letters held together
by a glittering bracelet.

"Poor fellow!" Mr. Shovelin said, softly, while I held my breath,
and the Major had the courtesy to be silent.  "This is his will; of
no value, I fear, in a pecuniary point of view, but of interest to
you his daughter.  Shall I open it, Miss Castlewood, or send it to
his lawyers?"

"Open it, and never think of them," said I.  "Like the rest, they
have forsaken him.  Please to read it to yourself, and then tell
us."

"Oh, I wish I had known this before!" cried the banker, after a
rapid glance or two.  "Very kind, very flattering, I am sure!  Yes,
I will do my duty by him; I wish there was more to be done in the
case.  He has left me sole executor, and trustee of all his
property, for the benefit of his surviving child.  Yet he never
gave me the smallest idea of expecting me to do this for him.
Otherwise, of course, I should have had this old box opened years
ago."

"We must look at things as they are," said Major Hockin, for I
could say nothing.  "The question is, what do you mean to do now?"

"Nothing whatever," said the banker, crisply, being displeased at
the other's tone; and then, seeing my surprise, he addressed
himself to me:  "Nothing at present, but congratulate myself upon
my old friend's confidence, and, as Abernethy said, 'take advice.'
A banker must never encroach upon the province of the lawyer.  But
so far as a layman may judge, Major Hockin, I think you will have
to transfer to me the care of this young lady."

"I shall be only too happy, I assure you," the Major answered,
truthfully.  "My wife has a great regard for her, and so have I--
the very greatest, the strongest regard, and warm parental
feelings; as you know, Erema.  But--but, I am not so young as I
was; and I have to develop my property."

"Of which she no longer forms a part," Mr. Shovelin answered, with
a smile at me, which turned into pleasure my momentary pain at the
other's calm abandonment.  "You will find me prompt and proud to
claim her, as soon as I am advised that this will is valid; and
that I shall learn to-morrow."

In spite of pride, or by its aid, my foolish eyes were full of
tears, and I gave him a look of gratitude which reminded him of my
father, as he said in so many words.

"Oh, I hope it is valid!  How I hope it is!" I exclaimed, turning
round to the Major, who smiled rather grimly, and said he hoped so
too.

"But surely," he continued, "as we are all here, we should not
neglect the opportunity of inspecting the other contents of this
box.  To me it appears that we are bound to do so; that it is our
plain duty to ascertain--Why, there might even be a later will.
Erema, my dear, you must be most anxious to get to the bottom of
it."

So I was, but desired even more that his curiosity should be
foiled.  "We must leave that to Mr. Shovelin," I said.

"Then for the present we will seal it down again," the banker
answered, quietly; "we can see that there is no other will, and a
later one would scarcely be put under this.  The other little
packets, whatever they may be, are objects of curiosity, perhaps,
rather than of importance.  They will keep till we have more
leisure."

"We have taken up a great deal of your time, Sir, I am sure," said
the Major, finding that he could take no more.  "We ought to be,
and we are, most grateful."

"Well," the banker answered, as we began to move, "such things do
not happen every day.  But there is no friend like an old friend,
Erema, as I mean to call you now.  I was to have been your
godfather; but I fear that you never have been baptized."

"What!" cried the Major, staring at us both.  "Is such a thing
possible in a Christian land?  Oh, how I have neglected my duty to
the Church!  Come back with me to Bruntsea, and my son shall do it.
The church there is under my orders, I should hope; and we will
have a dinner party afterward.  What a horrible neglect of duty!"

"But how could I help it?" I exclaimed, with some terror at Major
Hockin's bristling hair.  "I can not remember--I am sure I can not
say.  It may have been done in France, or somewhere, if there was
no time in England.  At any rate, my father is not to be blamed."

"Papistical baptism is worse than none," the Major said,
impressively.  "Never mind, my dear, we will make that all right.
You shall not be a savage always.  We will take the opportunity to
change your name.  Erema is popish and outlandish; one scarcely
knows how to pronounce it.  You shall have a good English Christian
name--Jemima, Jane, or Sophy.  Trust me to know a good name.  Trust
me."

"Jemima!" I cried.  "Oh, Mr. Shovelin, save me from ever being
called Jemima!  Rather would I never be baptized at all."

"I am no judge of names," he answered, smiling, as he shook hands
with us; "but, unless I am a very bad judge of faces, you will be
called just what you please."

"And I please to be called what my father called me.  It may be
unlucky, as a gentleman told me, who did not know how to pronounce
it.  However, it will do very well for me.  You wish to see me,
then, to-morrow, Mr. Shovelin?"

"If you please; but later in the day, when I am more at leisure.  I
do not run away very early.  Come at half past four to this door,
and knock.  I hear every sound at this door in my room; and the
place will be growing quiet then."

He showed us out into a narrow alley through a heavy door sheathed
with iron, and soon we recovered the fair light of day, and the
brawl and roar of a London street.

"Now where shall we go?" the Major asked, as soon as he had found a
cab again; for he was very polite in that way.  "You kept early
hours with your 'uncle Sam,' as you call Colonel Gundry, a slow-
witted man, but most amusing when he likes, as slow-witted men very
often are.  Now will you come and dine with me?  I can generally
dine, as you, with virtuous indignation, found out at Southampton.
But we are better friends now, Miss Heathen."

"Yes, I have more than I can ever thank you for," I answered, very
gravely, for I never could become jocose to order, and sadness
still was uppermost.  "I will go where you like.  I am quite at
your orders, because Betsy Bowen is busy now.  She will not have
done her work till six o'clock."

"Well done!" he cried.  "Bravo, Young America!  Frankness is the
finest of all good manners.  And what a lot of clumsy deception it
saves!  Then let us go and dine.  I will imitate your truthfulness.
It was two words for myself, and one for you.  The air of London
always makes me hungry after too much country air.  It is wrong
altogether, but I can not help it.  And going along, I smell hungry
smells coming out of deep holes with a plate at the top.  Hungry I
mean to a man who has known what absolute starvation is--when a man
would thank God for a blue-bottle fly who had taken his own nip any
where.  When I see the young fellows at the clubs pick this, and
poke that, and push away the other, may I be d----d--my dear, I beg
your pardon.  Cabby, to the 'Grilled Bone and Scolloped Cockle,' at
the bottom of St. Ventricle Lane, you know."

This place seemed, from what the Major said, to have earned repute
for something special, something esteemed by the very clever
people, and only to be found in true virtue here.  And he told me
that luxury and self-indulgence were the greatest sins of the
present age, and how he admired a man who came here to protest
against Epicureans, by dining (liquors not included) for the sum of
three and sixpence.

All this, no doubt, was wise and right; but I could not attend to
it properly now, and he might take me where he would, and have all
the talking to himself, according to his practice.  And I might not
even have been able to say what this temple of bones and cockles
was like, except for a little thing which happened there.  The
room, at the head of a twisting staircase, was low and dark, and
furnished almost like a farmhouse kitchen.  It had no carpet, nor
even a mat, but a floor of black timber, and a ceiling colored
blue, with stars and comets, and a full moon near the fire-place.
On either side of the room stood narrow tables endwise to the
walls, inclosed with high-backed seats like settles, forming thus a
double set of little stalls or boxes, with scarcely space enough
between for waiters, more urgent than New York firemen, to push
their steaming and breathless way.

"Square or round, miss?" said one of them to me as soon as the
Major had set me on a bench, and before my mind had time to rally
toward criticism of the knives and forks, which deprecated any such
ordeal; and he cleverly whipped a stand for something dirty, over
something still dirtier, on the cloth.

"I don't understand what you mean," I replied to his highly zealous
aspect, while the Major sat smiling dryly at my ignorance, which
vexed me.  "I have never received such a question before.  Major
Hockin, will you kindly answer him?"

"Square," said the Major; "square for both."  And the waiter, with
a glance of pity at me, hurried off to carry out his order.

"Erema, your mind is all up in the sky," my companion began to
remonstrate.  "You ought to know better after all your travels."

"Then the sky should not fall and confuse me so," I said, pointing
to the Milky Way, not more than a yard above me; "but do tell me
what he meant, if you can.  Is it about the formation of the soup?"

"Hush, my dear.  Soup is high treason here until night, when they
make it of the leavings.  His honest desire was to know whether you
would have a grilled bone of mutton, which is naturally round, you
know, or of beef, which, by the same law of nature, seems always to
be square, you know."

"Oh, I see," I replied, with some confusion, not at his osteology,
but at the gaze of a pair of living and lively eyes fastened upon
me.  A gentleman, waiting for his bill, had risen in the next low
box, and stood calmly (as if he had done all his duty to himself)
gazing over the wooden back at me, who thus sat facing him.  And
Major Hockin, following my glance, stood up and turned round to see
to it.

"What!  Cousin Montague!  Bless my heart, who could have dreamed of
lighting on you here?  Come in, my dear follow; there is plenty of
room.  Let me introduce you to my new ward, Miss Erema Castlewood.
Miss Castlewood, this is Sir Montague Hockin, the son of my
lamented first cousin Sir Rufus, of whom you have heard so much.
Well, to be sure!  I have not seen you for an age.  My dear fellow,
now how are you?"

"Miss Castlewood, please not to move; I sit any where.  Major, I am
most delighted to see you.  Over and over again I have been at the
point of starting for Bruntsea Island--it is an island now, isn't
it?  My father would never believe that it was till I proved it
from the number of rabbits that came up.  However, not a desolate
island now, if it contains you and all your energies, and Miss
Castlewood, as well as Mrs. Hockin."

"It is not an island, and it never shall be," the Major cried,
knocking a blue plate over, and spilling the salt inauspiciously.
"It never was an island, and it never shall be.  My intention is to
reclaim it altogether.  Oh, here come the squares.  Well done! well
done!  I quite forget the proper thing to have to drink.  Are the
cockles in the pan, Mr. Waiter?  Quite right, then; ten minutes is
the proper time; but they know that better than I do.  I am very
sorry, Montague, that you have dined."

"Surely you would not call this a dinner; I take my true luncheon
afterward.  But lately my appetite has been so bad that it must be
fed up at short intervals.  You can understand that, perhaps, Miss
Castlewood.  It makes the confectioners' fortunes, you know.  The
ladies once came only twice to feed, but now they come three times,
I am assured by a young man who knows all about it.  And cherry
brandy is the mildest form of tipple."

"Shocking scandal! abominable talk!" cried the Major, who took
every thing at its word.  "I have heard all that sort of stuff ever
since I was as high as this table.  Waiter, show me this
gentleman's bill.  Oh well, oh well! you have not done so very
badly.  Two squares and a round, with a jug of Steinberg, and a
pint of British stout with your Stilton.  If this is your ante-
lunch, what will you do when you come to your real luncheon?  But I
must not talk now; you may have it as you please."

"The truth of it is, Miss Castlewood," said the young man, while I
looked with some curiosity at my frizzling bone, with the cover
just whisked off, and drops of its juice (like the rays of a
lustre) shaking with soft inner wealth--"the truth of it is just
this, and no more: we fix our minds and our thoughts, and all the
rest of our higher intelligence, a great deal too much upon our
mere food."

"No doubt we do," I was obliged to answer.  "It is very sad to
think of, as soon as one has dined.  But does that reflection
occur, as it should, at the proper time to be useful--I mean when
we are hungry?"

"I fear not; I fear that it is rather praeterite than practical."

"No big words now, my dear fellow," cried the Major.  "You have had
your turn; let us have ours.  But, Erema, you are eating nothing.
Take a knife and fork, Montague, and help her.  The beauty of these
things consists entirely, absolutely, essentially, I may say, in
their having the smoke rushing out of them.  A gush of steam like
this should follow every turn of the knife.  But there!  I am
spoiling every bit by talking so."

"Is that any fault of mine?" asked Sir Montague, in a tone which
made me look at him.  The voice was not harsh, nor rough, nor
unpleasant, yet it gave me the idea that it could be all three, and
worse than all three, upon occasion.  So I looked at him, which I
had refrained from doing, to see whether his face confirmed that
idea.  To the best of my perception, it did not.  Sir Montague
Hockin was rather good-looking, so far as form and color go, having
regular features, and clear blue eyes, very beautiful teeth, and a
golden beard.  His appearance was grave, but not morose, as if he
were always examining things and people without condemning them.
It was evident that he expected to take the upper hand in general,
to play the first fiddle, to hold the top saw, to "be helped to all
the stuffing of the pumpkin," as dear Uncle Sam was fond of saying.
Of moderate stature, almost of middle age, and dressed nicely,
without any gewgaws, which look so common upon a gentleman's front,
he was likely to please more people than he displeased at first on-
sight.

The Major was now in the flush of goodwill, having found his dinner
genial; and being a good man, he yielded to a little sympathetic
anger with those who had done less justice to themselves.  And in
this state of mind he begged us to take note of one thing--that his
ward should be christened in Bruntsea Church, as sure as all the
bells were his, according to their inscriptions, no later than next
Thursday week, that being the day for a good sirloin; and if Sir
Montague failed to come to see how they could manage things under
proper administration, he might be sure of one thing, if no more--
that Major Hockin would never speak to him again.



CHAPTER XXVIII

A CHECK


So many things now began to open upon me, to do and to think of,
that I scarcely knew which to begin with.  I used to be told how
much wiser it was not to interfere with any thing--to let by-gones
be by-gones, and consider my own self only.  But this advice never
came home to my case, and it always seemed an unworthy thing even
to be listening to it.  And now I saw reason to be glad for
thanking people who advised me, and letting them go on to advise
themselves.  For if I had listened to Major Hockin, or even Uncle
Sam for that part, where must I have been now?  Why, simply knowing
no more than as a child I knew, and feeling miserable about it.
Whereas I had now at least something to go upon, and enough for a
long time to occupy my mind.  The difficulty was to know what to do
first, and what to resolve to leave undone, or at least to put off
for the present.  One of my special desires had been to discover
that man, that Mr. Goad, who had frightened me so about two years
back, and was said to be lost in the snow-drifts.  But nobody like
him had ever been found, to the sorrow of the neighborhood; and
Sylvester himself had been disappointed, not even to know what to
do with his clothes.

His card, however, before he went off, had been left to the care of
Uncle Sam for security of the 15,000 dollars; and on it was
printed, with a glazing and much flourish, "Vypan, Goad, and
Terryer:  Private Inquiry Office, Little England Polygon, W.C."
Uncle Sam, with a grunt and a rise of his foot, had sent this low
card flying to the fire, after I had kissed him so for all his
truth and loveliness; but I had caught it and made him give it to
me, as was only natural.  And having this now, I had been quite
prepared to go and present it at its mean address, and ask what
they wanted me for in America, and what they would like to do with
me now, taking care to have either the Major close at hand, or else
a policeman well recommended.

But now I determined to wait a little while (if Betsy Bowen's
opinion should be at all the same as mine was), and to ask Mr.
Shovelin what he thought about it, before doing any thing that
might arouse a set of ideas quite opposite to mine, and so cause
trouble afterward.  And being unable to think any better for the
time than to wait and be talked to, I got Major Hockin to take me
back again to the right number in European Square.

Here I found Mrs. Strouss (born Betsy Bowen) ready and eager to
hear a great deal more than I myself had heard that day.  On the
other hand, I had many questions, arising from things said to me,
to which I required clear answers; and it never would do for her to
suppose that because she had known me come into this world, she
must govern the whole of my course therein.  But it cost many words
and a great deal of demeanor to teach her that, good and faithful
as she was, I could not be always under her.  Yet I promised to
take her advice whenever it agreed with my own opinions.

This pleased her, and she promised to offer it always, knowing how
well it would be received, and she told all her lodgers that they
might ring and ring, for she did not mean to answer any of their
bells; but if they wanted any thing, they must go and fetch it.
Being Germans, who are the most docile of men in England, whatever
they may be at home, they made no complaint, but retired to their
pipes in a pleasant condition of surprise at London habits.

Mrs. Strouss, being from her earliest years of a thrifty and
reputable turn of mind, had managed, in a large yet honest way, to
put by many things which must prove useful in the long-run, if kept
long enough.  And I did hear--most careful as I am to pay no
attention to petty rumors--that the first thing that moved the
heart of Herr Strouss, and called forth his finest feelings, was a
winding-up chair, which came out to make legs, with a pocket for
tobacco, and a flat place for a glass.

This was certainly a paltry thought; and to think of such low
things grieved me.  And now, when I looked at Mr. Strouss himself,
having heard of none of these things yet, I felt that my nurse
might not have done her best, yet might have done worse, when she
married him.  For he seemed to have taken a liking toward me, and
an interest in my affairs, which redounded to his credit, if he
would not be too inquisitive.  And now I gladly allowed him to be
present, and to rest in the chair which had captivated him,
although last night I could scarcely have borne to have heard in
his presence what I had to hear.  To-night there was nothing
distressful to be said, compared, at least, with last night's tale;
whereas there were several questions to be put, in some of which
(while scouting altogether Uncle Sam's low estimate) two females
might, with advantage perhaps, obtain an opinion from the stronger
sex.

And now, as soon as I had told my two friends as well as I could
what had happened at the bank (with which they were pleased, as I
had been), those questions arose, and were, I believe, chiefly to
the following purport--setting aside the main puzzle of all.

Why did my father say, on that dreadful morning, that if his father
was dead, he himself had killed or murdered him?  Betsy believed,
when she came to think, that he had even used the worse word of
these two.

How could the fatal shot have been discharged from his pistol--as
clearly it had been--a pistol, moreover, which, by his own account,
as Betsy now remembered, he had left in his quarters near
Chichester?

What was that horrible disease which had carried off all my poor
little brothers and sisters, and frightened kind neighbors and
servants away?  Betsy said it was called "Differeria," as differing
so much from all other complaints.  I had never yet heard of this,
but discovered, without asking further than of Mr. Strouss, that
she meant that urgent mandate for a levy of small angels which is
called on earth "diphtheria."

Who had directed those private inquirers, Vypan, Goad, and Terryer,
to send to the far West a member of their firm to get legal proof
of my dear father's death, and to bring me back, if possible?  The
present Lord Castlewood never would have done so, according to what
Mr. Shovelin said; it was far more likely that (but for weak
health) he would have come forth himself to seek me, upon any
probable tidings.  At once a religious and chivalrous man, he would
never employ mean agency.  And while thinking of that, another
thought occurred--What had induced that low man Goad to give Uncle
Sam a date wrong altogether for the crime which began all our
misery?  He had put it at ten, now twelve, years back, and dated it
in November, whereas it had happened in September month, six years
and two months before the date he gave.  This question was out of
all answer to me, and also to Mrs. Strouss herself; but Herr
Strouss, being of a legal turn, believed that the law was to blame
for it.  He thought that proceedings might be bound to begin, under
the Extradition Act, within ten years of the date of the crime; or
there might be some other stipulation compelling Mr. Goad to add
one to all his falsehoods; and not knowing any thing about it, both
of us thought it very likely.

Again, what could have been that last pledge which passed between
my father and mother, when they said "good-by" to one another, and
perhaps knew that it was forever, so far as this bodily world is
concerned?  Was it any thing about a poor little sleeping and
whimpering creature like myself, who could not yet make any
difference to any living being except the mother?  Or was it
concerning far more important things, justice, clear honor, good-
will, and duty, such as in the crush of time come upward with high
natures?  And if so, was it not a promise from my mother, knowing
every thing, to say nothing, even at the quivering moment of lying
beneath the point of death?

This was a new idea for Betsy, who had concluded from the very
first that the pledge must be on my father's part--to wit, that he
had vowed not to surrender, or hurt himself in any way, for the
sake of his dear wife.  And to my suggestion she could only say
that she never had seen it in that light; but the landings were so
narrow and the walls so soft that, with all her duty staring in her
face, neither she, nor the best servant ever in an apron, could be
held responsible to repeat their very words.  And her husband said
that this was good--very good--so good as ever could be; and what
was to show now from the mouth of any one, after fifteen, sixteen,
eighteen, the years?

After this I had no other word to say, being still too young to
contradict people duly married and of one accord.  No other word, I
mean, upon that point; though still I had to ask, upon matters more
immediate, what was the next thing for me, perhaps, to do.  And
first of all it was settled among us that for me to present myself
at the head-quarters of Vypau, Goad, and Terryer would be a very
clumsy and stupid proceeding, and perhaps even dangerous.  Of
course they would not reveal to me the author of those kind
inquiries about myself, which perhaps had cost the firm a very
valuable life, the life of Mr. Goad himself.  And while I should
learn less than nothing from them, they would most easily extract
from me, or at any rate find out afterward, where I was living, and
what I was doing, and how I could most quietly be met and baffled,
and perhaps even made away with, so as to save all further trouble.

Neither was that the only point upon which I resolved to do
nothing.  Herr Strouss was a very simple-minded man, yet full of
true sagacity, and he warmly advised, in his very worst English,
that none but my few trusty friends should be told of my visit to
this country.

"Why for make to know your enemies?" he asked, with one finger on
his forehead, which was his mode of indicating caution.  "Enemies
find out vere soon, too soon, soon enough.  Begin to plot--no, no,
young lady begin first.  Vilhelmina, your man say the right.  Is it
good, or is it bad?"

It appeared to us both to be good, so far as might be judged for
the present; and therefore I made up my mind to abstain from
calling even on my father's agent, unless Mr. Shovelin should think
it needful.  In that and other matters I would act by his advice;
and so with better spirits than I long had owned, at finding so
much kindness, and with good hopes of the morrow, I went to the
snug little bedroom which my good nurse had provided.

Alas!  What was my little grief on the morrow, compared to the deep
and abiding loss of many by a good man's death?  When I went to the
door at which I had been told to knock, it was long before I got an
answer.  And even when somebody came at last, so far from being my
guardian, it was only a poor old clerk, who said, "Hush, miss!" and
then prayed that the will of the Lord might be done.  "Couldn't you
see the half-shutters up?" he continued, rather roughly.  "'Tis a
bad job for many a poor man to-day.  And it seems no more than
yesterday I was carrying him about!"

"Do you mean Mr. Shovelin?" I asked.  "Is he poorly?  Has any thing
happened?  I can wait, or come again."

"The Lord has taken him to the mansions of the just, from his
private address at Sydenham Hill.  A burning and a shining light!
May we like him be found watching in that day, with our lamps
trimmed and our loins girded!"

For the moment I was too surprised to speak, and the kind old man
led me into the passage, seeing how pale and faint I was.  He
belonged, like his master, and a great part of their business, to a
simple religious persuasion, or faith, which now is very seldom
heard of.

"It was just in this way," he said, as soon as tears had enabled me
to speak--for even at the first sight I had felt affection toward
my new guardian.  "Our master is a very punctual man, for five-and-
thirty years never late--never late once till this morning.  Excuse
me, miss, I ought to be ashamed.  The Lord knoweth what is best for
us.  Well, you threw him out a good bit yesterday, and there was
other troubles.  And he had to work late last night, I hear; for
through his work he would go, be it anyhow--diligent in business,
husbanding the time--and when he came down to breakfast this
morning, he prayed with his household as usual, but they noticed
his voice rather weak and queer; and the mistress looked at him
when he got up from his knees; but he drank his cup of tea and he
ate his bit of toast, which was all he ever took for breakfast.
But presently when his cob came up to the door--for he always rode
in to business, miss, no matter what the weather was--he went to
kiss his wife and his daughters all round, according to their ages;
and he got through them all, when away he fell down, with the
riding-whip in one hand, and expired on a piece of Indian matting."

"How terrible!" I exclaimed, with a sob.  And the poor old man, in
spite of all his piety, was sobbing.

"No, miss; not a bit of terror about it, to a man prepared as he
was.  He had had some warning just a year ago; and the doctors all
told him he must leave off work.  He could no more do without his
proper work than he could without air or victuals.  What this old
established concern will do without him, our Divine Master only
knows.  And a pinch coming on in Threadneedle Street, I hear--but I
scarcely know what I am saying, miss; I was thinking of the camel
and the needle."

"I will not repeat what you have not meant to tell," I answered,
seeing his confusion, and the clumsy turn he had made of it.  "Only
tell me what dear Mr. Shovelin died of."

"Heart-disease, miss.  You might know in a moment.  Nothing kills
like that.  His poor father died of it, thirty years agone.  And
the better people are, the more they get it."



CHAPTER XXIX

AT THE PUMP


This blow was so sharp and heavy that I lost for the moment all
power to go on.  The sense of ill fortune fell upon me, as it falls
upon stronger people, when a sudden gleam of hope, breaking through
long troubles, mysteriously fades away.

Even the pleasure of indulging in the gloom of evil luck was a
thing to be ashamed of now, when I thought of that good man's
family thus, without a moment's warning, robbed of love and
hope and happiness.  But Mrs. Strouss, who often brooded on
predestination, imbittered all my thoughts by saying, or rather
conveying without words, that my poor fathers taint of some Divine
ill-will had re-appeared, and even killed his banker.

Betsy held most Low-Church views, by nature being a Dissenter.  She
called herself a Baptist, and in some strange way had stopped me
thus from ever having been baptized.  I do not understand these
things, and the battles fought about them; but knowing that my
father was a member of the English Church, I resolved to be the
same, and told Betsy that she ought not to set up against her
master's doctrine.  Then she herself became ashamed of trying to
convert me, not only because of my ignorance (which made argument
like shooting into the sea), but chiefly because she could mention
no one of title with such theology.

This settled the question at once; and remembering (to my shame)
what opinions I had held even of Suan Isco, while being in the very
same predicament myself, reflecting also what Uncle Sam and Firm
would have thought of me, had they known it, I anticipated the
Major and his dinner party by going to a quiet ancient clergyman,
who examined me, and being satisfied with little, took me to an old
City church of deep and damp retirement.  And here, with a great
din of traffic outside, and a mildewy depth of repose within, I was
presented by certain sponsors (the clerk and his wife and his
wife's sister), and heard good words, and hope to keep the
impression, both outward and inward, gently made upon me.

I need not say that I kept, and now received with authority, my old
name; though the clerk prefixed an aspirate to it, and indulged in
two syllables only.  But the ancient parson knew its meaning, and
looked at me with curiosity; yet, being a gentleman of the old
school, put never a question about it.

Now this being done, and full tidings thereof sent off to Mrs.
Hockin, to save trouble to the butcher, or other disappointment, I
scarcely knew how to be moving next, though move I must before very
long.  For it cost me a great deal of money to stay in European
Square like this, albeit Herr Strouss was of all men the most
generous, by his own avowal, and his wife (by the same test) noble-
hearted among women.  Yet each of them spoke of the other's
pecuniary views in such a desponding tone (when the other was out
of the way), and so lamented to have any thing at all to say about
cash--by compulsion of the other--also both, when met together,
were so large and reckless, and not to be insulted by a thought of
payment, that it came to pass that my money did nothing but run
away between them.

This was not their fault at all, but all my own, for being unable
to keep my secret about the great nugget.  The Major had told me
not to speak of this, according to wise experience; and I had not
the smallest intention of doing an atom of mischief in that way;
but somehow or other it came out one night when I was being pitied
for my desolation.  And all the charges against me began to be
doubled from that moment.

If this had been all, I should not have cared so much, being quite
content that my money should go as fast as it came in to me.  But
there was another thing here which cost me as much as my board and
lodgings and all the rest of my expenses.  And that was the iron
pump in European Square.  For this pump stood in the very centre of
a huddled district of famine, filth, and fever.  When once I had
seen from the leads of our house the quag of reeking life around,
the stubs and snags of chimney-pots, the gashes among them entitled
streets, and the broken blains called houses, I was quite ashamed
of paying any thing to become a Christian.

Betsy, who stood by me, said that it was better than it used to be,
and that all these people lived in comfort of their own ideas,
fiercely resented all interference, and were good to one another in
their own rough way.  It was more than three years since there had
been a single murder among them, and even then the man who was
killed confessed that he deserved it.  She told me, also, that in
some mining district of Wales, well known to her, things were a
great deal worse than here, although the people were not half so
poor.  And finally, looking at a ruby ring which I had begged her
to wear always, for the sake of her truth to me, she begged me to
be wiser than to fret about things that I could not change.  "All
these people, whose hovels I saw, had the means of grace before
them, and if they would not stretch forth their hands, it was only
because they were vessels of wrath.  Her pity was rather for our
poor black brethren who had never enjoyed no opportunities, and
therefore must be castaways."

Being a stranger, and so young, and accustomed to receive my
doctrine (since first I went to America), I dropped all intention
of attempting any good in places where I might be murdered.  But I
could not help looking at the pump which was in front, and the poor
things who came there for water, and, most of all, the children.
With these it was almost the joy of the day, and perhaps the only
joy, to come into this little open space and stand, and put their
backs up stiffly, and stare about, ready for some good luck to turn
up--such as a horse to hold, or a man coming out of the docks with
a half-penny to spare--and then, in failure of such golden hope, to
dash about, in and out, after one another, splashing, and kicking
over their own cans, kettles, jars, or buckets, and stretching
their dirty little naked legs, and showing very often fine white
chests, and bright teeth wet with laughter.  And then, when this
chivy was done, and their quick little hearts beat aloud with
glory, it was pretty to see them all rally round the pump, as
crafty as their betters, and watching with sly humor each other's
readiness to begin again.

Then suddenly a sense of neglected duty would seize some little
body with a hand to its side, nine times out of ten a girl,
whose mother, perhaps, lay sick at home, and a stern idea of
responsibility began to make the buckets clank.  Then might you
see, if you cared to do so, orderly management have its turn--a
demand for pins and a tucking up of skirts (which scarcely seemed
worthy of the great young fuss), large children scolding little
ones not a bit more muddy than themselves, the while the very least
child of all, too young as yet for chivying, and only come for
company, would smooth her comparatively clean frock down, and look
up at her sisters with condemnatory eyes.

Trivial as they were, these things amused me much, and made a
little checker of reflected light upon the cloud of selfish gloom,
especially when the real work began, and the children, vying with
one another, set to at the iron handle.  This was too large for
their little hands to grasp, and by means of some grievance inside,
or perhaps through a cruel trick of the plumber, up went the long
handle every time small fingers were too confiding, and there it
stood up like the tail of a rampant cow, or a branch inaccessible,
until an old shawl or the cord of a peg-top could be cast up on
high to reduce it.  But some engineering boy, "highly gifted," like
Uncle Sam's self, "with machinery," had discovered an ingenious
cure for this.  With the help of the girls he used to fasten a fat
little thing, about twelve months old, in the bend at the middle of
the handle, and there (like a ham on the steelyard) hung this baby
and enjoyed seesaw, and laughed at its own utility.

I never saw this, and the splashing and dribbling and play and
bright revelry of water, without forgetting all sad counsel and
discretion, and rushing out as if the dingy pump were my own
delicious Blue River.  People used to look at me from the windows
with pity and astonishment, supposing me to be crazed or frantic,
especially the Germans.  For to run out like this, without a pocket
full of money, would have been insanity; and to run out with it, to
their minds, was even clearer proof of that condition.  For the
money went as quickly as the water of the pump; on this side and on
that it flew, each child in succession making deeper drain upon it,
in virtue of still deeper woes.  They were dreadful little story-
tellers, I am very much afraid; and the long faces pulled, as soon
as I came out, in contrast with all the recent glee and frolic,
suggested to even the youngest charity suspicions of some
inconsistency.  However, they were so ingenious and clever that
they worked my pockets like the pump itself, only with this unhappy
difference, that the former had no inexhaustible spring of silver,
or even of copper.

And thus, by a reason (as cogent as any of more exalted nature),
was I driven back to my head-quarters, there to abide till a fresh
supply should come.  For Uncle Sam, generous and noble as he was,
did not mean to let me melt all away at once my share of the great
Blue River nugget, any more than to make ducks and drakes of his
own.  Indeed, that rock of gold was still untouched, and healthily
reposing in a banker's cellar in the good town of Sacramento.
People were allowed to go in and see it upon payment of a dollar,
and they came out so thirsty from feasting upon it that a bar was
set up, and a pile of money made--all the gentlemen, and ladies
even worse than they, taking a reckless turn about small money
after seeing that.  But dear Uncle Sam refused every cent of the
profit of all this excitable work.  It was wholly against his wish
that any thing so artificial should be done at all, and his sense
of religion condemned it.  He said, in his very first letter to me,
that even a heathen must acknowledge this champion nugget as the
grandest work of the Lord yet discovered in America--a country more
full of all works of the Lord than the rest of the world put
together.  And to keep it in a cellar, without any air or sun,
grated harshly upon his ideas of right.

However, he did not expect every body to think exactly as he did,
and if they could turn a few dollars upon it, they were welcome, as
having large families.  And the balance might go to his credit
against the interest on any cash advanced to him.  Not that he
meant to be very fast with this, never having run into debt in all
his life.

This, put shortly, was the reason why I could not run to the pump
any longer.  I had come into England with money enough to last me
(according to the Sawyer's calculations) for a year and a half of
every needful work; whereas, in less than half that time, I was
arriving at my last penny.  This reminded me of my dear father, who
was nearly always in trouble about money (although so strictly
upright); and at first I was proud to be like him about this, till
I came to find the disadvantages.

It must not even for a moment be imagined that this made any
difference in the behavior of any one toward me.  Mrs. Strouss,
Herr Strouss, the lady on the stairs, and a very clever woman who
had got no rooms, but was kindly accommodated every where, as well
as the baron on the first floor front, and the gentleman from a
hotel at Hanover, who looked out the other way, and even the
children at the pump--not one made any difference toward me (as an
enemy might, perhaps, suppose) because my last half crown was gone.
It was admitted upon every side that I ought to be forgiven for my
random cast of money, because I knew no better, and was sure to
have more in a very little time.  And the children of the pump came
to see me go away, through streets of a mile and a half, I should
think; and they carried my things, looking after one another, so
that none could run away.  And being forbidden at the platform
gate, for want of respectability, they set up a cheer, and I waved
my hat, and promised, amidst great applause, to come back with it
full of sixpences.



CHAPTER XXX

COCKS AND COXCOMBS


Major Hockin brought the only fly as yet to be found in Bruntsea,
to meet me at Newport, where the railway ended at present, for want
of further encouragement.

"Very soon you go," he cried out to the bulkheads, or buffers, or
whatever are the things that close the career of a land-engine.
"Station-master, you are very wise in putting in your very best
cabbage plants there.  You understand your own company.  Well done!
If I were to offer you a shilling apiece for those young early
Yorks, what would you say, now?"

"Weel, a think I should say nah, Sir," the Scotch station-master
made answer, with a grin, while he pulled off his cap of office and
put on a dissolute Glengary.  "They are a veery fine young kail,
that always pays for planting."

"The villain!" said the Major, as I jumped into the fly.  "However,
I suppose he does quite right.  Set a thief to watch a thief.  The
company are big rogues, and he tries to be a bigger.  We shall cut
through his garden in about three months, just when his cabbages
are getting firm, and their value will exceed that of pine-apples.
The surveyor will come down and certify, and the 'damage to crops'
will be at least five pounds, when they have no right to sow even
mustard and cress, and a saucepan would hold all the victuals on
the land."

From this I perceived that my host was as full of his speculative
schemes as ever; and soon he made the driver of the one-horse fly
turn aside from the unfenced road and take the turf.  "Coachman,"
he cried, "just drive along the railway; you won't have the chance
much longer."

There was no sod turned yet and no rod set up; but the driver
seemed to know what was meant, and took us over the springy turf
where once had run the river.  And the salt breath of the sea came
over the pebble ridge, full of appetite and briskness, after so
much London.

"It is one of the saddest things I ever heard of," Major Hockin
began to say to me.  "Poor Shovelin! poor Shovelin!  A man of large
capital--the very thing we want.  It might have been the making of
this place.  I have very little doubt that I must have brought him
to see our great natural advantages--the beauty of the situation,
the salubrity of the air, the absence of all clay, or marsh, or
noxious deposit, the bright crisp turf, and the noble underlay of
chalk, which (if you perceive my meaning) can not retain any damp,
but transmits it into sweet natural wells.  Why, driver, where the
devil are you driving us?"

"No fear, your honor.  I know every trick of it.  It won't come
over the wheels, I do believe, and it does all the good in the
world to his sand-cracks.  Whoa-ho, my boy, then!  And the young
lady's feet might go up upon the cushion, if her boots is thin,
Sir; and Mr. Rasper will excuse of it."

"What the"--something hot--"do you mean, Sir?" the Major roared
over the water, which seemed to be deepening as we went on.  "Pull
out this instant; pull out, I tell you, or you shall have three
months' hard labor.  May I be d----d now--my dear, I beg your
pardon for speaking with such sincerity--I simply mean, may I go
straightway to the devil, if I don't put this fellow on the tread-
mill.  Oh, you can pull out now, then, can you?"

"If your honor pleases, I never did pull in," the poor driver
answered, being frightened at the excitement of the lord of the
manor.  "My orders was, miss, to drive along the line coming on now
just to Bruntsea, and keep in the middle of that same I did, and
this here little wet is a haxident--a haxident of the full moon, I
do assure you, and the wind coming over the sea, as you might say.
These pebbles is too round, miss, to stick to one another; you
couldn't expect it of them; and sometimes the water here and there
comes a-leaking like through the bottom.  I have seed it so, ever
since I can remember."

"I don't believe a word of it," the Major said, as we waited a
little for the vehicle to drain, and I made a nosegay of the bright
sea flowers.  "Tell me no lies, Sir; you belong to the West
Bruntseyans, and you have driven us into a vile bog to scare me.
They have bribed you.  I see the whole of it.  Tell me the truth,
and you shall have five shillings."

The driver looked over the marshes as if he had never received such
an offer before.  Five shillings for a falsehood would have seemed
the proper thing, and have called for a balance of considerations,
and made a demand upon his energies.  But to earn five shillings by
the truth had never fallen to his luck before; and he turned to me,
because I smiled, and he said, "Will you taste the water, miss?"

"Bless me!" cried the Major, "now I never thought of that.  Common
people have such ways about things they are used to!  I might have
stood here for a month, and never have thought of that way to
settle it.  Ridiculously simple.  Give me a taste, Erema.  Ah, that
is the real beauty of our coast, my dear!  The strongest proportion
of the saline element--I should know the taste of it any where.  No
sea-weed, no fishy particles, no sludge, no beards of oysters.  The
pure, uncontaminated, perfect brine, that sets every male and
female on his legs, varicose, orthopedic--I forget their
scientifics, but I know the smack of it."

"Certainly," I said, "it is beautifully salt.  It will give you an
appetite for dinner, Major Hockin.  I could drink a pint of it,
after all that smoke.  But don't you think it is a serious thing
for the sea itself to come pouring through the bottom of this
pebble bank in this way?"

"Not at all.  No, I rather like it.  It opens up many strictly
practical ideas.  It adds very much to the value of the land.  For
instance, a 'salt-lick,' as your sweet Yankees call it--and set up
an infirmary for foot and mouth disease.  And better still, the
baths, the baths, my dear.  No expense for piping, or pumping, or
any thing.  Only place your marble at the proper level, and twice a
day you have the grand salubrious sparkling influx of ocean's self,
self-filtered, and by its own operation permeated with a fine
siliceous element.  What foreign mud could compete with such a
bath?"

"But supposing there should come too much of it," I said, "and wash
both the baths and the bathers away?"

"Such an idea is ridiculous.  It can be adjusted to a nicety.  I am
very glad I happened to observe this thing, this--this noble
phenomenon.  I shall speak to Montague about it at once, before I
am half an hour older.  My dear, you have made a conquest; I quite
forgot to tell you; but never mind that for the present.  Driver,
here is half a crown for you.  Your master will put down the fly to
my account.  He owes me a heriot.  I shall claim his best beast,
the moment he gets one without a broken wind."

As the Major spoke, he got out at his own door with all his wonted
alacrity; but instead of offering me his hand, as he always had
done in London, he skipped up his nine steps, on purpose (as I saw)
that somebody else might come down for me.  And this was Sir
Montague Hockin, as I feared was only too likely from what had been
said.  If I had even suspected that this gentleman was at
Bruntlands, I would have done my utmost to stay where I was, in
spite of all absence of money.  Betsy would gladly have allowed me
to remain, without paying even a farthing, until it should become
convenient.  Pride had forbidden me to speak of this; but I would
have got over that pride much rather than meet this Sir Montague
Hockin thus.  Some instinct told me to avoid him altogether; and
having so little now of any other guidance, I attached, perhaps,
foolish importance to that.

However, it was not the part of a lady to be rude to any one
through instinct; and I knew already that in England young women
are not quite such masters of their own behavior as in the far West
they are allowed to be.  And so I did my best that, even in my
eyes, he should not see how vexed I was at meeting him.  And soon
it appeared that this behavior, however painful to me, was no less
wise than good, because both with my host and hostess this new
visitor was already at the summit of all good graces.  He had
conquered the Major by admiration of all his schemes and upshots,
and even offering glimmers of the needful money in the distance;
and Mrs. Hockin lay quite at his feet ever since he had opened a
hamper and produced a pair of frizzled fowls, creatures of an
extraordinary aspect, toothed all over like a dandelion plant, with
every feather sticking inside out.  When I saw them, I tried for my
life not to laugh, and biting my lips very hard, quite succeeded,
until the cock opened up a pair of sleepy eyes, covered with comb
and very sad inversions, and glancing with complacency at his wife
(who stood beneath him, even more turned inside out), capered with
his twiggy legs, and gave a long, sad crow.  Mrs. Hockin looked at
him with intense delight.

"Erema, is it possible that you laugh?  I thought that you never
laughed, Erema.  At any rate, if you ever do indulge, you might
choose a fitter opportunity, I think.  You have spoiled his
demonstration altogether--see, he does not understand such
unkindness--and it is the very first he has uttered since he came.
Oh, poor Fluffsky!"

"I am very, very sorry.  But how was I to help it?  I would not, on
any account, have stopped him if I had known he was so sensitive.
Fluffsky, do please to begin again."

"These beggars are nothing at all, I can assure you," said Sir
Montague, coming to my aid, when Fluffsky spurned all our prayers
for one more crow.  "Mrs. Hockin, if you really would like to have
a fowl that even Lady Clara Crowcombe has not got, you shall have
it in a week, or a fortnight, or, at any rate, a month, if I can
manage it.  They are not to be had except through certain channels,
and the fellows who write the poultry books have never even heard
of them."

"Oh, how delighted I shall be!  Lady Clara despises all her
neighbors so.  But do they lay eggs?  Half the use of keeping
poultry, when you never kill them, is to get an egg for breakfast;
and Major Hockin looks round and says, 'Now is this our own?' and I
can not say that it is; and I am vexed with the books, and he
begins to laugh at me.  People said it was for want of chalk, but
they walk upon nothing but chalk, as you can see."

"And their food, Mrs. Hockin.  They are walking upon that.  Starve
them for a week, and forty eggs at least will reward you for stern
discipline."

But all this little talk I only tell to show how good and soft Mrs.
Hockin was; and her husband, in spite of all his self-opinion, and
resolute talk about money and manorial dues, in his way, perhaps,
was even less to be trusted to get his cash out of any poor and
honest man.

On the very day after my return from London I received a letter
from "Colonel Gundry" (as we always called the Sawyer now, through
his kinship to the Major), and, as it can not easily be put into
less compass, I may as well give his very words:


"DEAR MISS REMA,--Your last favor to hand, with thanks.  Every
thing is going on all right with us.  The mill is built up, and
goes better than ever; more orders on hand than we can get through.
We have not cracked the big nugget yet.  Expect the government to
take him at a trifle below value, for Washington Museum.  Must have
your consent; but, for my part, would rather let him go there than
break him.  Am ready to lose a few dollars upon him, particularly
as he might crack up all quartzy in the middle.  They offer to take
him by weight at three dollars and a half per pound below standard.
Please say if agreeable.

"I fear, my dear, that there are bad times coming for all of us
here in this part.  Not about money, but a long sight worse; bad
will, and contention, and rebellion, perhaps.  What we hear
concerning it is not much here; but even here thoughts are very
much divided.  Ephraim takes a different view from mine; which is
not a right thing for a grandson to do; and neighbor Sylvester goes
with him.  The Lord send agreement and concord among us; but, if He
doeth so, He must change his mind first, for every man is borrowing
his neighbor's gun.

"If there is any thing that you can do to turn Ephraim back to his
duty, my dear, I am sure that, for love of us, you will do it.  If
Firm was to run away from me now, and go fighting on behalf of
slavery, I never should care more for naught upon this side of
Jordan; and the new mill might go to Jericho; though it does look
uncommon handsome now, I can assure you, and tears through its work
like a tiger.

"Noting symptoms in your last of the price of things in England,
and having carried over some to your account, inclosed please to
find a bill for five hundred dollars, though not likely to be
wanted yet.  Save a care of your money, my dear; but pay your way
handsome, as a Castlewood should do.  Jowler goes his rounds twice
a day looking for you; and somebody else never hangs his hat up
without casting one eye at the corner you know.  Sylvester's girl
was over here last week, dashing about as usual.  If Firm goes
South, he may have her, for aught I care, and never see saw-mill
again.  But I hope that the Lord will spare my old days such
disgrace and tribulation.

"About you know what, my dear, be not overanxious.  I have been
young, and now am old, as the holy Psalmist says; and the more I
see of the ways of men, the less I verily think of them.  Their
good esteem, their cap in hand, their fair fame, as they call it,
goes by accident, and fortune, the whim of the moment, and the way
the clever ones have of tickling them.  A great man laughs at the
flimsy of it, and a good one goes to his conscience.  Your father
saw these things at their value.  I have often grieved that you can
not see them so; but perhaps I have liked you none the worse, my
dear.

"Don't forget about going South.  A word from you may stop him.  It
is almost the only hope I have, and even that may be too late.
Suan Isco and Martin send messages.  The flowers are on your
father's grave.  I have got a large order for pine cradles in great
haste, but have time to be,

"Truly yours,

"SAMPSON GUNDRY."


That letter, while it relieved me in one way, from the want of
money, cost me more than ten times five hundred dollars' worth of
anxiety.  The Sawyer had written to me twice ere this--kind, simple
letters, but of no importance, except for their goodness and
affection.  But now it was clear that when he wrote this letter he
must have been sadly put out and upset.  His advice to me was
beyond all value; but he seemed to have kept none at home for
himself.  He was carried quite out of his large, staid ways when he
wrote those bitter words about poor Firm--the very apple of his
eye, as the holy Psalmist says.  And, knowing the obstinacy of them
both, I dreaded clash between them.



CHAPTER XXXI

ADRIFT


Having got money enough to last long with one brought up to
simplicity, and resolved to have nothing to do for a while with
charity or furnished lodgings (what though kept by one's own
nurse), I cast about now for good reason to be off from all the
busy works at Bruntsea.  So soon after such a tremendous blow, it
was impossible for me to push my own little troubles and concerns
upon good Mr. Shovelin's family, much as I longed to know what was
to become of my father's will, if any thing.  But my desire to be
doing something, or, at least, to get away for a time from
Bruntsea, was largely increased by Sir Montague Hockin's strange
behavior toward me.

That young man, if still he could be called young--which, at my
age, scarcely seemed to be his right, for he must have been ten
years older than poor Firm--began more and more every day to come
after me, just when I wanted to be quite alone.  There was nothing
more soothing to my thoughts and mind (the latter getting quiet
from the former, I suppose) than for the whole of me to rest a
while in such a little scollop of the shingle as a new-moon tide,
in little crescents, leaves just below high-water mark.  And now it
was new-moon tide again, a fortnight after the flooding of our fly
by the activity of the full moon; and, feeling how I longed to
understand these things--which seem to be denied to all who are of
the same sex as the moon herself--I sat in a very nice nick, where
no wind could make me look worse than nature willed.  But of my own
looks I never did think twice, unless there was any one to speak of
such a subject.

Here I was sitting in the afternoon of a gentle July day, wondering
by what energy of nature all these countless pebbles were produced,
and not even a couple to be found among them fit to lie side by
side and purely tally with each other.  Right and left, for miles
and miles, millions multiplied into millions; yet I might hold any
one in my palm and be sure that it never had been there before.
And of the quiet wavelets even, taking their own time and manner,
in default of will of wind, all to come and call attention to their
doom by arching over, and endeavoring to make froth, were any two
in sound and size, much more in shape and shade, alike?  Every one
had its own little business, of floating pop-weed or foam bubbles
or of blistered light, to do; and every one, having done it, died
and subsided into its successor.

"A trifle sentimental, are we?" cried a lively voice behind me, and
the waves of my soft reflections fell, and instead of them stood
Sir Montague Hockin, with a hideous parasol.

I never received him with worse grace, often as I had repulsed him;
but he was one of those people who think that women are all whims
and ways.

"I grieve to intrude upon large ideas," he said, as I rose and
looked at him, "but I act under positive orders now.  A lady knows
what is best for a lady.  Mrs. Hockin has been looking from the
window, and she thinks that you ought not to be sitting in the sun
like this.  There has been a case of sun-stroke at Southbourne--a
young lady meditating under the cliff--and she begs you to accept
this palm leaf."

I thought of the many miles I had wandered under the fierce
Californian sun; but I would not speak to him of that.  "Thank
you," I said; "it was very kind of her to think of it, and of you
to do it.  But will it be safe for you to go back without it?"

"Oh, why should I do so?" he answered, with a tone of mock pathos
which provoked me always, though I never could believe it to be
meant in ridicule of me, for that would have been too low a thing;
and, besides, I never spoke so.  "Could you bear to see me slain by
the shafts of the sun?  Miss Castlewood, this parasol is amply
large for both of us."

I would not answer him in his own vein, because I never liked his
vein at all; though I was not so entirely possessed as to want
every body to be like myself.

"Thank you; I mean to stay here," I said; "you may either leave the
parasol or take it, whichever will be less troublesome.  At any
rate, I shall not use it."

A gentleman, according to my ideas, would have bowed and gone upon
his way; but Sir Montague Hockin would have no rebuff.  He seemed
to look upon me as a child, such as average English girls, fresh
from little schools, would be.  Nothing more annoyed me, after all
my thoughts and dream of some power in myself, than this.

"Perhaps I might tell you a thing or two," he said, while I kept
gazing at some fishing-boats, and sat down again, as a sign for him
to go--"a little thing or two of which you have no idea, even in
your most lonely musings, which might have a very deep interest for
you.  Do you think that I came to this hole to see the sea?  Or
that fussy old muff of a Major's doings?"

"Perhaps you would like me to tell him your opinion of his
intellect and great plans," I answered.  "And after all his
kindness to you!"

"You never will do that," he said; "because you are a lady, and
will not repeat what is said in confidence.  I could help you
materially in your great object, if you would only make a friend of
me."

"And what would your own object be?  The pure anxiety to do right?"

"Partly, and I might say mainly, that; also an ambition for your
good opinion, which seems so inaccessible.  But you will think me
selfish if I even hint at any condition of any kind.  Every body I
have ever met with likes me, except Miss Castlewood."

As he spoke he glanced down his fine amber-colored beard, shining
in the sun, and even in the sun showing no gray hair (for a reason
which Mrs. Hockin told me afterward), and he seemed to think it
hard that a man with such a beard should be valued lightly.

"I do not see why we should talk," I said, "about either likes or
dislikes.  Only, if you have any thing to tell, I shall be very
much obliged to you."

This gentleman looked at me in a way which I have often observed
in England.  A general idea there prevails that the free and
enlightened natives of the West are in front of those here in
intelligence, and to some extent, therefore, in dishonesty.  But
there must be many cases where the two are not the same.

"No," I replied, while he was looking at his buttons, which had
every British animal upon them; "I mean nothing more than the
simple thing I say.  If you ought to tell me any thing, tell it.  I
am accustomed to straightforward people.  But they disappoint one
by their never knowing any thing."

"But I know something," he answered, with a nod of grave,
mysterious import; "and perhaps I will tell you some day, when
admitted, if ever I have such an honor, to some little degree of
friendship."

"Oh, please not to think of yourself," I exclaimed, in a manner
which must have amused him.  "In such a case, the last thing that
you should do is that.  Think only of what is right and honorable,
and your duty toward a lady.  Also your duty to the laws of your
country.  I am not at all sure that you ought not to be arrested.
But perhaps it is nothing at all, after all; only something
invented to provoke me."

"In that case, I can only drop the subject," he answered, with that
stern gleam of the eyes which I had observed before, and detested.
"I was also to tell you that we dine to-day an hour before the
usual time, that my cousin may go out in the boat for whiting.  The
sea will be as smooth as glass.  Perhaps you will come with us."

With these words, he lifted his hat and went off, leaving me in a
most uncomfortable state, as he must have known if he had even
tried to think.  For I could not get the smallest idea what he
meant; and, much as I tried to believe that he must be only
pretending, for reasons of his own, to have something important to
tell me, scarcely was it possible to be contented so.  A thousand
absurd imaginations began to torment me as to what he meant.  He
lived in London so much, for instance, that he had much quicker
chance of knowing whatever there was to know; again, he was a man
of the world, full of short, sharp sagacity, and able to penetrate
what I could not; then, again, he kept a large account with
Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin, as Major Hockin chanced to say; and
I knew not that a banker's reserve is much deeper than his deposit;
moreover--which, to my mind, was almost stronger proof than any
thing--Sir Montague Hockin was of smuggling pedigree, and likely to
be skillful in illicit runs of knowledge.

However, in spite of all this uneasiness, not another word would I
say to him about it, waiting rather for him to begin again upon it.
But, though I waited and waited, as, perhaps, with any other person
I scarcely could have done, he would not condescend to give me even
another look about it.

Disliking that gentleman more and more for his supercilious conduct
and certainty of subduing me, I naturally turned again to my good
host and hostess.  But here there was very little help or support
to be obtained at present.  Major Hockin was laying the foundations
of "The Bruntsea Assembly-Rooms, Literary Institute, Mutual
Improvement Association, Lyceum, and Baths, from sixpence upward;"
while Mrs. Hockin had a hatch of "White Sultans," or, rather, a
prolonged sitting of eggs, fondly hoped to hatch at last, from
having cost so much, like a chicken-hearted Conference.  Much as I
sorrowed at her disappointment--for the sitting cost twelve
guineas--I could not feel quite guiltless of a petty and ignoble
smile, when, after hoping against hope, upon the thirtieth day she
placed her beautifully sound eggs in a large bowl of warm water, in
which they floated as calmly as if their price was a penny a dozen.
The poor lady tried to believe that they were spinning with
vitality; but at last she allowed me to break one, and lo! it had
been half boiled by the advertiser.  "This is very sad," cried Mrs.
Hockin; and the patient old hen, who was come in a basket of hay to
see the end of it, echoed with a cluck that sentiment.

These things being so, I was left once more to follow my own
guidance, which had seemed, in the main, to be my fortune ever
since my father died.  For one day Mr. Shovelin had appeared, to my
great joy and comfort, as a guide and guardian; but, alas! for one
day only.  And, except for his good advice and kind paternal
conduct to me, it seemed at present an unlucky thing that I had
ever discovered him.  Not only through deep sense of loss and real
sorrow for him, but also because Major Hockin, however good and
great and generous, took it unreasonably into his head that I threw
him over, and threw myself (as with want of fine taste he expressed
it) into the arms of the banker.  This hurt me very much, and I
felt that Major Hockin could never have spoken so hastily unless
his hair had been originally red; and so it might be detected, even
now, where it survived itself, though blanched where he brushed it
into that pretentious ridge.  Sometimes I liked that man, when his
thoughts were large and liberal; but no sooner had he said a fine
brave thing than he seemed to have an after-thought not to go too
far with it; just as he had done about the poor robbed woman from
the steerage and the young man who pulled out his guinea.  I paid
him for my board and lodging, upon a scale settled by Uncle Sam
himself, at California prices; therefore I am under no obligation
to conceal his foibles.  But, take him altogether, he was good and
brave and just, though unable, from absence of inner light, to be
to me what Uncle Sam had been.

When I perceived that the Major condemned my simple behavior in
London, and (if I may speak it, as I said it to myself) "blew hot
and cold" in half a minute--hot when I thought of any good things
to be done, and cold as soon as he became the man to do them--also,
when I remembered what a chronic plague was now at Bruntsea, in the
shape of Sir Montague, who went to and fro, but could never be
trusted to be far off, I resolved to do what I had long been
thinking of, and believed that my guardian, if he had lived another
day, would have recommended.  I resolved to go and see Lord
Castlewood, my father's first cousin and friend in need.

When I asked my host and hostess what they thought of this, they
both declared that it was the very thing they were at the point of
advising, which, however, they had forborne from doing because I
never took advice.  At this, as being such a great exaggeration, I
could not help smiling seriously; but I could not accept their sage
opinion that, before I went to see my kinsman, I ought to write and
ask his leave to do so.  For that would have made it quite a rude
thing to call, as I must still have done, if he should decline
beforehand to receive me.  Moreover, it would look as if I sought
an invitation, while only wanting an interview.  Therefore, being
now full of money again, I hired the flyman who had made us taste
the water, and taking train at Newport, and changing at two or
three places as ordered, crossed many little streams, and came to a
fair river, which proved to be the Thames itself, a few miles above
Reading.

In spite of all the larger lessons of travel, adventure, and
tribulation, my heart was throbbing with some rather small
feelings, as for the first time I drew near to the home of my
forefathers.  I should have been sorry to find it ugly or mean, or
lying in a hole, or even modern or insignificant; and when none of
these charges could be brought against it, I was filled with highly
discreditable pain that Providence had not seen fit to issue me
into this world in the masculine form; in which case this fine
property would, according to the rules of mankind, have been mine.
However, I was very soon ashamed of such ideas, and sat down on a
bank to dispel them with the free and fair view around me.

The builder of that house knew well both where to place and how to
shape it, so as not to spoil the site.  It stood near the brow of a
bosoming hill, which sheltered it, both with wood and clevice, from
the rigor and fury of the north and east; while in front the
sloping foreground widened its soft lap of green.  In bays and
waves of rolling grass, promontoried, here and there, by jutting
copse or massive tree, and jotted now and then with cattle as calm
as boats at anchor, the range of sunny upland fell to the reedy
fringe and clustered silence of deep river meadows.  Here the
Thames, in pleasant bends of gentleness and courtesy, yet with will
of its own ways, being now a plenteous river, spreads low music,
and holds mirror to the woods and hills and fields, casting afar a
broad still gleam, and on the banks presenting tremulous infinitude
of flash.

Now these things touched me all the more because none of them
belonged to me; and, after thus trying to enlarge my views, I got
up with much better heart, and hurried on to have it over, whatever
it might be.  A girl brought up in the real English way would have
spent her last shilling to drive up to the door in the fly at the
station--a most sad machine--but I thought it no disgrace to go in
a more becoming manner.

One scarcely ever acts up to the force of situation; and I went as
quietly into that house as if it were Betsy Bowen's.  If any body
had been rude to me, or asked who I was, or a little thing of that
sort, my spirit might have been up at once, and found, as usually
happens then, good reason to go down afterward.  But happily there
was nothing of the kind.  An elderly man, without any gaudy badges,
opened the door very quietly, and begged my pardon, before I spoke,
for asking me to speak softly.  It was one of his lordship's very
worst days, and when he was so, every sound seemed to reach him.  I
took the hint, and did not speak at all, but followed him over deep
matting into a little room to which he showed me.  And then I gave
him a little note, written before I left Bruntsea, and asked him
whether he thought that his master was well enough to attend to it.

He looked at me in a peculiar manner, for he had known my father
well, having served from his youth in the family; but he only asked
whether my message was important.  I answered that it was, but that
I would wait for another time rather than do any harm.  But he said
that, however ill his master was, nothing provoked him more than to
find that any thing was neglected through it.  And before I could
speak again he was gone with my letter to Lord Castlewood.



CHAPTER XXXII

AT HOME


Some of the miserable, and I might say strange, things which had
befallen me from time to time unseasonably, now began to force
their remembrance upon me.  Such dark figures always seem to make
the most of a nervous moment, when solid reason yields to
fluttering fear and small misgivings.  There any body seems to lie,
as a stranded sailor lies, at the foot of perpendicular cliffs of
most inhuman humanity, with all the world frowning down over the
crest, and no one to throw a rope down.  Often and often had I felt
this want of any one to help me, but the only way out of it seemed
to be to do my best to help myself.

Even, now I had little hope, having been so often dashed, and
knowing that my father's cousin possessed no share of my father's
strength.  He might, at the utmost, give good advice, and help me
with kind feeling; but if he wanted to do more, surely he might
have tried ere now.  But my thoughts about this were cut short by a
message that he would be glad to see me, and I followed the servant
to the library.

Here I found Lord Castlewood sitting in a high-backed chair,
uncushioned and uncomfortable.  When he saw me near him he got up
and took my hand, and looked at me, and I was pleased to find his
face well-meaning, brave, and generous.  But even to rise from his
chair was plainly no small effort to him, and he leaned upon a
staff or crutch as he offered me a small white hand.

"Miss Castlewood," he said, with a very weak yet clear and silvery
voice, "for many years I have longed in vain and sought in vain to
hear of you.  I have not escaped all self-reproach through my sense
of want of energy; yet, such as I am, I have done my best, or I do
my best to think so."

"I am sure you have," I replied, without thinking, knowing his
kindness to my father, and feeling the shame of my own hot words to
Mr. Shovelin about him.  "I owe you more gratitude than I can tell,
for your goodness to my dear father.  I am not come now to trouble
you, but because it was my duty."

While I was speaking he managed to lead me, feebly as himself could
walk, to a deep chair for reading, or some such use, whereof I have
had few chances.  And in every step and word and gesture I
recognized that foreign grace which true-born Britons are proud to
despise on both sides of the Atlantic.  And, being in the light, I
watched him well, because I am not a foreigner.

In the clear summer light of the westering sun (which is better for
accurate uses than the radiance of the morning) I saw a firm, calm
face, which might in good health have been powerful--a face which
might be called the moonlight image of my father's.  I could not
help turning away to cry, and suspicion fled forever.

"My dear young cousin," he said, as soon as I was fit to speak to,
"your father trusted me, and so must you.  You may think that I
have forgotten you, or done very little to find you out.  It was no
indifference, no forgetfulness: I have not been able to work
myself, and I have had very deep trouble of my own."

He leaned on his staff, and looked down at me, for I had sat down
when thus overcome, and I knew that the forehead and eyes were
those of a learned and intellectual man.  How I knew this it is
impossible to say, for I never had met with such a character as
this, unless it were the Abbe of Flechon, when I was only fourteen
years old, and valued his great skill in spinning a top tenfold
more than all his deep learning.  Lord Castlewood had long, silky
hair, falling in curls of silver gray upon either side of his
beautiful forehead, and the gaze of his soft dark eyes was sad,
gentle, yet penetrating.  Weak health and almost constant pain had
chastened his delicate features to an expression almost feminine,
though firm thin lips and rigid lines showed masculine will and
fortitude.  And when he spoke of his own trouble (which, perhaps,
he would not have done except for consolation's sake), I knew that
he meant something even more grievous than bodily anguish.

"It is hard," he said, "that you, so young and healthy and full of
high spirit as you are (unless your face belies you), should begin
the best years of your life, as common opinion puts such things, in
such a cloud of gloom and shame."

"There is no shame at all," I answered; "and if there is gloom, I
am used to that; and so was my father for years and years.  What is
my trouble compared with his?"

"Your trouble is nothing when compared with his, so far as regards
the mere weight of it; but he was a strong man to carry his load;
you are a young and a sensitive woman.  The burden may even be
worse for you.  Now tell me all about yourself, and what has
brought you to me."

His voice was so quiet and soothing that I seemed to rest beneath
it.  He had not spoken once of religion or the will of God, nor
plied me at all with those pious allusions, which even to the
reverent mind are like illusions when so urged.  Lord Castlewood
had too deep a sense of the will of God to know what it is; and he
looked at me wistfully as at one who might have worse experience of
it.

Falling happily under his influence, as his clear, kind eyes met
mine, I told him every thing I could think of about my father and
myself, and all I wanted to do next, and how my heart and soul were
set upon getting to the bottom of every thing.  And while I spoke
with spirit, or softness, or, I fear, sometimes with hate, I could
not help seeing that he was surprised, but not wholly displeased,
with my energy.  And then, when all was exhausted, came the old
question I had heard so often, and found so hard to answer--

"And what do you propose to do next, Erema?"

"To go to the very place itself," I said, speaking strongly under
challenge, though quite unresolved about such a thing before; "to
live in the house where my father lived, and my mother and all of
the family died; and from day to day to search every corner and
fish up every bit of evidence, until I get hold of the true man at
last, of the villain who did it--who did it, and left my father and
all the rest of us to be condemned and die for it."

"Erema," replied my cousin, as he had told me now to call him, "you
are too impetuous for such work, and it is wholly unfit for you.
For such a task, persons of trained sagacity and keen observation
are needed.  And after all these eighteen years, or nearly nineteen
now it must be, there can not be any thing to discover there."

"But if I like, may I go there, cousin, if only to satisfy my own
mind?  I am miserable now at Bruntsea, and Sir Montague Hockin
wears me out."

"Sir Montague Hockin!" Lord Castlewood exclaimed; "why, you did not
tell me that he was there.  Wherever he is, you should not be."

"I forgot to speak of him.  He does not live there, but is
continually to and fro for bathing, or fishing, or rabbit-shooting,
or any other pretext.  And he makes the place very unpleasant to
me, kind as the Major and Mrs. Hockin are, because I can never make
him out at all."

"Do not try to do so," my cousin answered, looking at me earnestly;
"be content to know nothing of him, my dear.  If you can put up
with a very dull house, and a host who is even duller, come here
and live with me, as your father would have wished, and as I, your
nearest relative, now ask and beg of you."

This was wonderfully kind, and for a moment I felt tempted.  Lord
Castlewood being an elderly man, and, as the head of our family, my
natural protector, there could be nothing wrong, and there might be
much that was good, in such an easy arrangement.  But, on the other
hand, it seemed to me that after this my work would languish.
Living in comfort and prosperity under the roof of my forefathers,
beyond any doubt I should begin to fall into habits of luxury, to
take to the love of literature, which I knew to be latent within
me, to lose the clear, strong, practical sense of the duty for
which I, the last of seven, was spared, and in some measure,
perhaps, by wanderings and by hardships, fitted.  And then I
thought of my host's weak health, continual pain (the signs of
which were hardly repressed even while he was speaking), and
probably also his secluded life.  Was it fair to force him, by
virtue of his inborn kindness and courtesy, to come out of his
privileges and deal with me, who could not altogether be in any
place a mere nobody?  And so I refused his offer.

"I am very much obliged to you indeed," I said, "but I think you
might be sorry for it.  I will come and stop with you every now and
then, when your health is better, and you ask me.  But to live here
altogether would not do; I should like it too well, and do nothing
else."

"Perhaps you are right," he replied, with the air of one who cares
little for any thing, which is to me the most melancholy thing, and
worse than any distress almost; "you are very young, my dear, and
years should be allowed to pass before you know what full-grown
sorrow is.  You have had enough, for your age, of it.  You had
better not live in this house; it is not a house for cheerfulness."

"Then if I must neither live here nor at Bruntsea," I asked, with
sudden remonstrance, feeling as if every body desired to be quit of
me or to worry me, "to what place in all the world am I to go,
unless it is back to America?  I will go at once to Shoxford, and
take lodgings of my own."

"Perhaps you had better wait a little while," Lord Castlewood
answered, gently, "although I would much rather have you at
Shoxford than where you are at present.  But please to remember, my
good Erema, that you can not go to Shoxford all alone.  I have a
most faithful and trusty man--the one who opened the door to you.
He has been here before his remembrance.  He disdains me still as
compared with your father.  Will you have him to superintend you?
I scarcely see how you can do any good, but if you do go, you must
go openly, and as your father's daughter."

"I have no intention whatever of going in any other way, Lord
Castlewood; but perhaps," I continued, "it would be as well to make
as little stir as possible.  Of an English village I know nothing
but the little I have seen at Bruntsea, but there they make a very
great fuss about any one who comes down with a man-servant."

"To be sure," replied my cousin, with a smile; "they would not be
true Britons otherwise.  Perhaps you would do better without
Stixon; but of course you must not go alone.  Could you by any
means persuade your old nurse Betsy to go with you?"

"How good of you to think of it!--how wise you are!" I really could
not help saying, as I gazed at his delicate and noble face.  "I am
sure that if Betsy can come, she will; though of course she must be
compensated well for the waste all her lodgers will make of it.
They are very wicked, and eat most dreadfully if she even takes one
day's holiday.  What do you think they even do?  She has told me
with tears in her eyes of it.  They are all allowed a pat of
butter, a penny roll, and two sardines for breakfast.  No sooner do
they know that her back is turned--"

"Erema!" cried my cousin, with some surprise; and being so
recalled, I was ashamed.  But I never could help taking interest in
very little things indeed, until my own common-sense, or somebody
else, came to tell me what a child I was.  However, I do believe
that Uncle Sam liked me all the better for this fault.

"My dear, I did not mean to blame you," Lord Castlewood said, most
kindly; "it must be a great relief for you to look on at other
people.  But tell me--or rather, since you have told me almost
every thing you know--let me, if only in one way I can help you,
help you at least in that way."

Knowing that he must mean money, I declined, from no false pride,
but a set resolve to work out my work, if possible, through my own
resources.  But I promised to apply to him at once if scarcity
should again befall me, as had happened lately.  And then I longed
to ask him why he seemed to have so low an opinion of Sir Montague
Hockin.  That question, however, I feared to put, because it might
not be a proper one, and also because my cousin had spoken in a
very strange tone, as if of some private dislike or reserve on that
subject.  Moreover, it was too evident that I had tried his
courtesy long enough.  From time to time pale shades of bodily
pain, and then hot flushes, had flitted across his face, like
clouds on a windy summer evening.  And more than once he had
glanced at the time-piece, not to hurry me, but as if he dreaded
its announcements.  It was a beautiful clock, and struck with a
silvery sound every quarter of an hour.  And now, as I rose to say
good-by, to catch my evening train, it struck a quarter to five,
and my cousin stood up, with his weight upon his staff, and looked
at me with an inexpressible depth of weary misery.

"I have only a few minutes left," he said, "during which I can say
any thing.  My time is divided into two sad parts: the time when I
am capable of very little, and the time when I am capable of
nothing; and the latter part is twice the length of the other.  For
sixteen hours of every day, far better had I be dead than living,
so far as our own little insolence may judge.  But I speak of it
only to excuse bad manners, and perhaps I show worse by doing so.
I shall not be able to see you again until to-morrow morning.  Do
not go; they will arrange all that.  Send a note to Major Hockin by
Stixon's boy.  Stixon and Mrs. Price will see to your comfort, if
those who are free from pain require any other comfort.  Forgive
me; I did not mean to be rude.  Sometimes I can not help giving
way."

Less enviable than the poorest slave, Lord Castlewood sank upon his
hard stiff chair, and straightened his long narrow hands upon his
knees, and set his thin lips in straight blue lines.  Each hand was
as rigid as the ivory handle of an umbrella or walking-stick, and
his lips were like clamped wire.  This was his regular way of
preparing for the onset of the night, so that no grimace, no cry,
no moan, or other token of fierce agony should be wrung from him.

"My lord will catch it stiff to-night," said Mr. Stixon, who came
as I rang, and then led me away to the drawing-room; "he always
have it ten times worse after any talking or any thing to upset him
like.  And so, then, miss--excuse a humble servant--did I
understand from him that you was the Captain's own daughter?"

"Yes; but surely your master wants you--he is in such dreadful
pain.  Do please to go to him, and do something."

"There is nothing to be done, miss," Stixon answered, with calm
resignation; "he is bound to stay so for sixteen hours, and then he
eases off again.  But bless my heart, miss--excuse me in your
presence--his lordship is thoroughly used to it.  It is my certain
knowledge that for seven years now he has never had seven minutes
free from pain--seven minutes all of a heap, I mean.  Some do say,
miss, as the Lord doeth every thing according to His righteousness,
that the reason is not very far to seek."

I asked him what he meant, though I ought, perhaps, to have put a
stop to his loquacity; and he pretended not to hear, which made me
ask him all the more.

"A better man never lived than my lord," he answered, with a little
shock at my misprision; "but it has been said among censoorous
persons that nobody ever had no luck as came in suddenly to a
property and a high state of life on the top of the heads of a
family of seven."

"What a poor superstition!" I cried, though I was not quite sure of
its being a wicked one.  "But what is your master's malady, Stixon?
Surely there might be something done to relieve his violent pain,
even if there is no real cure for it?"

"No, miss, nothing can be done.  The doctors have exorced
themselves.  They tried this, that, and the other, but nature only
flew worse against them.  'Tis a thing as was never heard of till
the Constitooshon was knocked on the head and to pieces by the
Reform Bill.  And though they couldn't cure it, they done what they
could do, miss.  They discovered a very good name for it--they
christened it the 'New-rager!'"



CHAPTER XXXIII

LORD CASTLEWOOD


In the morning, when I was called again to see my afflicted cousin--
Stixon junior having gladly gone to explain things for me at
Bruntsea--little as I knew of any bodily pain (except hunger, or
thirst, or weariness, and once in my life a headache), I stood
before Lord Castlewood with a deference and humility such as I had
never felt before toward any human being.  Not only because he bore
perpetual pain in the two degrees of night and day--the day being
dark and the night jet-black--without a murmur or an evil word; not
only because through the whole of this he had kept his mind clear
and his love of knowledge bright; not even because he had managed,
like Job, to love God through the whole of it.  All these were good
reasons for very great and very high respect of any man; and when
there was no claim whatever on his part to any such feeling, it
needs must come.  But when I learned another thing, high respect at
once became what might be called deep reverence.  And this came to
pass in a simple and, as any one must confess, quite inevitable
way.

It was not to be supposed that I could sit the whole of my first
evening in that house without a soul to speak to.  So far as my
dignity and sense of right permitted, I wore out Mr. Stixon, so far
as he would go, not asking him any thing that the very worst-minded
person could call "inquisitive," but allowing him to talk, as he
seemed to like to do, while he waited upon me, and alternately
lamented my hapless history and my hopeless want of taste.

"Ah, your father, the Captain, now, he would have knowed what this
is!  You've no right to his eyes, Miss Erma, without his tongue and
palate.  No more of this, miss! and done for you a-purpose!  Well,
cook will be put out, and no mistake!  I better not let her see it
go down, anyhow."  And the worthy man tearfully put some dainty by,
perhaps without any view to his own supper.

"Lord Castlewood spoke to me about a Mrs. Price--the housekeeper,
is she not?" I asked at last, being so accustomed to like what I
could get, that the number of dishes wearied me.

"Oh yes, miss," said Stixon, very shortly, as if that description
exhausted Mrs. Price.

"If she is not too busy, I should like to see her as soon as these
things are all taken away.  I mean if she is not a stranger, and if
she would like to see me."

"No new-comers here," Mr. Stixon replied; "we all works our way up
regular, the same as my lad is beginning for to do.  New-fangled
ways is not accepted here.  We puts the reforming spirits scrubbing
of the steps till their knuckles is cracked and their knees like a
bean.  The old lord was the man for discipline--your grandfather,
if you please, miss.  He catched me when I were about that high--"

"Excuse me, Mr. Stixon; but would he have encouraged you to talk as
you so very kindly talk to me, instead of answering a question?"

I thought that poor Stixon would have been upset by this, and was
angry with myself for saying it; but instead of being hurt, he only
smiled and touched his forehead.

"Well, now, you did remind me uncommon of him then, miss.  I could
have heard the old lord speak almost, though he were always harsh
and distant.  And as I was going for to say, he catched me fifty
years agone next Lammas-tide; a pear-tree of an early sort it was;
you may see the very tree if you please to stand here, miss, though
the pears is quite altered now, and scarcely fit to eat.  Well, I
was running off with my cap chock-full, miss--"

"Please to keep that story for another time," I said; "I shall be
most happy to hear it then.  But I have a particular wish, if you
please, to see Mrs. Price before dark, unless there is any good
reason why I should not."

"Oh no, Miss Erma, no reason at all.  Only please to bear in mind,
miss, that she is a coorous woman.  She is that jealous, and I
might say forward--"

"Then she is capable of speaking for herself."

"You are right, miss, there, and no mistake.  She can speak for
herself and for fifty others--words enough, I mean, for all of
them.  But I would not have her know for all the world that I said
it."

"Then if you do not send her to me at once, the first thing I shall
do will be to tell her."

"Oh no, miss, none of your family would do that; that never has
been done anonymous."

I assured him that my threat was not in earnest, but of pure
impatience.  And having no motive but downright jealousy for
keeping Mrs. Price from me, he made up his mind at last to let her
come.  But he told me to be careful what I said; I must not expect
it to be at all like talking to himself, for instance.

The housekeeper came up at last, by dint of my persistence, and she
stopped in the doorway and made me a courtesy, which put me out of
countenance, for nobody ever does that in America, and scarcely any
one in England now, except in country-dancing.  Instead of being as
described by Stixon, Mrs. Price was of a very quiet, sensible, and
respectful kind.  She was rather short, but looked rather tall,
from her even walk and way of carrying her head.  Her figure was
neat, and her face clear-spoken, with straight pretty eyebrows, and
calm bright eyes.  I felt that I could tell her almost any thing,
and she would think before she talked of it.  And in my strong want
of some woman to advise with--Betsy Bowen being very good but very
narrow, and Mrs. Hockin a mere echo of the Major until he
contradicted her, and Suan Isco, with her fine, large views, five
thousand miles out of sight just now--this was a state of things to
enhance the value of any good countenance feminine.

At any rate, I was so glad to see her that, being still ungraduated
in the steps of rank (though beginning to like a good footing
there), I ran up and took her by both hands, and fetched her out of
her grand courtesy and into a low chair.  At this she was
surprised, as one quick glance showed; and she thought me, perhaps,
what is called in England "an impulsive creature."  This put me
again upon my dignity, for I never have been in any way like that,
and I clearly perceived that she ought to understand a little more
distinctly my character.

It is easy to begin with this intention, but very hard indeed to
keep it up when any body of nice ways and looks is sitting with a
proper deferential power of listening, and liking one's young
ideas, which multiply and magnify themselves at each demand.  So
after some general talk about the weather, the country, the house,
and so on, we came to the people of the house, or at any rate the
chief person.  And I asked her a few quiet questions about Lord
Castlewood's health and habits, and any thing else she might like
to tell me.  For many things had seemed to me a little strange and
out of the usual course, and on that account worthy to be spoken of
without common curiosity.  Mrs. Price told me that there were many
things generally divulged and credited, which therefore lay in her
power to communicate without any derogation from her office.  Being
pleased with these larger words (which I always have trouble in
pronouncing), I asked her whether there was any thing else.  And
she answered yes, but unhappily of a nature to which it was
scarcely desirable to allude in my presence.  I told her that this
was not satisfactory, and I might say quite the opposite; that
having "alluded" to whatever it might be, she was bound to tell me
all about it.  That I had lived in very many countries, in all of
which wrong things continually went on, of which I continually
heard just in that sort of way and no more.  Enough to make one
uncomfortable, but not enough to keep one instructed and vigilant
as to things that ought to be avoided.  Upon this she yielded
either to my arguments or to her own dislike of unreasonable
silence, and gave me the following account of the misfortunes of
Lord Castlewood:

Herbert William Castlewood was the third son of Dean Castlewood, a
younger brother of my grandfather, and was born in the year 1806.
He was older, therefore, than my father, but still (even before my
father's birth, which provided a direct heir) there were many lives
betwixt him and the family estates.  And his father, having as yet
no promotion in the Church, found it hard to bring up his children.
The eldest son got a commission in the army, and the second entered
the navy, while Herbert was placed in a bank at Bristol--not at all
the sort of life which he would have chosen.  But being of a
gentle, unselfish nature, as well as a weak constitution, he put up
with his state in life, and did his best to give satisfaction.

This calm courage generally has its reward, and in the year 1842,
not very long before the death of my grandfather at Shoxford, Mr.
Herbert Castlewood, being well-connected, well-behaved, diligent,
and pleasing, obtained a partnership in the firm, which was,
perhaps, the foremost in the west of England.  His two elder
brothers happened then to be at home, Major and Commander
Castlewood, each of whom had seen very hard service, and found it
still harder slavery to make both ends meet, although bachelors.
But, returning full of glory, they found one thing harder still,
and that was to extract any cash from their father, the highly
venerated Dean, who in that respect, if in no other, very closely
resembled the head of the family.  Therefore these brave men
resolved to go and see their Bristol brother, to whom they were
tenderly attached, and who now must have money enough and to spare.
So they wrote to their brother to meet them on the platform,
scarcely believing that they could be there in so short a time from
London; for they never had travelled by rail before; and they set
forth in wonderful spirits, and laughed at the strange, giddy rush
of the travelling, and made bets with each other about punctual
time (for trains kept much better time while new), and, as long as
they could time it, they kept time to a second.  But, sad to
relate, they wanted no chronometers when they arrived at Bristol,
both being killed at a blow, with their watches still going, and a
smile on their faces.  For the train had run into a wall of Bath
stone, and several of the passengers were killed.

The sight of his two brothers carried out like this, after so many
years of not seeing them, was too much for Mr. Herbert Castlewood's
nerves, which always had been delicate.  And he shivered all the
more from reproach of conscience, having made up his mind not to
lend them any money, as a practical banker was compelled to do.
And from that very moment he began to feel great pain.

Mrs. Price assured me that the doctors all agreed that nothing but
change of climate could restore Mr. Castlewood's tone and system,
and being full of art (though so simple, as she said, which she
could not entirely reconcile), he set off for Italy, and there he
stopped, with the good leave of his partners, being now valued
highly as heir to the Dean, who was known to have put a good trifle
together.  And in Italy my father must have found him, as related
by Mr. Shovelin, and there received kindness and comfort in his
trouble, if trouble so deep could be comforted.

Now I wondered and eagerly yearned to know whether my father, at
such a time, and in such a state of loneliness, might not have been
led to impart to his cousin and host and protector the dark mystery
which lay at the bottom of his own conduct.  Knowing how resolute
and stern he was, and doubtless then imbittered by the wreck of
love and life, I thought it more probable that he had kept silence
even toward so near a relative, especially as he had seen very
little of his cousin Herbert till he had found him thus.  Moreover,
my grandfather and the Dean had spent little brotherly love on each
other, having had a life-long feud about a copy-hold furze brake of
nearly three-quarters of an acre, as Betsy remembered to have heard
her master say.

To go on, however, with what Mrs. Price was saying.  She knew
scarcely any thing about my father, because she was too young at
that time to be called into the counsels of the servants' hall, for
she scarcely was thirty-five yet, as she declared, and she
certainly did not look forty.  But all about the present Lord
Castlewood she knew better than any body else, perhaps, because she
had been in the service of his wife, and, indeed, her chief
attendant.  Then, having spoken of her master's wife, Mrs. Price
caught herself up, and thenceforth called her only his "lady."

Mr. Herbert Castlewood, who had minded his business for so many
years, and kept himself aloof from ladies, spending all his leisure
in good literature, at this time of life and in this state of
health (for the shock he had received struck inward), fell into an
accident tenfold worse--the fatal accident of love.  And this
malady raged the more powerfully with him on account of breaking
out so late in life.  In one of the picture-galleries at Florence,
or some such place, Mrs. Price declared, he met with a lady who
made all the pictures look cold and dull and dead to him.  A lovely
young creature she must have been (as even Mrs. Price, who detested
her, acknowledged), and to the eyes of a learned but not keen man
as good as lovely.  My father was gone to look after me, and fetch
me out of England, but even if he had been there, perhaps he
scarcely could have stopped it; for this Mr. Castlewood, although
so quiet, had the family fault of tenacity.

Mrs. Price, being a very steady person, with a limited income, and
enough to do, was inclined to look down upon the state of mind in
which Mr. Castlewood became involved.  She was not there at the
moment, of course, but suddenly sent for when all was settled;
nevertheless, she found out afterward how it began from her
master's man, through what he had for dinner.  And in the kitchen-
garden at Castlewood no rampion would she allow while she lived.  I
asked her whether she had no pity, no sympathy, no fine feeling,
and how she could have become Mrs. Price if she never had known
such sentiments.  But she said that they only called her "Mistress"
on account of her authority, and she never had been drawn to the
opposite sex, though many times asked in marriage.  And what she
had seen of matrimony led her far away from it.  I was sorry to
hear her say this, and felt damped, till I thought that the world
was not all alike.

Then she told me, just as if it were no more than a bargain for a
pound of tallow candles, how Mr. Herbert Castlewood, patient and
persistent, was kept off and on for at least two years by the
mother of his sweet idol.  How the old lady held a balance in her
mind as to the likelihood of his succession, trying, through
English friends, to find the value and the course of property.  Of
what nation she was, Mrs. Price could not say, and only knew that
it must be a bad one.  She called herself the Countess of Ixorism,
as truly pronounced in English; and she really was of good family
too, so far as any foreigner can be.  And her daughter's name was
Flittamore, not according to the right spelling, perhaps, but
pronounced with the proper accent.

Flittamore herself did not seem to care, according to what Mrs.
Price had been told, but left herself wholly in her mother's hands,
being sure of her beauty still growing upon her, and desiring to
have it admired and praised.  And the number of foreigners she
always had about her sometimes made her real lover nearly give her
up.  But, alas! he was not quite wise enough for this, with all
that he had read and learned and seen.  Therefore, when it was
reported from Spain that my father had been killed by bandits--the
truth being that he was then in Greece--the Countess at last
consented to the marriage of her daughter with Herbert Castlewood,
and even seemed to press it forward for some reasons of her own.
And the happy couple set forth upon their travels, and Mrs. Price
was sent abroad to wait upon the lady.

For a few months they seemed to get on very well, Flittamore
showing much affection for her husband, whose age was a trifle more
than her own doubled, while he was entirely wrapped up in her, and
labored that the graces of her mind might be worthy to compare with
those more visible.  But her spiritual face and most sweet poetic
eyes were vivid with bodily brilliance alone.  She had neither mind
enough to learn, nor heart enough to pretend to learn.

It is out of my power to describe such things, even if it were my
duty to do so, which, happily, it has never been; moreover, Mrs.
Price, in what she told me, exercised a just and strict reserve.
Enough that Mr. Castlewood's wedded life was done with in six
months and three days.  Lady Castlewood, as she would be called,
though my father still was living and his cousin disclaimed the
title--away she ran from some dull German place, after a very stiff
lesson in poetry, and with her ran off a young Englishman, the
present Sir Montague Hockin.  He was Mr. Hockin then, and had not a
half-penny of his own; but Flittamore met that difficulty by
robbing her husband to his last farthing.

This had happened about twelve years back, soon after I was placed
at the school in Languedoc, to which I was taken so early in life
that I almost forget all about it.  But it might have been better
for poor Flittamore if she had been brought up at a steady place
like that, with sisters and ladies of retreat, to teach her the
proper description of her duties to mankind.  I seemed now in my
own mind to condemn her quite enough, feeling how superior her
husband must have been; but Mrs. Price went even further, and
became quite indignant that any one should pity her.

"A hussy! a hussy! a poppet of a hussy!" she exclaimed, with
greater power than her quiet face could indicate; "never would I
look at her.  Speak never so, Miss Castlewood.  My lord is the very
best of all men, and she has made him what he is.  The pity she
deserves is to be trodden under foot, as I saw them do in Naples."

After all the passion I had seen among rough people, I scarcely
could help trembling at the depth of wrath dissembled and firmly
controlled in calm clear eyes under very steadfast eyebrows.  It
was plain that Lord Castlewood had, at any rate, the gift of being
loved by his dependents.

"I hope that he took it aright!" I cried, catching some of her
indignation; "I hope that he cast her to the winds, without even a
sigh for such a cruel creature!"

"He was not strong enough," she answered, sadly; "his bodily health
was not equal to it.  From childhood he had been partly crippled
and spoiled in his nerves by an accident.  And the shock of that
sight at Bristol flew to his weakness, and was too much for him.
And now this third and worst disaster, coming upon him where his
best hope lay, and at such a time of life, took him altogether off
his legs.  And off his head too, I might almost say, miss; for,
instead of blaming her, he put the fault entirely upon himself.  At
his time of life, and in such poor health, he should not have
married a bright young girl: how could he ever hope to make her
happy?  That was how he looked at it, when he should have sent
constables after her."

"And what became of her--the mindless animal, to forsake so good
and great a man!  I do hope she was punished, and that vile man
too."

"She was, Miss Castlewood; but he was not; at least he has not
received justice yet.  But he will, he will, he will, miss.  The
treacherous thief!  And my lord received him as a young fellow-
countryman under a cloud, and lent him money, and saved him from
starving; for he had broken with his father and was running from
his creditors."

"Tell me no more," I said; "not another word.  It is my fate to
meet that--well, that gentleman--almost every day.  And he, and he--
oh, how thankful I am to have found out all this about him!"

The above will show why, when I met my father's cousin on the
following morning--with his grand, calm face, as benevolent as if
he had passed a night of luxurious rest instead of sleepless agony--
I knew myself to be of a lower order in mind and soul and heart
than his; a small, narrow, passionate girl, in the presence of a
large, broad-sighted, and compassionate man.

I threw myself altogether on his will; for, when I trust, I trust
wholly.  And, under his advice, I did not return with any rash
haste to Bruntsea, but wrote in discharge of all duty there; while
Mrs. Price, a clear and steadfast woman, was sent to London to see
Wilhelmina Strouss.  These two must have had very great talks
together, and, both being zealous and faithful, they came to many
misunderstandings.  However, on the whole, they became very honest
friends, and sworn allies at last, discovering more, the more they
talked, people against whom they felt a common and just enmity.



CHAPTER XXXIV

SHOXFORD


Are there people who have never, in the course of anxious life,
felt desire to be away, to fly away, from every thing, however good
and dear to them, and rest a little, and think new thought, or let
new thought flow into them, from the gentle air of some new place,
where nobody has heard of them--a place whose cares, being felt by
proxy, almost seem romantic, and where the eyes spare brain and
heart with a critic's self-complacence?  If any such place yet
remains, the happy soul may seek it in an inland English village.

A village where no billows are to stun or to confound it, no crag
or precipice to trouble it with giddiness, and where no hurry of
restless tide makes time, its own father, uneasy.  But in the
quiet, at the bottom of the valley, a beautiful rivulet, belonging
to the place, hastens or lingers, according to its mood; hankering
here and there, not to be away yet; and then, by the doing of its
own work, led to a swift perplexity of ripples.  Here along its
side, and there softly leaning over it, fresh green meadows lie
reposing in the settled meaning of the summer day.  For this is a
safer time of year than the flourish of the spring-tide, when the
impulse of young warmth awaking was suddenly smitten by the bleak
east wind, and cowslip and cuckoo-flower and speedwell got their
bright lips browned with cold.  Then, moreover, must the meads have
felt the worry of scarcely knowing yet what would be demanded of
them; whether to carry an exacting load of hay, or only to feed a
few sauntering cows.

But now every trouble has been settled for the best; the long grass
is mown, and the short grass browsed, and capers of the fairies and
caprices of the cows have dappled worn texture with a deeper green.
Therefore let eyes that are satisfied here--as any but a very bad
eye must be, with so many changes of softness--follow the sweet
lead of the valley; and there, in a bend of the gently brawling
river, stands the never-brawling church.

A church less troubled with the gift of tongues is not to be found
in England: a church of gray stone that crumbles just enough to
entice frail mortal sympathy, and confesses to the storms it has
undergone in a tone that conciliates the human sigh.  The tower is
large, and high enough to tell what the way of the wind is without
any potato-bury on the top, and the simple roof is not cruciated
with tiles of misguided fancy.  But gray rest, and peace of ages,
and content of lying calmly six feet deeper than the bustle of the
quick; memory also, and oblivion, following each other slowly, like
the shadows of the church-yard trees--for all of these no better
place can be, nor softer comfort.

For the village of Shoxford runs up on the rise, and straggles away
from its burial-place, as a child from his school goes mitching.
There are some few little ups and downs in the manner of its
building, as well as in other particulars about it; but still it
keeps as parallel with the crooked river as the far more crooked
ways of men permit.  But the whole of the little road of houses
runs down the valley from the church-yard gate; and above the
church, looking up the pretty valley, stands nothing but the mill
and the plank bridge below it; and a furlong above that again the
stone bridge, where the main road crosses the stream, and is
consoled by leading to a big house--the Moonstock Inn.

The house in which my father lived so long--or rather, I should
say, my mother, while he was away with his regiment--and where we
unfortunate seven saw the light, stands about half-way down the
little village, being on the right-hand side of the road as you
come down the valley from the Moonstock bridge.  Therefore it is on
the further and upper side of the street--if it can be called a
street--from the valley and the river and the meads below the mill,
inasmuch as every bit of Shoxford, and every particle of the parish
also, has existence--of no mean sort, as compared with other
parishes, in its own esteem--on the right side of the river Moon.

My father's house, in this good village, standing endwise to the
street, was higher at one end than at the other.  That is to say,
the ground came sloping, or even falling, as fairly might be said,
from one end to the other of it, so that it looked like a Noah's
ark tilted by Behemoth under the stern-post.  And a little lane,
from a finely wooded hill, here fell steeply into the "High Street"
(as the grocer and the butcher loved to call it), and made my
father's house most distinct, by obeying a good deal of its
outline, and discharging in heavy rain a free supply of water under
the weather-board of our front-door.  This front-door opened on the
little steep triangle formed by the meeting of lane and road, while
the back-door led into a long but narrow garden running along the
road, but raised some feet above it; the bank was kept up by a
rough stone wall crested with stuck-up snap-dragon and valerian,
and faced with rosettes and disks and dills of houseleek,
pennywort, and hart's-tongue.

Betsy and I were only just in time to see the old house as it used
to be; for the owner had died about half a year ago, and his
grandson, having proved his will, was resolved to make short work
with it.  The poor house was blamed for the sorrows it had
sheltered, and had the repute of two spectres, as well as the pale
shadow of misfortune.  For my dear father was now believed by the
superstitious villagers to haunt the old home of his happiness and
love, and roam from room to room in search of his wife and all his
children.  But his phantom was most careful not to face that of his
father, which stalked along haughtily, as behooved a lord, and
pointed forever to a red wound in its breast.  No wonder,
therefore, that the house would never let; and it would have been
pulled down long ago if the owner had not felt a liking for it,
through memories tender and peculiar to himself.  His grandson,
having none of these to contend with, resolved to make a mere
stable of it, and build a public-house at the bottom of the garden,
and turn the space between them into skittle-ground, and so forth.

To me this seemed such a very low idea, and such a desecration of a
sacred spot, that if I had owned any money to be sure of, I would
have offered hundreds to prevent it.  But I found myself now in a
delicate state of mind concerning money, having little of my own,
and doubting how much other people might intend for me.  So that I
durst not offer to buy land and a house without any means to pay.

And it was not for that reason only that Betsy and I kept ourselves
quiet.  We knew that any stir in this little place about us--such
as my name might at once set going--would once for all destroy all
hope of doing good by coming.  Betsy knew more of such matters than
I did, besides all her knowledge of the place itself, and her great
superiority of age; therefore I left to her all little management,
as was in every way fair and wise.  For Mrs. Strouss had forsaken a
large and good company of lodgers, with only Herr Strouss to look
after them--and who was he among them?  If she trod on one side of
her foot, or felt a tingling in her hand, or a buzzing in her ear,
she knew in a moment what it was--of pounds and pounds was she
being cheated, a hundred miles off, by foreigners!

For this reason it had cost much persuasion and many appeals to her
faithfulness, as well as considerable weekly payment, ere ever my
good nurse could be brought away from London; and perhaps even so
she never would have come if I had not written myself to Mrs.
Price, then visiting Betsy in European Square, that if the landlady
was too busy to be spared by her lodgers, I must try to get Lord
Castlewood to spare me his housekeeper.  Upon this Mrs. Strouss at
once declared that Mrs. Price would ruin every thing; and rather
than that--no matter what she lost--she herself would go with me.
And so she did, and she managed very well, keeping my name out of
sight (for, happen what might, I would have no false one); and she
got quiet lodgings in her present name, which sounded nicely
foreign; and the village being more agitated now about my father's
material house, and the work they were promised in pulling it down,
than about his shattered household, we had a very favorable time
for coming in, and were pronounced to be foreigners who must not be
allowed to run up bills.

This rustic conclusion suited us quite well, and we soon confirmed
it unwittingly, Betsy offering a German thaler and I an American
dollar at the shop of the village chandler and baker, so that we
were looked upon with some pity, and yet a kind desire for our
custom.  Thus, without any attempt of ours at either delusion or
mystery, Mrs. Strouss was hailed throughout the place as "Madam
Straw," while I, through the sagacity of a deeply read shoe-maker,
obtained a foreign name, as will by-and-by appear.

We lodged at the post-office, not through any wisdom or even any
thought on our part, but simply because we happened there to find
the cleanest and prettiest rooms in the place.  For the sun being
now in the height of August, and having much harvest to ripen, at
middle day came ramping down the little street of Shoxford like the
chairman of the guild of bakers.  Every house having lately
brightened up its whitewash--which they always do there when the
frosts are over, soon after the feast of St. Barnabas--and the
weeds of the way having fared amiss in the absence of any water-
cart, it was not in the strong, sharp character of the sun to miss
such an opportunity.  After the red Californian glare, I had no
fear of any English sun; but Betsy was frightened, and both of us
were glad to get into a little place sheltered by green blinds.
This chanced to be the post-office, and there we found nice
lodgings.

By an equal chance this proved to be the wisest thing we could
possibly have done, if we had set about it carefully.  For why,
that nobody ever would impute any desire of secrecy to people who
straightway unpacked their boxes at the very head-quarters of all
the village news.  And the mistress of the post was a sharp-tongued
woman, pleased to speak freely of her neighbors' doings, and prompt
with good advice that they should heed their own business, if any
of them durst say a word about her own.  She kept a tidy little
shop, showing something of almost every thing; but we had a side
door, quite of our own, where Betsy met the baker's wife and the
veritable milkman; and neither of them knew her, which was just
what she had hoped; and yet it made her speak amiss of them.

But if all things must be brought to the harsh test of dry reason,
I myself might be hard pushed to say what good I hoped to do by
coming thus to Shoxford.  I knew of a great many things, for
certain, that never had been thoroughly examined here; also I
naturally wished to see, being a native, what the natives were;
and, much more than that, it was always on my mind that here lay my
mother and the other six of us.

Therefore it was an impatient thing for me to hear Betsy working
out the afternoon with perpetual chatter and challenge of prices,
combating now as a lodger all those points which as a landlady she
never would allow even to be moot questions.  If any applicant in
European Square had dared so much as hint at any of all the
requirements which she now expected gratis, she would simply have
whisked her duster, and said that the lodgings for such people must
be looked for down the alley.  However, Mrs. Busk, our new
landlady, although she had a temper of her own (as any one keeping
a post-office must have) was forced by the rarity of lodgers here
to yield many points, which Mrs. Strouss, on her own boards, would
not even have allowed to be debated.  All this was entirely against
my wish; for when I have money, I spend it, finding really no other
good in it; but Betsy told me that the purest principle of all was--
not to be cheated.

So I left her to have these little matters out, and took that
occasion for stealing away (as the hours grew on toward evening) to
a place where I wished to be quite alone.  And the shadow of the
western hills shed peace upon the valley, when I crossed a little
stile leading into Shoxford church-yard.

For a minute or two I was quite afraid, seeing nobody any where
about, nor even hearing any sound in the distance to keep me
company.  For the church lay apart from the village, and was
thickly planted out from it, the living folk being full of
superstition, and deeply believing in the dead people's ghosts.
And even if this were a wife to a husband, or even a husband
reappearing to his wife, there was not a man or a woman in the
village that would not run away from it.

This I did not know at present, not having been there long enough;
neither had I any terror of that sort, not being quite such a
coward, I should hope.  But still, as the mantles of the cold trees
darkened, and the stony remembrance of the dead grew pale, and of
the living there was not even the whistle of a grave-digger--my
heart got the better of my mind for a moment, and made me long to
be across that stile again.  Because (as I said to myself) if there
had been a hill to go up, that would be so different and so easy;
but going down into a place like this, whence the only escape must
be by steps, and where any flight must be along channels that run
in and out of graves and tombstones, I tried not to be afraid, yet
could not altogether help it.

But lo! when I came to the north side of the tower, scarcely
thinking what to look for, I found myself in the middle of a place
which made me stop and wonder.  Here were six little grassy
tuffets, according to the length of children, all laid east and
west, without any stint of room, harmoniously.

From the eldest to the youngest, one could almost tell the age at
which their lowly stature stopped, and took its final measurement.

And in the middle was a larger grave, to comfort and encourage
them, as a hen lies down among her chicks and waits for them to
shelter.  Without a name to any of them, all these seven graves lay
together, as in a fairy ring of rest, and kind compassion had
prevented any stranger from coming to be buried there.

I would not sit on my mother's grave for fear of crushing the
pretty grass, which some one tended carefully; but I stood at its
foot, and bent my head, and counted all the little ones.  Then I
thought of my father in the grove of peaches, more than six
thousand miles away, on the banks of the soft Blue River.  And a
sense of desolate sorrow and of the blessing of death overwhelmed
me.



CHAPTER XXXV

THE SEXTON


With such things in my mind, it took me long to come back to my
work again.  It even seemed a wicked thing, so near to all these
proofs of God's great visitation over us, to walk about and say, "I
will do this," or even to think, "I will try to do that."  My own
poor helplessness, and loss of living love to guide me, laid upon
my heart a weight from which it scarcely cared to move.  All was
buried, all was done with, all had passed from out the world, and
left no mark but graves behind.  What good to stir anew such
sadness, even if a poor weak thing like me could move its mystery?

Time, however, and my nurse Betsy, and Jacob Rigg the gardener,
brought me back to a better state of mind, and renewed the right
courage within me.  But, first of all, Jacob Rigg aroused my terror
and interest vividly.  It may be remembered that this good man had
been my father's gardener at the time of our great calamity, and
almost alone of the Shoxford people had shown himself true and
faithful.  Not that the natives had turned against us, or been at
all unfriendly; so far from this was the case, that every one felt
for our troubles, and pitied us, my father being of a cheerful and
affable turn, until misery hardened him; but what I mean is that
only one or two had the courage to go against the popular
conclusion and the convictions of authority.

But Jacob was a very upright man, and had a strong liking for his
master, who many and many a time--as he told me--had taken a spade
and dug along with him, just as if he were a jobbing gardener born,
instead of a fine young nobleman; "and nobody gifted with that turn
of mind, likewise very clever in white-spine cowcumbers, could ever
be relied upon to go and shoot his father."  Thus reasoned old
Jacob, and he always had done so, and meant evermore to abide by
it; and the graves which he had tended now for nigh a score of
years, and meant to tend till he called for his own, were--as sure
as he stood there in Shoxford church-yard a-talking to me, who was
the very image of my father, God bless me, though not of course so
big like--the graves of slaughtered innocents, and a mother who was
always an angel.  And the parson might preach forever to him about
the resurrection, and the right coming uppermost when you got to
heaven, but to his mind that was scarcely any count at all; and if
you came to that, we ought to hang Jack Ketch, as might come to
pass in the Revelations.  But while a man had got his own bread to
earn, till his honor would let him go to the work-house, and his
duty to the rate-payers, there was nothing that vexed him more than
to be told any texts of Holy Scripture.  Whatever God Almighty had
put down there was meant for ancient people, the Jews being long
the most ancient people, though none the more for that did he like
them; and so it was mainly the ancient folk, who could not do a
day's work worth eighteenpence, that could enter into Bible
promises.  Not that he was at all behindhand about interpretation;
but as long as he could fetch and earn, at planting box and doing
borders, two shillings and ninepence a day and his beer, he was not
going to be on for kingdom come.

I told him that I scarcely thought his view of our condition here
would be approved by wise men who had found time to study the
subject.  But he answered that whatever their words might be, their
doings showed that they knew what was the first thing to attend to.
And if it ever happened him to come across a parson who was as full
of heaven outside as he was inside his surplice, he would keep his
garden in order for nothing better than his blessing.

I knew of no answer to be made to this.  And indeed he seemed to be
aware that his conversation was too deep for me; so he leaned upon
his spade, and rubbed his long blue chin in the shadow of the
church tower, holding as he did the position of sexton, and
preparing even now to dig a grave.

"I keeps them well away from you," he said, as he began to chop out
a new oblong in the turf; "many a shilling have I been offered by
mothers about their little ones, to put 'em inside of the 'holy
ring,' as we calls this little cluster; but not for five golden
guineas would I do it, and have to face the Captain, dead or alive,
about it.  We heard that he was dead, because it was put in all the
papers; and a pleasant place I keeps for him, to come home
alongside of his family.  A nicer gravelly bit of ground there
couldn't be in all the county; and if no chance of him occupying
it, I can drive down a peg with your mark, miss."

"Thank you," I answered; "you are certainly most kind; but, Mr.
Rigg, I would rather wait a little.  I have had a very troublesome
life thus far, and nothing to bind me to it much; but still I would
rather not have my peg driven down just--just at present."

"Ah, you be like all the young folk that think the tree for their
coffins ain't come to the size of this spade handle yet.  Lord
bless you for not knowing what He hath in hand!  Now this one you
see me a-raising of the turf for, stood as upright as you do, a
fortnight back, and as good about the chest and shoulders, and
three times the color in her cheeks, and her eyes a'most as bright
as yourn be.  Not aristocratic, you must understand me, miss, being
only the miller's daughter, nor instructed to throw her voice the
same as you do, which is better than gallery music; but setting
these haxidents to one side, a farmer would have said she was more
preferable, because more come-at-able, though not in my opinion to
be compared--excuse me for making so free, miss, but when it comes
to death we has a kind of right to do it--and many a young farmer,
coming to the mill, was disturbed in his heart about her, and far
and wide she was known, being proud, as the Beauty of the
Moonshine, from the name of our little river.  She used to call me
'Jacob Diggs,' because of my porochial office, with a meaning of a
joke on my parenshal name.  Ah, what a merry one she were!  And now
this is what I has to do for her!  And sooner would I 'a doed it
a'most for my own old ooman!"

"Oh, Jacob!" I cried, being horrified at the way in which he tore
up the ground, as if his wife was waiting, "the things you say are
quite wrong, I am sure, for a man in your position.  You are
connected with this church almost as much as the clerk is."

"More, miss, ten times more!  He don't do nothing but lounge on the
front of his desk, and be too lazy to keep up 'Amen,' while I at my
time of life go about, from Absolution to the fifth Lord's prayer,
with a stick that makes my rheumatics worse, for the sake of the
boys with their pocket full of nuts.  When I was a boy there was no
nuts, except at the proper time of year, a month or two on from
this time of speaking; and we used to crack they in the husk, and
make no noise to disturb the congregation; but now it is nuts,
nuts, round nuts, flat nuts, nuts with three corners to them--all
the year round nuts to crack, and me to find out who did it!"

"But, Mr. Rigg," I replied, as he stopped, looking hotter in mind
than in body, "is it not Mrs. Rigg, your good wife, who sells all
the nuts on a Saturday for the boys to crack on a Sunday?"

"My missus do sell some, to be sure; yes, just a few.  But not of a
Saturday more than any other day."

"Then surely, Mr. Rigg, you might stop it, by not permitting any
sale of nuts except to good boys of high principles.  And has it
not happened sometimes, Mr. Rigg, that boys have made marks on
their nuts, and bought them again at your shop on a Monday?  I
mean, of course, when your duty has compelled you to empty the
pockets of a boy in church."

Now this was a particle of shamefully small gossip, picked up
naturally by my Betsy, but pledged to go no further; and as soon as
I had spoken I became a little nervous, having it suddenly brought
to my mind that I had promised not even to whisper it; and now I
had told it to the man of all men!  But Jacob appeared to have been
quite deaf, and diligently went on digging.  And I said "good-
evening," for the grave was for the morrow; and he let me go nearly
to the stile before he stuck his spade into the ground and
followed.

"Excoose of my making use," he said, "of a kind of a personal
reference, miss; but you be that pat with your answers, it maketh
me believe you must be sharp inside--more than your father, the
poor Captain, were, as all them little grass buttons argueth.  Now,
miss, if I thought you had head-piece enough to keep good counsel
and ensue it, maybe I could tell you a thing as would make your
hair creep out of them coorous hitch-ups, and your heart a'most
bust them there braids of fallallies."

"Why, what in the world do you mean?" I asked, being startled by
the old man's voice and face.

"Nothing, miss, nothing.  I was only a-joking.  If you bain't come
to no more discretion than that--to turn as white as the clerk's
smock-frock of a Easter-Sunday--why, the more of a joke one has,
the better, to bring your purty color back to you.  Ah!  Polly of
the mill was the maid for color--as good for the eyesight as a
chaney-rose in April.  Well, well, I must get on with her grave;
they're a-coming to speak the good word over un on sundown."

He might have known how this would vex and perplex me.  I could not
bear to hinder him in his work--as important as any to be done by
man for man--and yet it was beyond my power to go home and leave
him there, and wonder what it was that he had been so afraid to
tell.  So I quietly said, "Then I will wish you a very good evening
again, Mr. Rigg, as you are too busy to be spoken with."  And I
walked off a little way, having met with men who, having begun a
thing, needs must have it out, and fully expecting him to call me
back.  But Jacob only touched his hat, and said, "A pleasant
evening to you, ma'am."

Nothing could have made me feel more resolute than this did.  I did
not hesitate one moment in running back over the stile again, and
demanding of Jacob Rigg that he should tell me whether he meant any
thing or nothing; for I was not to be played with about important
matters, like the boys in the church who were cracking nuts.

"Lord!  Lord, now!" he said, with his treddled heel scraping the
shoulder of his shining spade; "the longer I live in this world,
the fitter I grow to get into the ways of the Lord.  His ways are
past finding out, saith King David: but a man of war, from his
youth upward, hath no chance such as a gardening man hath.  What a
many of them have I found out!"

"What has that got to do with it!" I cried.  "Just tell me what it
was you were speaking of just now."

"I was just a-thinking, when I looked at you, miss," he answered,
in the prime of leisure, and wiping his forehead from habit only,
not because he wanted it, "how little us knows of the times and
seasons and the generations of the sons of men.  There you stand,
miss, and here stand I, as haven't seen your father for a score of
years a'most; and yet there comes out of your eyes into mine the
very same look as the Captain used to send, when snakes in the
grass had been telling lies about me coming late, or having my half
pint or so on.  Not that the Captain was a hard man, miss--far
otherwise, and capable of allowance, more than any of the women be.
But only the Lord, who doeth all things aright, could 'a made you
come, with a score of years atween, and the twinkle in your eyes
like--Selah!"

"You know what you mean, perhaps, but I do not," I answered, quite
gently, being troubled by his words and the fear of having tried to
hurry him; "but you should not say what you have said, Jacob Rigg,
to me, your master's daughter, if you only meant to be joking.  Is
this the place to joke with me?"

I pointed to all that lay around me, where I could not plant a foot
without stepping over my brothers or sisters; and the old man,
callous as he might be, could not help feeling for--a pinch of
snuff.  This he found in the right-hand pocket of his waistcoat,
and took it very carefully, and made a little noise of comfort; and
thus, being fully self-assured again, he stood, with his feet far
apart and his head on one side, regarding me warily.  And I took
good care not to say another word.

"You be young," he said at last; "and in these latter days no
wisdom is ordained in the mouths of babes and sucklings, nor always
in the mouths of them as is themselves ordained.  But you have a
way of keeping your chin up, miss, as if you was gifted with a
stiff tongue likewise.  And whatever may hap, I has as good mind to
tell 'e."

"That you are absolutely bound to do," I answered, as forcibly as I
could.  "Duty to your former master and to me, his only child--and
to yourself, and your Maker too--compel you, Jacob Rigg, to tell me
every thing you know."

"Then, miss," he answered, coming nearer to me, and speaking in a
low, hoarse voice, "as sure as I stand here in God's churchyard, by
all this murdered family, I knows the man who done it!"

He looked at me, with a trembling finger upon his hard-set lips,
and the spade in his other hand quivered like a wind vane; but I
became as firm as the monument beside me, and my heart, instead of
fluttering, grew as steadfast as a glacier.  Then, for the first
time, I knew that God had not kept me living, when all the others
died, without fitting me also for the work there was to do.

"Come here to the corner of the tower, miss," old Jacob went on, in
his excitement catching hold of the sleeve of my black silk jacket.
"Where we stand is a queer sort of echo, which goeth in and out of
them big tombstones.  And for aught I can say to contrairy, he may
be a-watching of us while here we stand."

I glanced around, as if he were most welcome to be watching me, if
only I could see him once.  But the place was as silent as its
graves; and I followed the sexton to the shadow of a buttress.
Here he went into a deep gray corner, lichened and mossed by a drip
from the roof; and being, both in his clothes and self, pretty much
of that same color, he was not very easy to discern from stone when
the light of day was declining.

"This is where I catches all the boys," he whispered; "and this is
where I caught him, one evening when I were tired, and gone to
nurse my knees a bit.  Let me see--why, let me see!  Don't you
speak till I do, miss.  Were it the last but one I dug?  Or could
un 'a been the last but two?  Never mind; I can't call to mind
quite justly.  We puts down about one a month in this parish,
without any distemper or haxident.  Well, it must 'a been the one
afore last--to be sure, no call to scratch my head about un.  Old
Sally Mock, as sure as I stand here--done handsome by the rate-
payers.  Over there, miss, if you please to look--about two land-
yard and a half away.  Can you see un with the grass peeking up
a'ready?"

"Never mind that, Jacob.  Do please to go on."

"So I be, miss.  So I be doing to the best of the power granted me.
Well, I were in this little knuckle of a squat, where old Sally
used to say as I went to sleep, and charged the parish for it--a
spiteful old ooman, and I done her grave with pleasure, only
wishing her had to pay for it; and to prove to her mind that I
never goed asleep here, I was just making ready to set fire to my
pipe, having cocked my shovel in to ease my legs, like this, when
from round you corner of the chancel-foot, and over again that
there old tree, I seed a something movin' along--movin' along,
without any noise or declarance of solid feet walking.  You may see
the track burnt in the sod, if you let your eyes go along this here
finger."

"Oh, Jacob, how could you have waited to see it?"

"I did, miss, I did; being used to a-many antics in this dead-yard,
such as a man who hadn't buried them might up foot to run away
from.  But they no right, after the service of the Church, to come
up for more than one change of the moon, unless they been great
malefactors.  And then they be ashamed of it; and I reminds them of
it.  'Amen,' I say, in the very same voice as I used at the tail of
their funerals; and then they knows well that I covered them up,
and the most uneasy goes back again.  Lor' bless you, miss, I no
fear of the dead.  At both ends of life us be harmless.  It is in
the life, and mostways in the middle of it, we makes all the death
for one another."

This was true enough; and I only nodded to him, fearing to
interject any new ideas from which he might go rambling.

"Well, that there figure were no joke, mind you," the old man
continued, as soon as he had freshened his narrative powers with
another pinch of snuff, "being tall and grim, and white in the
face, and very onpleasant for to look at, and its eyes seemed
a'most to burn holes in the air.  No sooner did I see that it were
not a ghostie, but a living man the same as I be, than my knees
begins to shake and my stumps of teeth to chatter.  And what do you
think it was stopped me, miss, from slipping round this corner, and
away by belfry?  Nort but the hoddest idea you ever heared on.  For
all of a suddint it was borne unto my mind that the Lord had been
pleased to send us back the Captain; not so handsome as he used to
be, but in the living flesh, however, in spite of they newspapers.
And I were just at the pint of coming forrard, out of this here
dark cornder, knowing as I had done my duty by them graves that his
honor, to my mind, must 'a come looking after, when, lucky for me,
I see summat in his walk, and then in his countenance, and then in
all his features, unnateral on the Captain's part, whatever his
time of life might be.  And sure enough, miss, it were no Captain
more nor I myself be."

"Of course not.  How could it be?  But who was it, Jacob?"

"You bide a bit, miss, and you shall hear the whole.  Well, by that
time 'twas too late for me to slip away, and I was bound to scrooge
up into the elbow of this nick here, and try not to breathe, as
nigh as might be, and keep my Lammas cough down; for I never see a
face more full of malice and uncharity.  However, he come on as
straight as a arrow, holding his long chin out, like this, as if he
gotten crutches under it, as the folk does with bad water.  A tall
man, as tall as the Captain a'most, but not gifted with any kind
aspect.  He trampsed over the general graves, like the devil come
to fetch their souls out; but when he come here to the 'holy ring,'
he stopped short, and stood with his back to me.  I could hear him
count the seven graves, as pat as the shells of oysters to pay for,
and then he said all their names, as true, from the biggest to the
leastest one, as Betsy Bowen could 'a done it, though none of 'em
got no mark to 'em.  Oh, the poor little hearts, it was cruel hard
upon them!  And then my lady in the middle, making seven.  So far
as I could catch over his shoulder, he seemed to be quite a-talking
with her--not as you and I be, miss, but a sort of a manner of a
way, like."

"And what did he seem to say?  Oh, Jacob, how long you do take over
it!"

"Well, he did not, miss; that you may say for sartain.  And glad I
was to have him quick about it; for he might have redooced me to
such a condition--ay, and I believe a' would, too, if onst a' had
caught sight of me--as the parish might 'a had to fight over the
appintment of another sexton.  And so at last a' went away.  And I
were that stiff with scrooging in this cornder--"

"Is that all?  Oh, that comes to nothing.  Surely you must have
more to tell me?  It may have been some one who knew our names.  It
may have been some old friend of the family."

"No, miss, no!  No familiar friend; or if he was, he were like King
David's.  He bore a tyrannous hate against 'e, and the poison of
asps were under his lips.  In this here hattitude he stood, with
his back toward me, and his reins more upright than I be capable of
putting it.  And this was how he held up his elbow and his head.
Look 'e see, miss, and then 'e know as much as I do."

Mr. Rigg marched with a long smooth step--a most difficult strain
for his short bowed legs--as far as the place he had been pointing
out; and there he stood with his back to me, painfully doing what
the tall man had done, so far as the difference of size allowed.

It was not possible for me to laugh in a matter of such sadness;
and yet Jacob stood, with his back to me, spreading and stretching
himself in such a way, to be up to the dimensions of the stranger,
that--low as it was--I was compelled to cough, for fear of fatally
offending him.

"That warn't quite right, miss.  Now you look again," he exclaimed,
with a little readjustment.  "Only he had a thing over one
shoulder, the like of what the Scotchmen wear; and his features was
beyond me, because of the back of his head, like.  For God's sake
keep out of his way, miss."

The sexton stood in a musing and yet a stern and defiant attitude,
with the right elbow clasped in the left-hand palm, the right hand
resting half-clinched upon the forehead, and the shoulders thrown
back, as if ready for a blow.

"What a very odd way to stand!" I said.

"Yes, miss.  And what he said was odder.  'Six, and the mother!' I
heared un say; 'no cure for it, till I have all seven.'  But stop,
miss.  Not a breath to any one!  Here comes the poor father and
mother to speak the blessing across their daughter's grave--and the
grave not two foot down yet!"



CHAPTER XXXVI

A SIMPLE QUESTION


Now this account of what Jacob Rigg had seen and heard threw me
into a state of mind extremely unsatisfactory.  To be in eager
search of some unknown person who had injured me inexpressibly,
without any longing for revenge on my part, but simply with a view
to justice--this was a very different thing from feeling that an
unknown person was in quest of me, with the horrible purpose of
destroying me to insure his own wicked safety.

At first I almost thought that he was welcome to do this; that such
a life as mine (if looked at from an outer point of view) was
better to be died than lived out.  Also that there was nobody left
to get any good out of all that I could do; and even if I ever
should succeed, truth would come out of her tomb too late.  And
this began to make me cry, which I had long given over doing, with
no one to feel for the heart of it.

But a thing of this kind could not long endure; and as soon as the
sun of the morrow arose (or at least as soon as I was fit to see
him), my view of the world was quite different.  Here was the merry
brook, playing with the morning, spread around with ample depth and
rich retreat of meadows, and often, after maze of leisure,
hastening with a tinkle into shadowy delight of trees.  Here, as
well, were happy lanes, and footpaths of a soft content, unworn
with any pressure of the price of time or business.  None of them
knew (in spite, at flurried spots, of their own direction posts)
whence they were coming or whither going--only that here they lay,
between the fields or through them, like idle veins of earth, with
sometimes company of a man or boy, whistling to his footfall, or a
singing maid with a milking pail.  And how ungrateful it would be
to forget the pleasant copses, in waves of deep green leafage
flowing down and up the channeled hills, waving at the wind to
tints and tones of new refreshment, and tempting idle folk to come
and hear the hush, and see the twinkled texture of pellucid gloom.

Much, however, as I loved to sit in places of this kind alone, for
some little time I feared to do so, after hearing the sexton's
tale; for Jacob's terror was so unfeigned (though his own life had
not been threatened) that, knowing as I did from Betsy's account,
as well as his own appearance, that he was not at all a nervous
man, I could not help sharing his vague alarm.  It seemed so
terrible that any one should come to the graves of my sweet mother
and her six harmless children, and, instead of showing pity, as
even a monster might have tried to do, should stand, if not with
threatening gestures, yet with a most hostile mien, and thirst for
the life of the only survivor--my poor self.

But terrible or not, the truth was so; and neither Betsy nor myself
could shake Mr. Rigg's conclusion.  Indeed, he became more and more
emphatic, in reply to our doubts and mild suggestions, perhaps that
his eyes had deceived him, or perhaps that, taking a nap in the
corner of the buttress, he had dreamed at least a part of it.  And
Betsy, on the score of ancient friendship and kind remembrance of
his likings, put it to him in a gentle way whether his knowledge of
what Sally Mock had been, and the calumnies she might have spoken
of his beer (when herself, in the work-house, deprived of it),
might not have induced him to take a little more than usual in
going down so deep for her.  But he answered, "No; it was nothing
of the sort.  Deep he had gone, to the tiptoe of his fling; not
from any feeling of a wish to keep her down, but just because the
parish paid, and the parish would have measurement.  And when that
was on, he never brought down more than the quart tin from the
public; and never had none down afterward.  Otherwise the ground
was so ticklish, that a man, working too free, might stay down
there.  No, no!  That idea was like one of Sally's own.  He just
had his quart of Persfield ale--short measure, of course, with a
woman at the bar--and if that were enough to make a man dream
dreams, the sooner he dug his own grave, the better for all
connected with him."

We saw that we had gone too far in thinking of such a possibility;
and if Mr. Rigg had not been large-minded, as well as notoriously
sober, Betsy might have lost me all the benefit of his evidence by
her London-bred clumsiness with him.  For it takes quite a
different handling, and a different mode of outset, to get on with
the London working class and the laboring kind of the country; or
at least it seemed to me so.

Now my knowledge of Jacob Rigg was owing, as might be supposed, to
Betsy Strouss, who had taken the lead of me in almost every thing
ever since I brought her down from London.  And now I was glad
that, in one point at least, her judgment had overruled mine--to
wit, that my name and parentage were as yet not generally known in
the village.  Indeed, only Betsy herself and Jacob and a faithful
old washer-woman, with no roof to her mouth, were aware of me as
Miss Castlewood.  Not that I had taken any other name--to that I
would not stoop--but because the public, of its own accord, paying
attention to Betsy's style of addressing me, followed her lead
(with some little improvement), and was pleased to entitle me "Miss
Raumur."

Some question had been raised as to spelling me aright, till a man
of advanced intelligence proved to many eyes, and even several
pairs of spectacles (assembled in front of the blacksmith's shop),
that no other way could be right except that.  For there it was in
print, as any one able might see, on the side of an instrument
whose name and qualities were even more mysterious than those in
debate.  Therefore I became "Miss Raumur;" and a protest would have
gone for nothing unless printed also.  But it did not behoove me to
go to that expense, while it suited me very well to be considered
and pitied as a harmless foreigner--a being who on English land may
find some cause to doubt whether, even in his own country, a
prophet could be less thought of.  And this large pity for me, as
an outlandish person, in the very spot where I was born, endowed me
with tenfold the privilege of the proudest native.  For the natives
of this valley are declared to be of a different stock from those
around them, not of the common Wessex strain, but of Jutish or
Danish origin.  How that may be I do not know; at any rate, they
think well of themselves, and no doubt they have cause to do so.

Moreover, they all were very kind to me, and their primitive ways
amused me, as soon as they had settled that I was a foreigner,
equally beyond and below inquiry.  They told me that I was kindly
welcome to stay there as long as it pleased me; and knowing how
fond I was of making pictures, after beholding my drawing-book,
every farmer among them gave me leave to come into his fields,
though he never had heard there was any thing there worth painting.

When once there has been a deposit of idea in the calm deep eocene
of British rural mind, the impression will outlast any shallow
deluge of the noblest education.  Shoxford had settled two points
forever, without troubling reason to come out of her way--first,
that I was a foreign young lady of good birth, manners, and money;
second, and far more important, I was here to write and paint a
book about Shoxford.  Not for the money, of that I had no need
(according to the congress at the "Silver-edged Holly"), but for
the praise and the knowledge of it, like, and to make a talk among
high people.  But the elders shook their heads--as I heard from Mr.
Rigg, who hugged his knowledge proudly, and uttered dim sayings of
wisdom let forth at large usury: he did not mind telling me that
the old men shook their heads, for fear of my being a deal too
young, and a long sight too well favored (as any man might tell
without his specs on), for to write any book upon any subject yet,
leave alone an old, ancient town like theirs.  However, there might
be no harm in my trying, and perhaps the school-master would cross
out the bad language.

Thus for once fortune now was giving me good help, enabling me to
go about freely, and preventing (so far as I could see, at least)
all danger of discovery by my unknown foe.  So here I resolved to
keep my head-quarters, dispensing, if it must be so, with Betsy's
presence, and not even having Mrs. Price to succeed her, unless my
cousin should insist upon it.  And partly to dissuade him from
that, and partly to hear his opinion of the sexton's tale, I paid a
flying visit to Lord Castlewood; while "Madam Straw," as Betsy now
was called throughout the village, remained behind at Shoxford.
For I long had desired to know a thing which I had not ventured to
ask my cousin--though I did ask Mr. Shovelin--whether my father had
intrusted him with the key of his own mysterious acts.  I scarcely
knew whether it was proper even now to put this question to Lord
Castlewood; but even without doing so, I might get at the answer by
watching him closely while I told my tale.  Not a letter had
reached me since I came to Shoxford, neither had I written any,
except one to Uncle Sam; and keeping to this excellent rule, I
arrived at Castlewood without notice.

In doing this I took no liberty, because full permission had been
given me about it; and indeed I had been expected there, as Stixon
told me, some days before.  He added that his master was about as
usual, but had shown some uneasiness on my account, though the
butler was all in the dark about it, and felt it very hard after
all these years, "particular, when he could hardly help thinking
that Mrs. Price--a new hand compared to himself, not to speak of
being a female--knowed all about it, and were very aggravating.
But there, he would say no more; he knew his place, and he always
had been valued in it, long afore Mrs. Price come up to the bottom
of his waistcoat."

My cousin received me with kindly warmth, and kissed me gently on
the forehead.  "My dear, how very well you look!" he said.  "Your
native air has agreed with you.  I was getting, in my quiet way,
rather sedulous and self-reproachful about you.  But you would have
your own way, like a young American; and it seems that you were
right."

"It was quite right," I answered, with a hearty kiss, for I never
could be cold-natured; and this was my only one of near kin, so
far, at least, as my knowledge went.  "I was quite right in going;
and I have done good.  At any rate, I have found out something--
something that may not be of any kind of use; but still it makes me
hope things."

With that, in as few words as ever I could use, I told Lord
Castlewood the whole of Jacob's tale, particularly looking at him
all the while I spoke, to settle in my own mind whether the idea of
such a thing was new to him.  Concerning that, however, I could
make out nothing.  My cousin, at his time of life, and after so
much travelling, had much too large a share of mind and long skill
of experience for me to make any thing out of his face beyond his
own intention.  And whether he had suspicion or not of any thing at
all like what I was describing, or any body having to do with it,
was more than I ever might have known, if I had not gathered up my
courage and put the question outright to him.  I told him that if I
was wrong in asking, he was not to answer; but, right or wrong, ask
him I must.

"The question is natural, and not at all improper," replied Lord
Castlewood, standing a moment for change of pain, which was all his
relief.  "Indeed, I expected you to ask me that before.  But,
Erema, I have also had to ask myself about it, whether I have any
right to answer you.  And I have decided not to do so, unless you
will pledge yourself to one thing."

"I will pledge myself to any thing," I answered, rashly; "I do not
care what it is, if only to get at the bottom of this mystery."

"I scarcely think you will hold good to your words when you hear
what you have to promise.  The condition upon which I tell you what
I believe to be the cause of all is, that you let things remain as
they are, and keep silence forever about them."

"Oh, you can not be so cruel, so atrocious!" I cried, in my bitter
disappointment.  "What good would it be for me to know things thus,
and let the vile wrong continue?  Surely you are not bound to lay
on me a condition so impossible?"

"After much consideration and strong wish to have it otherwise, I
have concluded that I am so bound."

"In duty to my father, or the family, or what?  Forgive me for
asking, but it does seem so hard."

"It seems hard, my dear, and it is hard as well," he answered, very
gently, yet showing in his eyes and lips no chance of any yielding.
"But remember that I do not know, I only guess, the secret; and if
you give the pledge I speak of, you merely follow in your father's
steps."

"Never," I replied, with as firm a face as his.  "It may have been
my father's duty, or no doubt he thought it so; but it can not be
mine, unless I make it so by laying it on my honor.  And I will not
do that."

"Perhaps you are right; but, at any rate, remember that I have not
tried to persuade you.  I wish to do what is for your happiness,
Erema.  And I think that, on the whole, with your vigor and high
spirit, you are better as you are than if you had a knowledge which
you could only brood over and not use."

"I will find out the whole of it myself," I cried, for I could not
repress all excitement; "and then I need not brood over it, but may
have it out and get justice.  In the wildest parts of America
justice comes with perseverance: am I to abjure it in the heart of
England?  Lord Castlewood, which is first--justice or honor?"

"My cousin, you are fond of asking questions difficult to answer.
Justice and honor nearly always go together.  When they do
otherwise, honor stands foremost, with people of good birth, at
least."

"Then I will be a person of very bad birth.  If they come into
conflict in my life, as almost every thing seems to do, my first
thought shall be of justice; and honor shall come in as its
ornament afterward."

"Erema," said my cousin, "your meaning is good, and at your time of
life you can scarcely be expected to take a dispassionate view of
things."

At first I felt almost as if I could hate a "dispassionate view of
things."  Things are made to arouse our passion, so long as
meanness and villainy prevail; and if old men, knowing the balance
of the world, can contemplate them all "dispassionately," more
clearly than any thing else, to my mind, that proves the beauty of
being young.  I am sure that I never was hot or violent--qualities
which I especially dislike--but still I would rather almost have
those than be too philosophical.  And now, while I revered my
father's cousin for his gentleness, wisdom, and long-suffering, I
almost longed to fly back to the Major, prejudiced, peppery, and
red-hot for justice, at any rate in all things that concerned
himself.



CHAPTER XXXVII

SOME ANSWER TO IT


Hasty indignation did not drive me to hot action.  A quiet talk
with Mrs. Price, as soon as my cousin's bad hour arrived, was quite
enough to bring me back to a sense of my own misgovernment.
Moreover, the evening clouds were darkening for a night of thunder,
while the silver Thames looked nothing more than a leaden pipe down
the valleys.  Calm words fall at such times on quick temper like
the drip of trees on people who have been dancing.  I shivered, as
my spirit fell, to think of my weak excitement, and poor petulance
to a kind, wise friend, a man of many sorrows and perpetual
affliction.  And then I recalled what I had observed, but in my
haste forgotten--Lord Castlewood was greatly changed even in the
short time since I had left his house for Shoxford.  Pale he had
always been, and his features (calm as they were, and finely cut)
seemed almost bleached by in-door life and continual endurance.
But now they showed worse sign than this--a delicate transparence
of faint color, and a waxen surface, such as I had seen at a time I
can not bear to think of.  Also he had tottered forward, while he
tried for steadfast footing, quite as if his worried members were
almost worn out at last.

Mrs. Price took me up quite sharply--at least for one of her well-
trained style--when I ventured to ask if she had noticed this,
which made me feel uneasy.  "Oh dear, no!" she said, looking up
from the lace-frilled pockets of her silk apron, which appeared to
my mind perhaps a little too smart, and almost of a vulgar
tincture; and I think that she saw in my eyes that much, and was
vexed with herself for not changing it--"oh dear, no, Miss
Castlewood!  We who know and watch him should detect any difference
of that nature at the moment of its occurrence.  His lordship's
health goes vacillating; a little up now, and then a little down,
like a needle that is mounted to show the dip of compass; and it
varies according to the electricity, as well as the magnetic
influence."

"What doctor told you that?" I asked, seeing in a moment that this
housekeeper was dealing in quotation.

"You are very"--she was going to say "rude," but knew better when
she saw me waiting for it--"well, you are rather brusque, as we
used to call it abroad, Miss Castlewood; but am I incapable of
observing for myself?"

"I never implied that," was my answer.  "I believe that you are
most intelligent, and fit to nurse my cousin, as you are to keep
his house.  And what you have said shows the clearness of your
memory and expression."

"You are very good to speak so," she answered, recovering her
temper beautifully, but, like a true woman, resolved not to let me
know any thing more about it.  "Oh, what a clap of thunder!  Are
you timid?  This house has been struck three times, they say.  It
stands so prominently.  It is this that has made my lord look so."

"Let us hope, then to see him much better to-morrow," I said, very
bravely, though frightened at heart, being always a coward of
thunder.  "What are these storms you get in England compared to the
tropical outbursts?  Let us open the window, if you please, and
watch it."

"I hear myself called," Mrs. Price exclaimed.  "I am sorry to leave
you, miss.  You know best.  But please not to sit by an open
window; nothing is more dangerous."

"Except a great bunch of steel keys," I replied; and gazing at her
nice retreating figure, saw it quickened, as a flash of lightning
passed, with the effort of both hands to be quit of something.

The storm was dreadful; and I kept the window shut, but could not
help watching, with a fearful joy, the many-fingered hazy pale
vibrations, the reflections of the levin in the hollow of the land.
And sadly I began to think of Uncle Sam and all his goodness; and
how in a storm, a thousandfold of this, he went down his valley in
the torrent of the waves, and must have been drowned, and perhaps
never found again, if he had not been wearing his leathern apron.

This made me humble, as all great thoughts do, and the sidelong
drizzle in among the heavy rain (from the big drops jostling each
other in the air, and dashing out splashes of difference) gave me
an idea of the sort of thing I was--and how very little more.  And
feeling rather lonely in the turn that things had taken, I rang the
bell for somebody; and up came Stixon.

"Lor', miss!  Lor', what a burning shame of Prick!--'Prick' we call
her, in our genial moments, hearing as the 'k' is hard in Celtic
language; and all abroad about her husband.  My very first saying
to you was, not to be too much okkipied with her.  Look at the
pinafore on her!  Lord be with me!  If his lordship, as caught me,
that day of this very same month fifty years, in the gooseberry
bush--"

"To be sure!" I said, knowing that story by heart, together with
all its embellishments; "but things are altered since that day.
Nothing can be more to your credit, I am sure, than to be able to
tell such a tale in the very place where it happened."

"But, Miss--Miss Erma, I ain't begun to tell it."

"Because you remember that I am acquainted with it.  A thing so
remarkable is not to be forgotten.  Now let me ask you a question
of importance; and I beg you, as an old servant of this family, to
answer it carefully and truly.  Do you remember any one, either
here or elsewhere, so like my father, Captain Castlewood, as to be
taken for him at first sight, until a difference of expression and
of walk was noticed?"

Mr. Stixon looked at me with some surprise, and then began to think
profoundly, and in doing so he supported his chin with one hand.

"Let me see--like the Captain?"  He reflected slowly:  "Did I ever
see a gentleman like poor Master George, as was?  A gentleman, of
course, it must have been--and a very tall, handsome, straight
gentleman, to be taken anyhow for young Master George.  And he must
have been very like him, too, to be taken for him by resemblance.
Well then, miss, to the best of my judgment, I never did see such a
gentleman."

"I don't know whether it was a gentleman or not," I answered, with
some impatience at his tantalizing slowness; "but he carried his
chin stretched forth--like this."

For Stixon's own attitude had reminded me of a little point in
Jacob Rigg's description, which otherwise might have escaped me.

"Lor', now, and he carried his chin like that!" resumed the butler,
with an increase of intelligence by no means superfluous.  "Why,
let me see, now, let me see.  Something do come across my mind when
you puts out your purty chin, miss; but there, it must have been a
score of years agone, or more--perhaps five-and-twenty.  What a
daft old codger I be getting, surely!  No wonder them new lights
puts a bushel over me."

"No," I replied; "you are simply showing great power of memory,
Stixon.  And now please to tell me, as soon as you can, who it was--
a tall man, remember, and a handsome one, with dark hair, perhaps,
or at any rate dark eyes--who resembled (perhaps not very closely,
but still enough to mislead at a distance) my dear father--Master
George, as you call him, for whose sake you are bound to tell me
every thing you know.  Now try to think--do please try your very
best, for my sake."

"That I will, miss; that I will, with all my heart, with all my
mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength, as I used to have
to say with my hands behind my back, afore education were invented.
Only please you to stand with your chin put out, miss, and your
profield towards me.  That is what brings it up, and nothing else
at all, miss.  Only, not to say a word of any sort to hurry me.  A
tracherous and a deep thing is the memory and the remembrance."

Mr. Stixon's memory was so deep that there seemed to be no bottom
to it, or, at any rate, what lay there took a very long time to get
at.  And I waited, with more impatience than hope, the utterance of
his researches.

"I got it now; I got it all, miss, clear as any pictur'!" the old
man cried out, at the very moment when I was about to say, "Please
to leave off; I am sure it is too much for you."  "Not a pictur' in
all of our gallery, miss, two-and-fifty of 'em, so clear as I see
that there man, dark as it was, and a heavy wind a-blowing.  What
you call them things, miss, if you please, as comes with the sun,
like a face upon the water?  Wicked things done again the will of
the Lord, and He makes them fade out afterwards."

"Perhaps you mean photographs.  Is that the word?"

"The very word, and no mistake.  A sinful trespass on the works of
God, to tickle the vanity of gals.  But he never spread himself
abroad like them.  They shows all their ear-rings, and their necks,
and smiles.  But he never would have shown his nose, if he could
help it, that stormy night when I come to do my duty.  He come into
this house without so much as a 'by your leave' to nobody, and
vexed me terrible accordingly.  It was in the old lord's time,
you know, miss, a one of the true sort, as would have things
respectful, and knock down any man as soon as look.  And it put me
quite upon the touch-and-go, being responsible for all the
footman's works, and a young boy promoted in the face of my
opinion, having my own son worth a dozen of him.  This made me look
at the nature of things, miss, and find it on my conscience to be
after every body."

"Yes, Stixon, yes!  Now do go on.  You must always have been, not
only after, but a very long way after, every body."

"Miss Erma, if you throw me out, every word goes promiscuous.  In a
heffort of the mind like this it is every word, or no word.  Now,
did I see him come along the big passage?--a 'currydoor' they call
it now, though no more curry in it than there is door.  No, I never
seed him come along the passage, and that made it more reproachful.
He come out of a green-baize door--the very place I can point out
to you, and the selfsame door, miss, though false to the accuracy
of the mind that knows it, by reason of having been covered up
red, and all the brass buttons lost to it in them new-fangled
upholsteries.  Not that I see him come through, if you please, but
the sway of the door, being double-jointed, was enough to show
legs, had been there.  And knowing that my lord's private room was
there, made me put out my legs quite wonderful."

"Oh, do please to put out your words half as quickly."

"No, miss, no.  I were lissome in those days, though not so very
stiff at this time of speaking, and bound to be guarded in the
guidance of the tongue.  And now, miss, I think if you please to
hear the rest to-morrow, I could tell it better."

A more outrageous idea than this was never presented to me.  Even
if I could have tried to wait, this dreadful old man might have
made up his mind not to open his lips in the morning, or, if he
would speak, there might be nothing left to say.  His memory was
nursed up now, and my only chance was to keep it so.  Therefore I
begged him to please to go on, and no more would I interrupt him.
And I longed to be ten years older, so as not to speak when
needless.

"So then, Miss Erma, if I must go on," resumed the well-coaxed
Stixon, "if my duty to the family driveth me to an 'arrowing
subjeck, no words can more justly tell what come to pass than my
language to my wife.  She were alive then, the poor dear hangel,
and the mother of seven children, which made me, by your leave
comparing humble roofs with grandeur, a little stiff to him up
stairs, as come in on the top of seven.  For I said to my wife when
I went home--sleeping out of the house, you see, miss, till the
Lord was pleased to dissolve matrimony--'Polly,' I said, when I
took home my supper, 'you may take my word for it there is
something queer.'  Not another word did I mean to tell her, as
behooved my dooty.  Howsoever, no peace was my lot till I made a
clean bosom of it, only putting her first on the Testament, and
even that not safe with most of them.  And from that night not a
soul has heard a word till it comes to you, miss.  He come striding
along, with his face muffled up, for all the world like a bugglar,
and no more heed did he pay to me than if I was one of the
pedestals.  But I were in front of him at the door, and to slip out
so was against all orders.  So in front of him I stands, with my
hand upon the handles, and meaning to have a word with him, to know
who he was, and such like, and how he comes there, and what he had
been seeking, with the spoons and the forks and the gravies on my
mind.  And right I would have been in a court of law (if the
lawyers was put out of it) for my hefforts in that situation.  And
then, what do you think he done, miss?  So far from entering into
any conversation with me, or hitting at me, like a man--which would
have done good to think of--he send out one hand to the bottom of
my vest--as they call it now in all the best livery tailors--and
afore I could reason on it, there I was a-lying on a star in six
colors of marble.  When I come to think on it, it was but a push
directed to a part of my system, and not a hit under the belt, the
like of which no Briton would think of delivering.  Nevertheless,
there was no differ in what came to me, miss, and my spirit was
roused, as if I had been hit foul by one of the prizemen.  No time
to get up, but I let out one foot at his long legs as a' was
slipping through the door, and so nearly did I fetch him over that
he let go his muffle to balance himself with the jamb, and same
moment a strong rush of wind laid bare the whole of his wicked face
to me.  For a bad wicked face it was, as ever I did see; whether by
reason of the kick I gave, and a splinter in the shin, or by habit
of the mind, a proud and 'aughty and owdacious face, and, as I said
to my poor wife, reminded me a little of our Master George; not in
his ordinary aspect, to be sure, but as Master George might look if
he was going to the devil.  Pray excoose me, miss, for bad words,
but no good ones will do justice.  And so off he goes, after one
look at me on the ground, not worth considering, with his chin
stuck up, as if the air was not good enough to be breathed
perpendiklar like."

"And of course you followed him," I exclaimed, perceiving that
Stixon would allow me now to speak.  "Without any delay you went
after him."

"Miss Erma, you forget what my dooty was.  My dooty was to stay by
the door and make it fast, as custodian of all this mansion.  No
little coorosity, or private resentment, could 'a borne me out in
doing so.  As an outraged man I was up for rushing out, but as a
trusted official, and responsible head footman, miss--for I were
not butler till nine months after that--my dooty was to put the big
bolt in."

"And you did it, without even looking out to see if he tried to set
the house on fire!  Oh, Stixon, I fear that you were frightened."

"Now, Miss Erma, I calls it ungrateful, after all my hefforts to
obleege you, to put a bad construction upon me.  You hurts me,
miss, in my tenderest parts, as I never thought Master George's
darter would 'a doed.  But there, they be none of them as they used
to be!  Master George would 'a said, if he ever had heard it.
'Stixon, my man, you have acted for the best, and showed a sound
discretion.  Stixon,' he would have said, 'here's a George and
Dragon in reward of your gallant conduck.'  Ah, that sort of
manliness is died out now."

This grated at first upon my feelings, because it seemed tainted
with selfishness, and it did not entirely agree with my own
recollections of my father.  But still Mr. Stixon must have
suffered severely in that conflict, and to blame him for not
showing rashness was to misunderstand his position.  And so, before
putting any other questions to him, I felt in my pocket for a new
half sovereign, which I hoped would answer.

Mr. Stixon received it in an absent manner, as if he were still
in the struggle of his story, and too full of duty to be thankful.
Yet I saw that he did not quite realize the truth of a nobly
philosophic proverb--"the half is more than the whole."
Nevertheless, he stowed away his half, in harmony with a good
old English saying.

"Now, when you were able to get up at last," I inquired, with
tender interest, "what did you see, and what did you do, and what
conclusion did you come to?"

"I came to the conclusion, miss, that I were hurt considerable.
Coorosity on my part were quenched by the way as I had to rub
myself.  But a man is a man, and the last thing to complain of is
the exercise of his functions.  And when I come round I went off to
his lordship, as if I had heared his bell ring.  All of us knew
better than to speak till him beginning, for he were not what they
now call 'halfable,' but very much to the contrary.  So he says,
'You door-skulker, what do you want there?'  And I see that he got
his hot leg up, certain to fly to bad language.  According, I
asked, with my breath in my hand, if he pleased to see any young
man there just now, by reason that such likes had been observated
going out in some direction.  But his lordship roared to me to go
in another direction, not fit for young ladies.  My old lord was up
to every word of English; but his present lordship is the hopposite
extreme."

"Is that all you have to tell me, Stixon?  Did you never see that
fearful man again?  Did you never even hear of him?"

"Never, miss, never!  And to nobody but you have I ever told all as
I told now.  But you seems to be born to hear it all."



CHAPTER XXXVIII

A WITCH


It was true enough that Stixon now had nothing more to tell, but
what he had told already seemed of very great importance,
confirming strongly, as it did, the description given me by Jacob
Rigg.  And even the butler's concluding words--that I seemed born
to hear it all--comforted me like some good omen, and cheered me
forward to make them true.  Not that I could, in my sad and
dangerous enterprise, always be confident.  Some little spirit I
must have had, and some resolve to be faithful, according to the
power of a very common mind, admiring but never claiming courage.
For I never did feel in any kind of way any gift of inspiration, or
even the fitness of a quick, strong mind for working out deeds of
justice.  There were many good ladies in America then, and now
there are some in England, perceiving so clearly their own
superiority as to run about largely proclaiming it.  How often I
longed to be a little more like these, equal to men in achievements
of the body, and very far beyond them in questions of the mind!

However, it was useless to regret my lacks, and foolish, perhaps,
to think of them.  To do my very best with what little gifts I had
was more to the purpose and more sensible.  Taking in lonely
perplexity now this dim yet exciting view of things, I resolved,
right or wrong, to abide at the place where the only chance was of
pursuing my search.  I was pledged, as perhaps has been said
before, to keep from every one excepting faithful Betsy, and above
all from Lord Castlewood, the unexpected little tale wrung out of
Mr. Stixon.  That promise had been given without any thought, in my
eagerness to hear every thing, and probably some people would have
thought of it no more.  But the trusty butler was so scared when I
asked him to release me from it, so penitent also at his own
indiscretion, which never would have overcome him (as he said in
the morning) only for the thunder-storm, that instead of getting
off, I was quite obliged to renew and confirm my assurances.

Therefore, in truth, I had no chance left but to go back to
Shoxford and do my best, meeting all dark perils with the shield of
right spread over me.  And a great thing now in my favor was to
feel some confidence again in the guidance of kind Wisdom.  The
sense of this never had abandoned me so much as to make me
miserable about it; but still I had never tried to shelter under
it, and stay there faithfully, as the best of people do.  And even
now I was not brought to such a happy attitude, although delivered
by these little gleams of light from the dark void of fatalism,
into which so many bitter blows had once been driving me.

However, before setting off again, I made one more attempt upon
Lord Castlewood, longing to know whether his suspicions would help
me at all to identify the figure which had frightened both the
sexton and the butler.  That the person was one and the same, I did
not for a moment call in question, any more than I doubted that he
was the man upon whose head rested the blood of us.  But why he
should be allowed to go scot-free while another bore his brand, and
many others died for him, and why all my most just and righteous
efforts to discover him should receive, if not discouragement, at
any rate most lukewarm aid--these and several other questions were
as dark as ever.

"You must not return to Shoxford, my cousin," Lord Castlewood said
to me that day, after a plain though courteous refusal to enlighten
me even with a mere surmise, except upon the condition before
rejected.  "I can not allow you to be there without strict
supervision and protection.  You will not, perhaps, be aware of it,
as perhaps you have not been before; but a careful watch will be
kept on you.  I merely tell you this that you may not make
mistakes, and confound friendly vigilance with the spying of an
enemy.  Erema, you will be looked after."

I could not help being grateful for his kindness, and really, try
as I might to be fearless, it would be a great comfort to have some
one to protect me.  On the other hand, how would this bear upon my
own freedom of looking about, my desire to make my own occasions,
and the need of going every where?  Could these be kept to my
liking at all while an unknown power lay in kind regard of me?
Considering these things, I begged my cousin to leave me to my own
devices, for that I was afraid of nobody on earth, while only
seeking justice, and that England must be worse than the worst
parts of America if any harm to me could be apprehended at quiet
times and in such a quiet place.

My cousin said no more upon that point, though I felt that he was
not in any way convinced; but he told me that he thought I should
pay a little visit, if only for a day, such as I treated him with,
to my good friends at Bruntsea, before I returned to Shoxford.
There was no one now at Bruntsea whom I might not wish to meet, as
he knew by a trifling accident; and after all the kind services
rendered by Major and Mrs. Hockin, it was hardly right to let them
begin to feel themselves neglected.  Now the very same thing had
occurred to me, and I was going to propose it; and many things
which I found it hard to do without were left in my little chest of
locked-up drawers there.  But of that, to my knowledge, I scarcely
thought twice; whereas I longed to see and have a talk with dear
"Aunt Mary."  Now, since my affairs had been growing so strange,
and Lord Castlewood had come forward--not strongly, but still quite
enough to speak of--there had been a kind-hearted and genuine wish
at Bruntsea to recover me.  And this desire had unreasonably grown
while starved with disappointment.  The less they heard of me, the
more they imagined in their rich good-will, and the surer they
became that, after all, there was something in my ideas.

But how could I know this, without any letters from them, since
letters were a luxury forbidden me at Shoxford?  I knew it through
one of the simplest and commonest of all nature's arrangements.
Stixon's boy, as every body called him (though he must have been
close upon five-and-twenty, and carried a cane out of sight of the
windows), being so considered, and treated boyishly by the maids of
Castlewood, asserted his dignity, and rose above his value as much
as he had lain below it, by showing that he owned a tender heart,
and them that did not despise it.  For he chanced to be walking
with his cane upon the beach (the very morning after he first went
to Bruntsea, too late for any train back again), and casting
glances of interior wonder over the unaccustomed sea--when from the
sea itself out-leaped a wondrous rosy deity.

"You there, Mr. Stixon!  Oh my!  How long?" exclaimed Mrs. Hockin's
new parlormaid, ready to drop, though in full print now, on the
landward steps of the bathing-machine set up by the reckless Major.

"Come this very hinstant, miss, honor bright!" replied the junior
Stixon, who had moved in good society; "and just in the hackmy of
time, miss, if I may offer you my 'umble hand."

The fair nymph fixed him with a penetrating gaze through tresses
full of salt curliness, while her cheeks were conscious of an
unclad dip.  But William Stixon's eyes were firm with pure truth,
gently toning into shy reproach and tenderness.  He had met her at
supper last night, and done his best; but (as he said to the
Castlewood maids) it was only feeling then, whereas now it was
emoshun.

"Then you are a gentleman!" Polly Hopkins cried; "and indeed, Mr.
Stixon, these are slippery things."  She was speaking of the steps,
as she came down them, and they had no hand-rails; and the young
man felt himself to be no more Stixon's boy, but a gentleman under
sweet refining pressure.

From that hour forth it was pronounced, and they left the world to
its own opinion, that they were keeping company; and although they
were sixty miles apart by air, and eighty-two by railway, at every
post their hearts were one, with considerable benefit to the United
Kingdom's revenue.  Also they met by the sad sea waves, when the
bathing-machines had been hauled up--for the Major now had three of
them--as often as Stixon senior smiled--which he did whenever he
was not put out--on the bygone ways of these children.  For Polly
Hopkins had a hundred pounds, as well as being the only child of
the man who kept the only shop for pickled pork in Bruntsea.  And
my Mr. Stixon could always contrive to get orders from his lordship
to send the boy away, with his carriage paid, when his health
demanded bathing.  Hence it is manifest that the deeds and thoughts
of Bruntsea House, otherwise called "Bruntlands," were known quite
as well, and discussed even better--because dispassionately--at
Castlewood than and as they were at home.

Now I won forever the heart of Stixon's boy, and that of Polly
Hopkins, by recoiling with horror from the thought of going to
Bruntsea unattended.  After all my solitary journeys, this might
have been called hypocrisy, if it had been inconvenient; but coming
as it did, it was pronounced, by all who desired either news or
love, to be another proof of the goodness of my heart.

Escorted thus by William Stixon (armed with a brilliant cane bought
for this occasion), and knowing that Sir Montague Hockin was not
there, I arrived at Bruntlands in the afternoon, and received a
kindly welcome from my dear friend Mrs. Hockin.  Her husband was
from home, and she grieved to say that now he was generally doing
this; but nobody else could have any idea what his avocations were!
Then she paid me some compliments on my appearance--a thing that I
never thought of, except when I came to a question of likeness, or
chanced to be thinking of things, coming up as they will, at a
looking-glass.

That the Major was out was a truth established in my mind some time
ago; because I had seen him, as our fly crawled by, expressly and
emphatically at work on a rampart of his own designing.  The work
was quite new to me, but not so his figure.  Though I could not see
people three miles off, as Firm Gundry was said to do, I had pretty
clear sight, and could not mistake the Major within a furlong.  And
there he was, going about in a row of square notches against the
sea-line, with his coat off, and brandishing some tool, vehemently
carrying on to spirits less active than his own.  I burned with
desire to go and join him, for I love to see activity; but Mrs.
Hockin thought that I had better stay away, because it was
impossible to get on there without language too strong for young
ladies.

This closed the question, and I stopped with her, and found the
best comfort that I ever could have dreamed of.  "Aunt Mary" was so
steadfast, and so built up with, or rather built of, the very faith
itself, that to talk with her was as good as reading the noblest
chapter of the Bible.  She put by all possibility of doubt as to
the modern interference of the Lord, with such a sweet pity and the
seasoned smile of age, and so much feeling (which would have been
contempt if she had not been softened by her own escapes), that
really I, who had come expecting to set her beautiful white hair on
end, became like a little child put into the corner, but too young
yet for any other punishment at school, except to be looked at.
Nevertheless, though I did look small, it made me all the happier.
I seemed to become less an individual, and more a member of a large
kind race under paternal management.  From a practical point of
view this may have been amiss, but it helped to support me
afterward.  And before I began to get weary or rebel against her
gentle teaching, in came her husband; and she stopped at once,
because he had never any time for it.

"My geological hammer!" cried the Major, being in a rush as usual.
"Oh, Miss Castlewood!  I did not see you.  Pardon me!  It is the
want of practice only; so wholly have you deserted us.  Fallen into
better hands, of course.  Well, how are you?  But I need not ask.
If ever there was a young lady who looked well--don't tell me of
troubles, or worries, or nerves--I put up my glasses, and simply
say, 'Pretty young ladies are above all pity!'  My hammer, dear
Mary; my hammer I must have.  The geological one, you know; we have
come on a bit of old Roman work; the bricklayer's hammers go flat,
like lead.  I have just one minute and a half to spare.  What fine
fellows those Romans were!  I will build like a Roman.  See to
every bit of it myself, Erema.  No contractor's jobs for me.  Mary,
you know where to find it."

"Well, dear, I think that you had it last, to get the bung out of
the beer barrel, when the stool broke down in the corner, you know,
because you would--"

"Never mind about that.  The drayman made a fool of himself.  I
proceeded upon true principles.  That fellow knew nothing of
leverage."

"Well, dear, of course you understand it best.  But he told cook
that it was quite a mercy that you got off without a broken leg;
and compared with that, two gallons of spilled ale--"  Mrs. Hockin
made off, without finishing her sentence.

"What a woman she is!" cried the Major; "she takes such a lofty
view of things, and she can always find my tools.  Erema, after
dinner I must have a talk with you.  There is something going on
here--on my manor--which I can not at all get a clew to, except by
connecting you with it, the Lord knows how.  Of course you have
nothing to do with it; but still my life has been so free from
mystery that, that--you know what I mean--"

"That you naturally think I must be at the bottom of every thing
mysterious.  Now is there any thing dark about me?  Do I not labor
to get at the light?  Have I kept from your knowledge any single
thing?  But you never cared to go into them."

"It is hardly fair of you to say that.  The fact is that you, of
your own accord, have chosen other counselors.  Have you heard any
more of your late guardian, Mr. Shovelin?  I suppose that his
executor, or some one appointed by him, is now your legal
guardian."

"I have not even asked what the law is," I replied.  "Lord
Castlewood is my proper guardian, according to all common-sense,
and I mean to have him so.  He has inquired through his solicitors
as to Mr. Shovelin, and I am quite free there.  My father's will is
quite good, they say; but it never has been proved, and none of
them care to do it.  My cousin thinks that I could compel them to
prove it, or to renounce in proper form; but Mr. Shovelin's sons
are not nice people--as different from him as night from day,
careless and wild and dashing."

"Then do you mean to do nothing about it?  What a time she is
finding that hammer!"

"I leave it entirely to my cousin, and he is waiting for legal
advice.  I wish to have the will, of course, for the sake of my
dear father; but with or without any will, my mother's little
property comes to me.  And if my dear father had nothing to leave,
why should we run up a great lawyer's bill?"

"To be sure not!  I see.  That makes all the difference.  I admire
your common-sense," said the Major--"but there!  Come and look, and
just exercise it here.  There is that very strange woman again,
just at the end of my new road.  She stands quite still, and then
stares about, sometimes for an hour together.  Nobody knows who she
is, or why she came.  She has taken a tumble-down house on my
manor, from a wretch of a fellow who denies my title; and what she
lives on is more than any one can tell, for she never spends
sixpence in Bruntsea.  Some think that she walks in the dark to
Newport, and gets all her food at some ship stores there.  And one
of our fishermen vows that he met her walking on the sea, as he
rowed home one night, and she had a long red bag on her shoulder.
She is a witch, that is certain; for she won't answer me, however
politely I accost her.  But the oddest thing of all is the name she
gave to the fellow she took the house from.  What do you think she
called herself?  Of all things in the world--'Mrs. Castlewood!'  I
congratulate you on your relative."

"How very strange!" I answered.  "Oh, now I see why you connect me
with it; and I beg your pardon for having been vexed.  But let me
go and see her.  Oh, may I go at once, if you please, and speak to
her?"

"The very thing I wish--if you are not afraid.  I will come with
you, when I get my hammer.  Oh, here it is!  Mary, how clever you
are!  Now look out of the window, and you shall see Erema make up
to her grandmamma."



CHAPTER XXXIX

NOT AT HOME


Mrs. Hockin, however, had not the pleasure promised her by the
facetious Major of seeing me "make up to my grandmamma."  For
although we set off at once to catch the strange woman who had
roused so much curiosity, and though, as we passed the door of
Bruntlands, we saw her still at her post in the valley, like Major
Hockin's new letter-box, for some reason best known to herself we
could not see any more of her.  For, hurry as he might upon other
occasions, nothing would make the Major cut a corner of his winding
"drive" when descending it with a visitor.  He enjoyed every yard
of its length, because it was his own at every step, and he counted
his paces in an under-tone, to be sure of the length, for perhaps
the thousandth time.  It was long enough in a straight line, one
would have thought, but he was not the one who thought so; and
therefore he had doubled it by judicious windings, as if for the
purpose of breaking the descent.

"Three hundred and twenty-one," he said, as he came to a post,
where he meant to have a lodge as soon as his wife would let him;
"now the old woman stands fifty-five yards on, at a spot where I
mean to have an ornamental bridge, because our fine saline element
runs up there when the new moon is perigee.  My dear, I am a little
out of breath, which affects my sight for the moment.  Doubtless
that is why I do not see her."

"If I may offer an opinion," I said, "in my ignorance of all the
changes you have made, the reason why we do not see her may be that
she is gone out of sight."

"Impossible!" Major Hockin cried--"simply impossible, Erema!  She
never moves for an hour and a half.  And she was not come, was she,
when you came by?"

"I will not be certain," I answered; "but I think that I must have
seen her if she had been there, because I was looking about
particularly at all your works as we came by."

"Then she must be there still; let us tackle her."

This was easier said than done, for we found no sign of any body at
the place where she certainly had been standing less than five
minutes ago.  We stood at the very end and last corner of the
ancient river trough, where a little seam went inland from it, as
if some trifle of a brook had stolen down while it found a good
river to welcome it.  But now there was only a little oozy gloss
from the gleam of the sun upon some lees of marshy brine left among
the rushes by the last high tide.

"You see my new road and the key to my intentions?" said the Major,
forgetting all about his witch, and flourishing his geological
hammer, while standing thus at his "nucleus."  "To understand all,
you have only to stand here.  You see those leveling posts,
adjusted with scientific accuracy.  You see all those angles,
calculated with micrometric precision.  You see how the curves are
radiated--"

"It is very beautiful, I have no doubt; but you can not have Uncle
Sam's gift of machinery.  And do you understand every bit of it
yourself?"

"Erema, not a jot of it.  I like to talk about it freely when I
can, because I see all its beauties.  But as to understanding it,
my dear, you might set to, if you were an educated female, and
deliver me a lecture upon my own plan.  Intellect is, in such
matters, a bubble.  I know good bricks, good mortar, and good
foundations."

"With your great ability, you must do that," I answered, very
gently, being touched with his humility and allowance of my
opinion; "you will make a noble town of it.  But when is the
railway coming?"

"Not yet.  We have first to get our Act; and a miserable-minded
wretch, who owns nothing but a rabbit-warren, means to oppose it.
Don't let us talk of him.  It puts one out of patience when a man
can not see his own interest.  But come and see our assembly-rooms,
literary institute, baths, etc., etc.--that is what we are urging
forward now."

"But may I not go first and look for my strange namesake?  Would it
be wrong of me to call upon her?"

"No harm whatever," replied my companion; "likewise no good.  Call
fifty times, but you will get no answer.  However, it is not a very
great round, and you will understand my plans more clearly.  Step
out, my dear, as if you had got a troop of Mexicans after you.  Ah,
what a fine turn for that lot now!"  He was thinking of the war
which had broken out, and the battle of Bull's Run.

Without any such headlong speed, we soon came to the dwelling-place
of the stranger, and really for once the good Major had not much
overdone his description.  Truly it was almost tumbling down,
though massively built, and a good house long ago; and it looked
the more miserable now from being placed in a hollow of the ground,
whose slopes were tufted with rushes and thistles and ragwort.  The
lower windows were blocked up from within, the upper were shattered
and crumbling and dangerous, with blocks of cracked stone jutting
over them; and the last surviving chimney gave less smoke than a
workman's homeward whiff of his pipe to comfort and relieve the
air.

The only door that we could see was of heavy black oak, without any
knocker; but I clinched my hand, having thick gloves on, and made
what I thought a very creditable knock, while the Major stood by,
with his blue-lights up, and keenly gazed and gently smiled.

"Knock again, my dear," he said; "you don't knock half hard
enough."

I knocked again with all my might, and got a bruised hand for a
fortnight, but there was not even the momentary content produced by
an active echo.  The door was as dead as every thing else.

"Now for my hammer," my companion cried.  "This house, in all sound
law, is my own.  I will have a 'John Doe and Richard Roe'--a fine
action of ejectment.  Shall I be barred out upon my own manor?"

With hot indignation he swung his hammer, but nothing came of it
except more noise.  Then the Major grew warm and angry.

"My charter contains the right of burning witches or drowning them,
according to their color.  The execution is specially imposed upon
the bailiff of this ancient town, and he is my own pickled-pork
man.  His name is Hopkins, and I will have him out with his seal
and stick and all the rest.  Am I to be laughed at in this way?"

For we thought we heard a little screech of laughter from the
loneliness of the deep dark place, but no other answer came, and
perhaps it was only our own imagining.

"Is there no other door--perhaps one at the back?" I asked, as the
lord of the manor stamped.

"No, that has been walled up long ago.  The villain has defied me
from the very first.  Well, we shall see.  This is all very fine.
You witness that they deny the owner entrance?"

"Undoubtedly I can depose to that.  But we must not waste your
valuable time."

"After all, the poor ruin is worthless," he went on, calming down
as we retired.  "It must be leveled, and that hole filled up.  It
is quite an eye-sore to our new parade.  And no doubt it belongs to
me--no doubt it does.  The fellow who claims it was turned out of
the law.  Fancy any man turned out of the law!  Erema, in all your
far West experience, did you ever see a man bad enough to be turned
out of the law?"

"Major Hockin, how can I tell?  But I fear that their practice was
very, very sad--they very nearly always used to hang them."

"The best use--the best use a rogue can be put to.  Some big thief
has put it the opposite way, because he was afraid of his own turn.
The constitution must be upheld, and, by the Lord! it shall be--at
any rate, in East Bruntsea.  West Bruntsea is all a small-pox
warren out of my control, and a skewer in my flesh.  And some of my
tenants have gone across the line to snap their dirty hands at me."

Being once in this cue, Major Hockin went on, not talking to me
much, but rather to himself, though expecting me now and then to
say "yes;" and this I did when necessary, for his principles of
action were beyond all challenge, and the only question was how he
carried them out.

He took me to his rampart, which was sure to stop the sea, and at
the same time to afford the finest place in all Great Britain for a
view of it.  Even an invalid might sit here in perfect shelter from
the heaviest gale, and watch such billows as were not to be seen
except upon the Major's property.

"The reason of that is quite simple," he said, "and a child may see
the force of it.  In no other part of the kingdom can you find so
steep a beach fronting the southwest winds, which are ten to one of
all other winds, without any break of sand or rock outside.  Hence
we have what you can not have on a shallow shore--grand rollers:
straight from the very Atlantic, Erema; you and I have seen them.
You may see by the map that they all end here, with the wind in the
proper quarter."

"Oh, please not to talk of such horrors," I said.  "Why, your
ramparts would go like pie crust."

The Major smiled a superior smile, and after more talk we went home
to dinner.

From something more than mere curiosity, I waited at Bruntsea for a
day or two, hoping to see that strange namesake of mine who had
shown so much inhospitality.  For she must have been at home when
we made that pressing call, inasmuch as there was no other place to
hide her within the needful distance of the spot where she had
stood.  But the longer I waited, the less would she come out--to
borrow the good Irishman's expression--and the Major's pillar-box,
her favorite resort, was left in conspicuous solitude.  And when a
letter came from Sir Montague Hockin, asking leave to be at
Bruntlands on the following evening, I packed up my goods with all
haste, and set off, not an hour too soon, for Shoxford.

But before taking leave of these kind friends, I begged them to do
for me one little thing, without asking me to explain my reason,
which, indeed, was more than I could do.  I begged them, not of
course to watch Sir Montague, for that they could not well do to a
guest, but simply to keep their eyes open and prepared for any sign
of intercourse, if such there were, between this gentleman and that
strange interloper.  Major Hockin stared, and his wife looked at me
as if my poor mind must have gone astray, and even to myself my own
thought appeared absurd.  Remembering, however, what Sir Montague
had said, and other little things as well, I did not laugh as they
did.  But perhaps one part of my conduct was not right, though the
wrong (if any) had been done before that--to wit, I had faithfully
promised Mrs. Price not to say a word at Bruntlands about their
visitor's low and sinful treachery toward my cousin.  To give such
a promise had perhaps been wrong, but still without it I should
have heard nothing of matters that concerned me nearly.  And now it
seemed almost worse to keep than to break such a pledge, when I
thought of a pious, pure-minded, and holy-hearted woman, like my
dear "Aunt Mary," unwittingly brought into friendly contact with a
man of the lowest nature.  And as for the Major, instead of sitting
down with such a man to dinner, what would he have done but drive
him straightway from the door, and chase him to the utmost verge of
his manor with the peak end of his "geological hammer?"

However, away I went without a word against that contemptible and
base man, toward whom--though he never had injured me--I cherished,
for my poor cousin's sake, the implacable hatred of virtuous youth.
And a wild idea had occurred to me (as many wild ideas did now in
the crowd of things gathering round me) that this strange woman,
concealed from the world, yet keenly watching some members of it,
might be that fallen and miserable creature who had fled from a
good man with a bad one, because he was more like herself--
Flittamore, Lady Castlewood.  Not that she could be an "old woman"
yet, but she might look old, either by disguise, or through her own
wickedness; and every body knows how suddenly those southern
beauties fall off, alike in face and figure.  Mrs. Price had not
told me what became of her, or even whether she was dead or alive,
but merely said, with a meaning look, that she was "punished" for
her sin, and I had not ventured to inquire how, the subject being
so distasteful.

To my great surprise, and uneasiness as well, I had found at
Bruntlands no letter whatever, either to the Major or myself, from
Uncle Sam or any other person at the saw-mills.  There had not been
time for any answer to my letter of some two months back, yet being
alarmed by the Sawyer's last tidings, I longed, with some terror,
for later news.  And all the United Kingdom was now watching with
tender interest the dismemberment, as it almost appeared, of the
other mighty Union.  Not with malice, or snug satisfaction, as the
men of the North in their agony said, but certainly without any
proper anguish yet, and rather as a genial and sprightly spectator,
whose love of fair play perhaps kindles his applause of the spirit
and skill of the weaker side.  "'Tis a good fight--let them fight
it out!" seemed to be the general sentiment; but in spite of some
American vaunt and menace (which of late years had been galling)
every true Englishman deeply would have mourned the humiliation of
his kindred.

In this anxiety for news I begged that my letters might be
forwarded under cover to the postmistress at Shoxford, and bearing
my initials.  For now I had made up my mind to let Mrs. Busk know
whatever I could tell her.  I had found her a cross and well-
educated woman, far above her neighbors, and determined to remain
so.  Gossip, that universal leveler, theoretically she despised;
and she had that magnificent esteem for rank which works so
beautifully in England.  And now when my good nurse reasonably said
that, much as she loved to be with me, her business would allow
that delight no longer, and it also came home to my own mind that
money would be running short again, and small hope left in this
dreadful civil war of our nugget escaping pillage (which made me
shudder horribly at internal discord), I just did this--I dismissed
Betsy, or rather I let her dismiss herself, which she might not
have altogether meant to do, although she threatened it so often.
For here she had nothing to do but live well, and protest against
tricks of her own profession which she practiced as necessary laws
at home; and so, with much affection, for the time we parted.

Mrs. Busk was delighted at her departure, for she never had liked
to be criticised so keenly while she was doing her very best.  And
as soon as the wheels of Betsy's fly had shown their last spoke at
the corner, she told me, with a smile, that her mind had been made
up to give us notice that very evening to seek for better lodgings.
But she could not wish for a quieter, pleasanter, or more easily
pleased young lady than I was without any mischief-maker; and so,
on the spur of the moment, I took her into my own room, while her
little girl minded the shop, and there and then I told her who I
was, and what I wanted.

And now she behaved most admirably.  Instead of expressing
surprise, she assured me that all along she had felt there was
something, and that I must be somebody.  Lovely as my paintings
were (which I never heard, before or since, from any impartial
censor), she had known that it could not be that alone which had
kept me so long in their happy valley.  And now she did hope I
would do her the honor to stay beneath her humble roof, though
entitled to one so different.  And was the fairy ring in the
church-yard made of all my family?

I replied that too surely this was so, and that nothing would
please me better than to find, according to my stature, room to
sleep inside it as soon as ever I should have solved the mystery of
its origin.  At the moment this was no exaggeration, so depressing
was the sense of fighting against the unknown so long, with
scarcely any one to stand by me, or avenge me if I fell.  And
Betsy's departure, though I tried to take it mildly, had left me
with a readiness to catch my breath.

But to dwell upon sadness no more than need be (a need as sure as
hunger), it was manifest now to my wondering mind that once more I
had chanced upon a good, and warm, and steadfast heart.  Every body
is said to be born, whether that happens by night or day, with a
certain little widowed star, which has lost its previous mortal,
concentrating from a billion billion of miles, or leagues, or
larger measure, intense, but generally invisible, radiance upon him
or her; and to take for the moment this old fable as of serious
meaning, my star was to find bad facts at a glance, but no bad folk
without long gaze.



CHAPTER XL

THE MAN AT LAST


This new alliance with Mrs. Busk not only refreshed my courage, but
helped me forward most importantly.  In truth, if it had not been
for this I never could have borne what I had to bear, and met the
perils which I had to meet.  For I had the confidence of feeling
now that here was some one close at hand, an intelligent person,
and well acquainted with the place and neighborhood, upon whom I
could rely for warning, succor, and, if the worst should come to
the very worst, revenge.  It is true that already I had Jacob Rigg,
and perhaps the protector promised by my cousin; but the former was
as ignorant as he was honest, and of the latter, as he made no
sign, how could I tell any thing?

Above all things, Mrs. Busk's position, as mistress of the letters,
gave me very great advantage both for offense and defense.  For
without the smallest breach of duty or of loyal honor she could see
that my letters passed direct to me or from me, as the case might
be, at the same time that she was bound to observe all epistles
addressed to strangers or new-comers in her district, which
extended throughout the valley.  And by putting my letters in the
Portsmouth bag, instead of that for Winchester, I could freely
correspond with any of my friends without any one seeing name or
postmark in the neighboring villages.

It is needless to say that I had long since explored and examined
with great diligence that lonely spot where my grandfather met his
terrible and mysterious fate.  Not that there seemed to be any hope
now, after almost nineteen years, of finding even any token of the
crime committed there.  Only that it was natural for me, feeling
great horror of this place, to seek to know it thoroughly.

For this I had good opportunity, because the timid people of the
valley, toward the close of day, would rather trudge another half
mile of the homeward road than save brave legs at the thumping cost
of hearts not so courageous.  For the planks were now called
"Murder-bridge;" and every body knew that the red spots on it,
which could never be seen by daylight, began to gleam toward the
hour of the deed, and glowed (as if they would burn the wood) when
the church clock struck eleven.

This phenomenon was beyond my gifts of observation; and knowing
that my poor grandfather had scarcely set foot on the bridge, if
ever he set foot there at all--which at present was very doubtful--
also that he had fallen backward, and only bled internally, I could
not reconcile tradition (however recent) with proven truth.  And
sure of no disturbance from the step of any native, here I often
sat in a little bowered shelter of my own, well established up the
rise, down which the path made zigzag, and screened from that and
the bridge as well by sheaf of twigs and lop of leaves.  It was a
little forward thicket, quite detached from the upland copse, to
which perhaps it had once belonged, and crusted up from the meadow
slope with sod and mould in alternate steps.  And being quite the
elbow of a foreland of the meadow-reach, it yielded almost a
"bird's-eye view" of the beautiful glade and the wandering brook.

One evening when I was sitting here, neither drawing, nor working,
nor even thinking with any set purpose, but idly allowing my mind
to rove, like the rivulet, without any heed, I became aware of a
moving figure in the valley.  At first it did not appear to me as a
thing at all worth notice; it might be a very straightforward cow,
or a horse, coming on like a stalking-horse, keeping hind-legs
strictly behind, in direct desire of water.  I had often seen those
sweet things that enjoy four legs walking in the line of distance
as if they were no better off than we are, kindly desiring,
perhaps, to make the biped spectator content with himself.  And I
was content to admire this cow or horse, or whatever it might be,
without any more than could be helped of that invidious feeling
which has driven the human race now to establish its right to a
tail, and its hope of four legs.  So little, indeed, did I think of
what I saw, that when among the hazel twigs, parted carelessly by
my hand, a cluster of nuts hung manifest, I gathered it, and began
to crack and eat, although they were scarcely ripe yet.

But while employed in this pleasant way, I happened to glance again
through my leafy screen, and then I distinguished the figure in the
distance as that of a man walking rapidly.  He was coming down the
mill-stream meadow toward the wooden bridge, carrying a fishing
rod, but clearly not intent on angling.  For instead of following
the course of the stream, he was keeping quite away from it,
avoiding also the footpath, or, at any rate, seeming to prefer the
long shadows of the trees and the tufted places.  This made me look
at him, and very soon I shrank into my nest and watched him.

As he came nearer any one could tell that he was no village
workman, bolder than the rest, and venturesome to cross the
"Murder-bridge" in his haste to be at home.  The fishing rod alone
was enough to show this when it came into clearer view; for our
good people, though they fished sometimes, only used rough rods of
their own making, without any varnish or brass thing for the line.
And the man was of different height and walk and dress from any of
our natives.

"Who can he be?" I whispered to myself, as my heart began to beat
heavily, and then seemed almost to stop, as it answered, "This is
the man who was in the churchyard."  Ignoble as it was, and
contemptible, and vile, and traitorous to all duty, my first
thought was about my own escape; for I felt that if this man saw me
there he would rush up the hill and murder me.  Within pistol-shot
of the very place where my grandfather had been murdered--a lonely
place, an unholy spot, and I was looking at the hand that did it.

The thought of this made me tremble so, though well aware that my
death might ensue from a twig on the rustle, or a leaf upon the
flutter, that my chance of making off unseen was gone ere I could
seize it.  For now the man was taking long strides over the worn-
out planks of the bridge, disdaining the hand-rail, and looking
upward, as if to shun sight of the footing.  Advancing thus, he
must have had his gaze point-blank upon my lair of leafage; but,
luckily for me, there was gorse upon the ridge, and bracken and
rag-thistles, so that none could spy up and through the footing of
my lurking-place.  But if any person could have spied me, this man
was the one to do it.  So carefully did he scan the distance and
inspect the foreground, as if he were resolved that no eye should
be upon him while he was doing what he came to do.  And he even
drew forth a little double telescope, such as are called
"binoculars," and fixed it on the thicket which hid me from him,
and then on some other dark places.

No effort would compose or hush the heavy beating of my heart; my
lips were stiffened with dread of loud breath, and all power of
motion left me.  For even a puff of wind might betray me, the
ruffle of a spray, or the lifting of a leaf, or the random bounce
of a beetle.  Great peril had encompassed me ere now, but never had
it grasped me as this did, and paralyzed all the powers of my body.
Rather would I have stood in the midst of a score of Mexican rovers
than thus in the presence of that one man.  And yet was not this
the very thing for which I had waited, longed, and labored?  I
scorned myself for this craven loss of nerve, but that did not
enable me to help it.  In this benumbed horror I durst not even
peep at the doings of my enemy; but presently I became aware that
he had moved from the end of the planks (where he stood for some
time as calmly as if he had done nothing there), and had passed
round the back of the hawthorn-tree, and gone down to the place
where the body was found, and was making most narrow and minute
search there.  And now I could watch him without much danger,
standing as I did well above him, while his eyes were steadfastly
bent downward.  And, not content with eyesight only, he seemed to
be feeling every blade of grass or weed, every single stick or
stone, craning into each cranny of the ground, and probing every
clod with his hands.  Then, after vainly searching with the very
utmost care all the space from the hawthorn trunk to the meadow-
leet (which was dry as usual), he ran, in a fury of impatience, to
his rod, which he had stuck into the bank, as now I saw, and drew
off the butt end, and removed the wheel, or whatever it is that
holds the fishing line; and this butt had a long spike to it,
shining like a halberd in a picture.

This made me shudder; but my spirit was returning, and therewith my
power of reasoning, and a deep stir of curiosity.  After so many
years and such a quantity of searching, what could there still be
left to seek for in this haunted and horrible place?  And who was
the man that was looking for it?

The latter question partly solved itself.  It must be the murderer,
and no other, whoever he might be among the many black spots of
humanity.  But as to the other point, no light could be thrown upon
it, unless the search should be successful, and perhaps not even
then.  But now this anxiety, and shame of terror, made me so bold--
for I can not call it brave--that I could not rest satisfied where
I was, and instead of blessing every leaf and twig that hid me from
the enemy, nothing would do for me but to creep nearer, in spite of
that truculent long bright spike.

I thought of my father, and each fibre of my frame seemed to harden
with vigor and fleetness.  Every muscle of my body could be trusted
now.  I had always been remarkably light of foot.  Could a man of
that age catch me?  It was almost as much as Firm Gundry could do,
as in childish days I had proved to him.  And this man, although
his hair was not gray, must be on the slow side of fifty now, and
perhaps getting short of his very wicked breath.  Then I thought of
poor Firm, and of good Uncle Sam, and how they scorned poltroonery;
and, better still, I thought of that great Power which always had
protected me: in a word, I resolved to risk it.

But I had not reckoned upon fire-arms, which such a scoundrel was
pretty sure to have; and that idea struck cold upon my valor.
Nevertheless, I would not turn back.  With no more sound than a
field-mouse makes in the building of its silken nest, and feet as
light as the step of the wind upon the scarcely ruffled grass, I
quitted my screen, and went gliding down a hedge, or rather the
residue of some old hedge, which would shelter me a little toward
the hollow of the banks.  I passed low places, where the man must
have seen me if he had happened to look up; but he was stooping
with his back to me, and working in the hollow of the dry water
trough.  He was digging with the long spike of his rod, and I heard
the rattle of each pebble that he struck.

Before he stood up again, to ease his back and to look at the
ground which he still had to turn, I was kneeling behind a short,
close-branched holly, the very last bush of the hedge-row, scarcely
fifteen yards from the hawthorn-tree.  It was quite impossible to
get nearer without coming face to face with him.  And now I began
again to tremble, but with a great effort conquered it.

The man was panting with his labor, and seemed to be in a vile
temper too.  He did not swear, but made low noises full of
disappointment.  And then he caught up his tool, with a savage
self-control, and fell to again.

Now was my time to see what he was like, and engrave him on my
memory.  But, lo! in a moment I need not do that.  The face was the
bad image of my father's.  A lowered, and vicious, and ill-bred
image of a noble countenance--such as it was just possible to dream
that my dear father's might have fallen to, if his mind and soul
had plunged away from the good inborn and implanted in them.  The
figure was that of a tall strong man, with shoulders rather
slouching, and a habit of keeping his head thrown back, which made
a long chin look longer.  Altogether he seemed a perilous foe, and
perhaps a friend still more perilous.

Be he what he might, he was working very hard.  Not one of all
Uncle Sam's men, to my knowledge, least of all Martin, would have
worked so hard.  With his narrow and ill-adapted tool he contrived
to turn over, in less than twenty minutes, the entire bed of the
meadow-leet, or trough, for a length of about ten yards.  Then he
came to the mouth, where the water of the main stream lapped back
into it, and he turned up the bottom as far as he could reach, and
waited for the mud he had raised to clear away.  When this had
flowed down with the stream, he walked in for some little distance
till the pool grew deep; but in spite of all his labor, there was
nothing.

Meanwhile the sunset glow was failing, and a gray autumnal haze
crept up the tranquil valley.  Shadows waned and faded into dimness
more diffuse, and light grew soft and vague and vaporous.  The
gleam of water, and the gloss of grass, and deep relief of trees,
began to lose their several phase and mingle into one large
twilight blend.  And cattle, from their milking sheds, came lowing
for more pasture; and the bark of a shepherd's dog rang quick, as
if his sheep were drowsy.

In the midst of innocent sights and sounds that murderer's heart
misgave him.  He left his vain quest off, and gazed, with fear and
hate of nature's beauty, at the change from day to night which had
not waited for him.  Some touch of his childhood moved him perhaps,
some thought of times when he played "I spy," or listened to
twilight ghost tales; at any rate, as he rose and faced the
evening, he sighed heavily.

Then he strode away; and although he passed me almost within length
of his rod, there was little fear of his discovering me, because
his mind was elsewhere.

It will, perhaps, be confessed by all who are not as brave as lions
that so far I had acquitted myself pretty well in this trying
matter.  Horribly scared as I was at first, I had not allowed this
to conquer me, but had even rushed into new jeopardy.  But now the
best part of my courage was spent; and when the tall stranger
refixed his rod and calmly recrossed those ominous planks, I durst
not set forth on the perilous errand of spying out his ways and
tracking him.  A glance was enough to show the impossibility in
those long meadows of following without being seen in this stage of
the twilight.  Moreover, my nerves had been tried too long, and
presence of mind could not last forever.  All I could do,
therefore, was to creep as far as the trunk of the hawthorn-tree,
and thence observe that my enemy did not return by the way he had
come, but hastened down the dusky valley.

One part of his labors has not been described, though doubtless a
highly needful one.  To erase the traces of his work, or at least
obscure them to a careless eye, when he had turned as much ground
as he thought it worth his while to meddle with, he trod it back
again to its level as nearly as might be, and then (with a can out
of his fishing basket) sluiced the place well with the water of the
stream.  This made it look to any heedless person, who would not
descend to examine it, as if there had been nothing more than a
little reflux from the river, caused by a flush from the mill-pond.
This little stratagem increased my fear of a cunning and active
villain.



CHAPTER XLI

A STRONG TEMPTATION


Now it will be said, and I also knew, that there was nothing as
yet, except most frail and feeble evidence, to connect that
nameless stranger with the crime charged upon my father.  Indeed,
it might be argued well that there was no evidence at all, only
inference and suspicion.  That, however, was no fault of mine; and
I felt as sure about it as if I had seen him in the very act.  And
this conclusion was not mine alone; for Mrs. Busk, a most clever
woman, and the one who kept the post-office, entirely agreed with
me that there could be no doubt on earth about it.

But when she went on to ask me what it was my intention to do next,
for the moment I could do nothing more than inquire what her
opinion was.  And she told me that she must have a good night's
rest before advising any thing.  For the thought of having such a
heinous character in her own delivery district was enough to
unhinge her from her postal duties, some of which might be useful
to me.

With a significant glance she left me to my own thoughts, which
were sad enough, and too sad to be worth recording.  For Mrs. Busk
had not the art of rousing people and cheering them, such as Betsy
Strouss, my old nurse, had, perhaps from her knowledge of the
nursery.  My present landlady might be the more sagacious and
sensible woman of the two, and therefore the better adviser; but
for keeping one up to the mark she was not in any way equal to
Betsy.

There is no ingratitude in saying this, because she herself
admitted it.  A clever woman, with a well-balanced mind, knows what
she can do, and wherein she fails, better than a man of her own
proportion does.  And Mrs. Busk often lamented, without much real
mortification, that she had not been "born sympathetic."

All the more perhaps for that, she was born sagacious, which is a
less pleasing, but, in a bitter pinch, a more really useful,
quality.  And before I had time to think much of her defects, in
the crowd of more important thought, in she came again, with a
letter in her hand, and a sparkle of triumph in her small black
eyes.  After looking back along the passage, and closing my door,
she saw that my little bay-window had its old-fashioned shutters
fastened, and then, in a very low whisper, she said, "What you want
to know is here, miss."

"Indeed!" I answered, in my usual voice.  "How can you know that?
The letter is sealed."

"Hush!  Would you have me ruined for your sake?  This was at the
bottom of the Nepheton bag.  It fell on the floor.  That was God's
will, to place it in your power."

"It is not in my power," I answered, whispering in my turn, and
staring at it, in the strong temptation.  "I have no right even to
look at it.  It is meant for some one else, and sealed."

"The seal is nothing.  I can manage that.  Another drop of wax--and
I strike our stamp by accident over the breakage.  I refuse to know
any thing about it.  I am too busy with the other letters.  Five
minutes--lock the door--and I will come again."

This was a desperate conflict for me, worse even than bodily
danger.  My first impulse was to have nothing to do with it--even
to let the letter lie untouched, and, if possible, unglanced at.
But already it was too late for the eyes to turn away.  The address
had flashed upon me before I thought of any thing, and while Mrs.
Busk held it up to me.  And now that address was staring at me,
like a contemptuous challenge, while the seal, the symbol of
private rights and deterrent honor, lay undermost.  The letter was
directed to "H. W. C., Post-office, Newport, Sussex."  The writing
was in round hand, and clear, so as not to demand any scrutiny, and
to seem like that of a lawyer's clerk, and the envelope was of thin
repellent blue.

My second impulse was to break the letter open and read it without
shrinking.  Public duty must conquer private scruples.  Nothing but
the hand of Providence itself could have placed this deadly secret
in my power so amazingly.  Away with all squeamishness, and perhaps
prevent more murder.

But that "perhaps" gave me sudden pause.  I had caught up the
letter, and stood near the candle to soften the wax and lift the
cover with a small sharp paper-knife, when it flashed on my mind
that my cousin would condemn and scorn what I was doing.
Unconsciously I must have made him now my standard of human
judgment, or what made me think of him at that moment?  I threw
down the letter, and then I knew.  The image of Lord Castlewood had
crossed my mind, because the initials were his own--those of
Herbert William Castlewood.  This strange coincidence--if it were,
indeed, an accident--once more set me thinking.  Might not this
letter be from his agent, of whom he had spoken as my protector
here, but to whom as all unseen I scarcely ever gave a thought?
Might not young Stixon, who so often was at Bruntsea, be employed
to call at Newport for such letters, and return with them to his
master?  It was not very likely, for my cousin had the strongest
contempt of anonymous doings.  Still it was possible, and the bare
possibility doubled my reluctance to break the seal.

For one minute longer I stood in doubt, and then honor and candor
and truth prevailed.  If any other life had been in peril but my
own, duty to another might have overridden all.  But duty to one's
self, if overpushed in such a case, would hold some taint of
cowardice.  So I threw the letter, with a sense of loathing, on a
chair.  Whatever it might contain, it should pass, at least for me,
inviolate.

Now when Mrs. Busk came to see what I had done, or rather left
undone, she flew into a towering passion, until she had no time to
go on with it.  The rattle of the rickety old mail-cart, on its way
to Winchester that night, was heard, and the horn of the driver as
he passed the church.

"Give it me.  'A mercy!  A young natural, that you are!" the good
woman cried, as she flung out of the room to dash her office stamp
upon that hateful missive, and to seal the leathern bag.  "Seal,
indeed!  Inviolate!  How many seals have I got to make every day of
my life?"

I heard a great thump from the corner of the shop where the
business of the mails was conducted; and she told me afterward that
she was so put out, that broken that seal should be--one way or
another.  Accordingly she smashed it with the office stamp, which
was rather like a woman's act, methought; and then, having broken
it, she never looked inside--which, perhaps, was even more so.

When she recovered her leisure and serenity, and came in, to
forgive me and be forgiven, we resolved to dismiss the moral aspect
of the question, as we never should agree about it, although Mrs.
Busk was not so certain as she had been, when she found that the
initials were the initials of a lord.  And then I asked her how she
came to fix upon that letter among so many others, and to feel so
sure that it came from my treacherous enemy.

"In the first place, I know every letter from Nepheton," she
answered, very sensibly.  "There are only fourteen people that
write letters in the place, and twelve of those fourteen buy their
paper in my shop--there is no shop at all at Nepheton.  In the next
place, none of them could write a hand like that, except the parson
and the doctor, who are far above disguise.  And two other things
made me certain as could be.  That letter was written at the 'Green
Man' ale-house; not on their paper, nor yet with their ink; but
being in great hurry, it was dusted with their sand--a sand that
turns red upon ink, miss.  And the time of dispatch there is just
what he would catch, by walking fast after his dig where you saw
him, going in that direction too, and then having his materials
ready to save time.  And if all that is not enough to convince you,
miss--you remember that you told me our old sexton's tale?"

"To be sure I do.  The first evening I was left alone here.  And
you have been so kind, there is nothing I would hide from you."

"Well, miss, the time of old Jacob's tale is fixed by the death of
poor old Sally Mock; and the stranger came again after you were
here, just before the death of the miller's eldest daughter, and
you might almost have seen him.  Poor thing! we all called her the
'flower of the Moon,' meaning our little river.  What a fine young
woman she was, to be sure!  Whenever we heard of any strangers
about, we thought they were prowling after her.  I was invited to
her funeral, and I went, and nothing could be done nicer.  But they
never will be punctual with burials here; they like to dwell on
them, and keep the bell going, for the sake of the body, and the
souls that must come after it.  And so, when it was done, I was
twenty minutes late for the up mail and the cross-country post, and
had to move my hands pretty sharp, I can assure you.  That doesn't
matter; I got through it, with the driver of the cart obliging, by
means of some beer and cold bacon.  But what I feared most was the
Nepheton bag, having seen the old man at the funeral, and knowing
what they do afterward.  I could not return him 'too late' again,
or he would lose his place for certain, and a shilling a day made
all the difference to him, between wife and no wife.  The old pair
without it must go to the workhouse, and never see one another.
However, when I was despairing quite of him, up he comes with his
bag quite correct, but only one letter to sort in it, and that
letter was, miss, the very identical of the one you held in your
hands just now.  And a letter as like it as two peas had come when
we buried old Sally.  It puzzled me then, but I had no clew to it;
only now, you see, putting this and that together, the things we
behold must have some meaning for us; and to let them go without it
is against the will of God; especially when at the bottom of the
bag."

"If you hear so soon of any stranger in the valley," I asked, to
escape the re-opening of the opening question, "how can that man
come and go--a man of remarkable stature and appearance--without
any body asking who he is?"

"You scarcely could have put it better, miss, for me to give the
answer.  They do ask who he is, and they want to know it, and would
like any body to tell them.  But being of a different breed, as
they are, from all outside the long valley, speaking also with a
different voice, they fear to talk so freely out of their own ways
and places.  Any thing they can learn in and out among themselves,
they will learn; but any thing out of that they let go, in the
sense of outlandish matter.  Bless you, miss, if your poor
grandfather had been shot any where else in England, how different
it would have been for him!"

"For us, you mean, Mrs. Busk.  Do you think the man who did it had
that in his mind?"

"Not unless he knew the place, as few know it.  No, that was an
accident of his luck, as many other things have been.  But the best
luck stops at last, Miss Erema; and unless I am very much mistaken,
you will be the stop of his.  I shall find out, in a few days,
where he came from, where he staid, and when he went away.  I
suppose you mean to let him go away?"

"What else am I to do?" I asked.  "I have no evidence at all
against him; only my own ideas.  The police would scarcely take it
up, even if--"

"Oh, don't talk of them.  They spoil every thing.  And none of our
people would say a word, or care to help us, if it came to that.
The police are all strangers, and our people hate them.  And,
indeed, I believe that the worst thing ever done was the meddling
of that old Jobbins.  The old stupe is still alive at Petersfield,
and as pompous-headed as ever.  My father would have been the man
for your sad affair, miss, if the police had only been invented in
his time.  Ah, yes, he was sharp!  Not a Moonstock man--you may
take your oath of that, miss--but a good honest native from Essex.
But he married my mother, a Moonstock woman; or they would not put
up with me here at all.  You quality people have your ideas to hold
by, and despise all others, and reasonable in your opinions; but
you know nothing--nothing--nothing--of the stiffness of the people
under you."

"How should I know any thing of that?" I answered; "all these
things are new to me.  I have not been brought up in this country,
as you know.  I come from a larger land, where your stiffness may
have burst out into roughness, from having so much room suddenly.
But tell me what you think now your father would have done in such
a case as mine is."

"Miss Erema, he was that long-headed that nobody could play leap-
frog with him.  None of them ever cleared over his barrel.  He
walked into this village fifty-five years back, this very month,
with his spade upon his shoulder and the knowledge of every body in
his eye.  They all put up against him, but they never put him down;
and in less than three months he went to church, I do assure you,
with the only daughter of the only baker.  After that he went into
the baking line himself; he turned his spade into a shovel, as he
said, and he introduced new practices."

"Oh, Mrs. Busk, not adulteration?"

"No, miss, no!  The very last thing he would think of.  Only the
good use of potatoes in the bread, when flour was frightful bad and
painful dear.  What is the best meal of the day? he used to reason.
Dinner.  And why?  Why, because of the potatoes.  If I can make
people take potato for their breakfast, and potato for their supper
too, I am giving them three meals a day instead of one.  And the
health of the village corresponded to it."

"Oh, but, Mrs. Busk, he might have made them do it by persuasion,
or at least with their own knowledge--"

"No, miss, no!  The whole nature of our people, Moonstock or out of
it, is never to take victuals by any sort of persuasion.  If St.
Paul was to come and preach, 'Eat this or that,' all I had of it in
the shop would go rotten.  They hate any meddling with their
likings, and they suspect doctor's rubbish in all of it."

"I am quite of their opinion," I replied; "and I am glad to hear of
their independence.  I always used to hear that in England none of
the poor people dared have a will of their own."

Mrs. Busk lifted up her hands to express amazement at my ignorance,
and said that she "must run away and put the shutters up, or else
the policeman would come rapping, and look for a glass of beer,
which he had no right to till it came to the bottom of the firkin;
and this one was only tapped last Sunday week.  Don't you ever
think of the police, miss."

Probably this was good advice, and it quite agreed with the
opinions of others, and my own impressions as to the arrogant
lethargy of "the force," as they called themselves, in my father's
case.  Mrs. Busk had more activity and intelligence in her little
head than all the fat sergeants and inspectors of the county,
helmet, belt, and staff, and all.



CHAPTER XLII

MASTER WITHYPOOL


At first I was much inclined to run for help, or at least for
counsel, either to Lord Castlewood or to Major Hockin; but further
consideration kept me from doing any thing of the kind.  In the
first place, neither of them would do much good; for my cousin's
ill health would prevent him from helping me, even if his strange
view of the case did not, while the excellent Major was much too
hot and hasty for a delicate task like this.  And, again, I might
lose the most valuable and important of all chances by being away
from the spot just now.  And so I remained at Shoxford for a while,
keeping strict watch upon the stranger's haunt, and asking about
him by means of Mrs. Busk.

"I have heard more about him, miss," she said one day, when the
down letters had been dispatched, which happened about middle-day.
"He has been here only those three times this summer, upon excuse
of fishing always.  He stays at old Wellham, about five miles down
the river, where the people are not true Moonites.  And one thing
that puzzles them is, that although he puts up there simply for the
angling, he always chooses times when the water is so low that to
catch fish is next to impossible.  He left his fishing quarters
upon the very day after you saw him searching so; and he spoke as
if he did not mean to come again this season.  And they say that
they don't want him neither, he is such a morose, close-fisted man;
and drinking nothing but water, there is very little profit with
him."

"And did you find out what his name is?  How cleverly you have
managed!"

"He passes by the name of 'Captain Brown;' but the landlord of his
inn, who has been an old soldier, is sure he was never in the army,
nor any other branch of the service.  He thinks that he lives by
inventing things, for he is always at some experiments, and one of
his great points is to make a lamp that will burn and move about
under water.  To be sure you see the object of that, miss?"

"No, really, Mrs. Busk, I can not.  I have not your penetration."

"Why, of course, to find what he can not find upon land.  There is
something of great importance there, either for its value or its
meaning.  Have you ever been told that your poor grandfather wore
any diamonds or precious jewels?"

"No.  I have asked about that most especially.  He had nothing
about him to tempt a robber.  He was a very strong-willed man, and
he hated outward trumpery."

"Then it must be something that this man himself has dropped,
unless it were a document, or any other token, missing from his
lordship.  And few things of that sort would last for twenty years
almost."

"Nineteen years the day after to-morrow," I answered, with a glance
at my pocket-book.  "I determined to be here on that very day.  No
doubt I am very superstitious.  But one thing I can not understand
is this--what reason can there have been for his letting so many
years pass, and then hunting like this?"

"No one can answer that question, miss, without knowing more than
we know.  But many reasons might be supposed.  He might have been
roving abroad, for instance, just as you and your father have been.
Or he might not have known that the thing was there; or it might
not have been of importance till lately; or he might have been
afraid, until something else happened.  Does he know that you are
now in England?"

"How can I possibly tell, Mrs. Busk?  He seems to know a great deal
too much.  He found me out when I was at Colonel Gundry's.  At
least I conclude so, from what I know now; but I hope he does not
know"--and at such a dreadful idea I shuddered.

"I am almost sure that he can not know it," the good postmistress
answered, "or he would have found means to put an end to you.  That
would have been his first object."

"But, Mrs. Busk," I said, being much disturbed by her calmness,
"surely, surely he is not to be allowed to make an end of every
one!  I came to this country with the full intention of going into
every thing.  But I did not mean at all, except in my very best
moments, to sacrifice myself.  It seems too bad--too bad to think
of."

"So it is, Miss Erema," Mrs. Busk replied, without any congenial
excitement.  "It does seem hard for them that have the liability on
them.  But still, miss, you have always shown such a high sense of
duty, and of what you were about--"

"I can't--I can not.  There are times, I do assure you, when I am
fit for nothing, Mrs. Busk, and wish myself back in America.  And
if this man is to have it all his own way--"

"Not he, miss--not he.  Be you in no hurry.  Could he even have his
way with our old miller?  No; Master Withypool was too many for
him."

"That is a new thing.  You never told me that.  What did he try to
do with the miller?"

"I don't justly know what it was, Miss Erema.  I never spoke to
miller about it, and, indeed, I have had no time since I heard of
it.  But those that told me said that the tall strange gentleman
was terribly put out, and left the gate with a black cloud upon his
face, and the very next day the miller's daughter died, quite
sudden and mysterious."

"How very strange!  But now I have got a new idea.  Has the miller
a strong high dam to his pond, and a good stout sluice-gate at the
end!"

"Yes, miss, to be sure he has," said Mrs. Busk; "otherwise how
could he grind at all, when the river is so low as it is
sometimes?"

"Then I know what he wanted, and I will take a leaf out of his own
book--the miscreant!  He wanted the miller to stop back the water
and leave the pool dry at the 'Murder-bridge.'  Would it be
possible for him to do that?"

"I can not tell you, miss; but your thought is very clever.  It is
likely enough that he did want that, though he never would dare to
ask without some pretense--some other cause I mean, to show for it.
He may have been thinking that whatever he was wanting was likely
to be under water.  And that shows another thing, if it is so."

"Mrs. Busk, my head goes round with such a host of complications.
I do my best to think them out--and then there comes another!"

"No, miss; this only clears things up a little.  If the man can not
be sure whether what he is looking for is on land or under water,
it seems to me almost to show that it was lost at the murder time
in the dark and flurry.  A man would know if he dropped any thing
in the water by daylight, from the splash and the ripple, and so
on, for the stream is quite slow at that corner.  He dropped it,
miss, when he did the deed, or else it came away from his
lordship."

"Nothing was lost, as I said before, from the body of my
grandfather, so far at least as our knowledge goes.  Whatever was
lost was the murderer's.  Now please to tell me all about the
miller, and how I may get round him."

"You make me laugh in the middle of black things, miss, by the way
you have of putting them.  But as to the miller--Master Withypool
is a wonder, as concerns the ladies.  He is one of those men that
stand up for every thing when a man tries upper side of them.  But
let a woman come, and get up under, and there he is--a pie crust
lifted.  Why, I, at my age, could get round him, as you call it.
But you, miss--and more than that, you are something like his
daughter; and the old man frets after her terrible.  Go you into
his yard, and just smile upon him, miss, and if the Moon River can
be stopped, he'll stop it for you."

This seemed a very easy way to do it.  But I told Mrs. Busk that I
would pay well also, for the loss of a day's work at the mill was
more than fifty smiles could make up.

But she told me, above all things, not to do that.  For old Master
Withypool was of that sort that he would stand for an hour with his
hands in his pocket for a half-penny, if not justly owing from him.
But nothing more angered him than a bribe to step outside of his
duty.  He had plenty of money, and was proud of it.  But sooner
would he lose a day's work to do a kindness, when he was sure of
having right behind it, than take a week's profit without earning
it.  And very likely that was where the dark man failed, from
presuming that money would do every thing.  However, there was
nothing like judging for one's self; and if I would like to be
introduced, she could do it for me with the best effect; taking as
she did a good hundred-weight of best "households" from him every
week, although not herself in the baking line, but always keeping
quartern bags, because the new baker did adulterate so.

I thought of her father, and how things work round; but that they
would do without remarks of mine.  So I said nothing on that point,
but asked whether Master Withypool would require any introduction.
And to this Mrs. Busk said, "Oh dear, no!"  And her throat had been
a little rough since Sunday, and the dog was chained tight, even if
any dog would bite a sweet young lady; and to her mind the miller
would be more taken up and less fit to vapor into obstacles, if I
were to hit upon him all alone, just when he came out to the bank
of his cabbage garden, not so very long after his dinner, to smoke
his pipe and to see his things a-growing.

It was time to get ready if I meant to catch him then, for he
always dined at one o'clock, and the mill was some three or four
meadows up the stream; therefore as soon as Mrs. Busk had re-
assured me that she was quite certain of my enemy's departure, I
took my drawing things and set forth to call upon Master Withypool.

Passing through the church-yard, which was my nearest way, and
glancing sadly at the "fairy ring," I began to have some uneasiness
about the possible issue of my new scheme.  Such a thing required
more thinking out than I had given to it.  For instance, what
reason could I give the miller for asking so strange a thing of
him?  And how could the whole of the valley be hindered from making
the greatest talk about the stoppage of their own beloved Moon,
even if the Moon could be stopped without every one of them rushing
down to see it?  And if it was so talked of, would it not be
certain to come to the ears of that awful man?  And if so, how long
before he found me out, and sent me to rejoin my family?

These thoughts compelled me to be more discreet; and having lately
done a most honorable thing, in refusing to read that letter, I
felt a certain right to play a little trick now of a purely
harmless character.  I ran back therefore to my writing-desk, and
took from its secret drawer a beautiful golden American eagle, a
large coin, larger and handsomer than any in the English coinage.
Uncle Sam gave it to me on my birthday, and I would not have taken
50 pounds  for it.  With this I hurried to that bridge of fear,
which I had not yet brought myself to go across; and then, not to
tell any story about it, I snipped a little hole in the corner of
my pocket, while my hand was still steady ere I had to mount the
bridge.  Then pinching that hole up with a squeeze, I ran and got
upon that wicked bridge, and then let go.  The heavy gold coin fell
upon the rotten plank, and happily rolled into the water, as if it
were glad not to tempt its makers to any more sin for the sake of
it.

Shutting up thought, for fear of despising myself for the coinage
of such a little trick, I hurried across the long meadow to the
mill, and went through the cow-gate into the yard, and the dog
began to bark at me.  Seeing that he had a strong chain on, I
regarded him with lofty indignation.  "Do you know what Jowler
would do to you?" I said; "Jowler, a dog worth ten of you.  He
would take you by the neck and drop you into that pond for daring
to insult his mistress!"  The dog appeared to feel the force of my
remarks, for he lay down again, and with one eye watched me in a
manner amusing, but insidious.  Then, taking good care to keep out
of his reach, I went to the mill-pond and examined it.

It looked like a very nice pond indeed, long, and large, and well
banked up, not made into any particular shape, but producing little
rushy elbows.  The water was now rather low, and very bright
(though the Moon itself is not a crystal stream), and a school of
young minnows, just watching a water-spider with desirous awe, at
sight of me broke away, and reunited, with a speed and precision
that might shame the whole of our very best modern fighting.  Then
many other things made a dart away, and furrowed the shadow of the
willows, till distance quieted the fear of man--that most
mysterious thing in nature--and the shallow pool was at peace
again, and bright with unruffled reflections.

"What ails the dog?" said a deep gruff voice; and the poor dog
received a contemptuous push, not enough to hurt him, but to wound
his feelings for doing his primary duty.  "Servant, miss.  What can
I do for you?  Foot-path is t'other side of that there hedge."

"Yes, but I left the foot-path on purpose.  I came to have a talk
with you, if you will allow me."

"Sartain! sartain," the miller replied, lifting a broad floury hat
and showing a large gray head.  "Will you come into house, miss, or
into gearden?"

I chose the garden, and he led the way, and set me down upon an old
oak bench, where the tinkle of the water through the flood-gates
could be heard.

"So you be come to paint the mill at last," he said.  "Many a time
I've looked out for you.  The young leddy down to Mother Busk's, of
course.  Many's the time we've longed for you to come, you reminds
us so of somebody.  Why, my old missus can't set eyes on you in
church, miss, without being forced to sit down a'most.  But we
thought it very pretty of you not to come, miss, while the trouble
was so new upon us."

Something in my look or voice made the old man often turn away,
while I told him that I would make the very best drawing of his
mill that I could manage, and would beg him to accept it.

"Her ought to 'a been on the plank," he said, with trouble in
getting his words out.  "But there! what good?  Her never will
stand on that plank no more.  No, nor any other plank."

I told him that I would put her on the plank, if he had any
portrait of her showing her dress and her attitude.  Without saying
what he had, he led me to the house, and stood behind me, while I
went inside.  And then he could not keep his voice as I went from
one picture of his darling to another, not thinking (as I should
have done) of what his feelings might be, but trying, as no two
were at all alike, to extract a general idea of her.

"Nobody knows what her were to me," the old man said, with a quiet
little noise and a sniff behind my shoulder.  "And with one day's
illness her died--her died."

"But you have others left.  She was not the only one.  Please, Mr.
Withypool, to try to think of that.  And your dear wife still alive
to share your trouble.  Just think for a moment of what happened to
my father.  His wife and six children all swept off in a month--and
I just born, to be brought up with a bottle!"

I never meant, of course, to have said a word of this, but was
carried away by that common old idea of consoling great sorrow with
a greater one.  And the sense of my imprudence broke vexatiously
upon me when the old man came and stood between me and his
daughter's portraits.

"Well, I never!" he exclaimed, with his bright eyes steadfast with
amazement.  "I know you now, miss.  Now I knows you.  To think what
a set of blind newts us must be!  And you the very moral of your
poor father, in a female kind of way!  To be sure, how well I knew
the Captain!  A nicer man never walked the earth, neither a more
unlucky one."

"I beg you--let me beg you," I began to say; "since you have found
me out like this--"

"Hush, miss, hush!  Not my own wife shall know, unless your own
tongue telleth her.  A proud man I shall be, Miss Raumur," he
continued, with emphasis on my local name, "if aught can be found
in my power to serve you.  Why, Lord bless you, miss," he
whispered, looking round, "your father and I has spent hours
together!  He were that pleasant in his ways and words, he would
drop in from his fishing, when the water was too low, and sit on
that very same bench where you sat, and smoke his pipe with me, and
tell me about battles, and ask me about bread.  And many a time I
have slipped up the gate, to give him more water for his flies to
play, and the fish not to see him so plainly.  Ah, we have had many
pleasant spells together; and his eldest boy and girl, Master
George and Miss Henrietta, used to come and fetch our eggs.  My
Polly there was in love with him, we said; she sat upon his lap so,
when she were two years old, and played with his beautiful hair,
and blubbered--oh, she did blubber, when the Captain went away!"

This invested Polly with new interest for me, and made me determine
to spare no pains in putting her pretty figure well upon the plank.
Then I said to the miller, "How kind of you to draw up your sluice-
gates to oblige my father!  Now will you put them down and keep
them down, to do a great service both to him and me?"

Without a moment's hesitation, he promised that any thing he could
do should be done, if I would only tell him what I wanted.  But
perhaps it would be better to have our talk outside.  Taking this
hint, I followed him back to the bench in the open garden, and
there explained what I wished to have done, and no longer concealed
the true reason.  The good miller answered that with all his heart
he would do that much to oblige me, and a hundred times more than
that; but some little thought and care were needful.  With the
river so low as it was now, he could easily stop the back-water,
and receive the whole of the current in his dam, and keep it from
flowing down his wheel trough, and thus dry the lower channel for
perhaps half an hour, which would be ample for my purpose.
Engineering difficulties there were none; but two or three other
things must be heeded.  Miller Sims, a mile or so down river, must
be settled with, to fill his dam well, and begin to discharge, when
the upper water failed, so as not to dry the Moon all down the
valley, which would have caused a commotion.  Miller Sims being own
brother-in-law to Master Withypool, that could be arranged easily
enough, after one day's notice.  But a harder thing to manage would
be to do the business without rousing curiosity, and setting abroad
a rumor which would be sure to reach my enemy.  And the hardest
thing of all, said Master Withypool, smiling as he thought of what
himself had once been, would be to keep those blessed boys away,
who find out every thing, and go every where.  Not a boy of
Shoxford but would be in the river, or dancing upon its empty bed,
screeching and scolloping up into his cap any poor bewildered trout
chased into the puddles, if it were allowed to leak out, however
feebly, that the Moon water was to stop running.  And then how was
I to seek for any thing?

This was a puzzle.  But, with counsel, we did solve it.  And we
quietly stopped the Moon, without man or boy being much the wiser.



CHAPTER XLIII

GOING TO THE BOTTOM


It is not needful to explain every thing, any more than it was for
me to tell the miller about my golden eagle, and how I had managed
to lose it in the Moon--a trick of which now I was heartily
ashamed, in the face of honest kindness.  So I need not tell how
Master Withypool managed to settle with his men, and to keep the
boys unwitting of what was about to come to pass.  Enough that I
got a note from him to tell me that the little river would be run
out, just when all Shoxford was intent upon its dinner, on the
second day after I had seen him.  And he could not say for certain,
but thought it pretty safe, that nobody would come near me, if I
managed to be there at a quarter before one, when the stream would
begin to run dry, and I could watch it.  I sent back a line by the
pretty little girl, a sister of poor Polly, to say how much I
thanked him, and how much I hoped that he himself would meet me
there, if his time allowed.  For he had been too delicate to say a
word of that; but I felt that he had a good right to be there, and,
knowing him now, I was not afraid.

Nearly every thing came about as well as could be wished almost.
Master Withypool took the precaution, early in the morning, to set
his great fierce bull at large, who always stopped the foot-path.
This bull knew well the powers of a valley in conducting sound; and
he loved to stand, as if at the mouth of a funnel, and roar down it
to another bull a mile below him, belonging to his master's
brother-in-law.  And when he did this, there was scarcely a boy,
much less a man or woman, with any desire to assert against him the
public right of thoroughfare.  Throughout that forenoon, then, this
bull bellowed nobly, still finding many very wicked flies about, so
that two mitching boys, who meant to fish for minnows with a pin,
were obliged to run away again.

However, I was in the dark about him, and as much afraid of him as
any body, when he broke into sight of me round a corner, without
any tokens of amity.  I had seen a great many great bulls before,
including Uncle Sam's good black one, who might not have meant any
mischief at all, and atoned for it--if he did--by being washed away
so.

And therefore my courage soon returned, when it became quite clear
that this animal now had been fastened with a rope, and could come
no nearer.  For some little time, then, I waited all alone, as near
that bridge as I could bring myself to stand, for Mrs. Busk, my
landlady, could not leave the house yet, on account of the mid-day
letters.  Moreover, she thought that she had better stay away, as
our object was to do things as quietly as could be.

Much as I had watched this bridge from a distance, or from my
sheltering-place, I had never been able to bring myself to make any
kind of sketch of it, or even to insert it in a landscape, although
it was very well suited and expressive, from its crooked and
antique simplicity.  The overhanging, also, of the hawthorn-tree
(not ruddy yet, but russety with its coloring crop of coral), and
the shaggy freaks of ivy above the twisted trunk, and the curve of
the meadows and bold elbow of the brook, were such as an artist
would have pitched his tent for, and tantalized poor London people
with a dream of cool repose.

As yet the little river showed no signs of doing what the rustic--
or surely it should have been the cockney--was supposed to stand
still and wait for.  There was no great rush of headlong water, for
that is not the manner of the stream in the very worst of weather;
but there was the usual style of coming on, with lips and steps at
the sides, and cords of running toward the middle.  Quite enough,
at any rate, to make the trout jump, without any omen of impending
drought, and to keep all the play and the sway of movement going on
serenely.

I began to be afraid that the miller must have failed in his
stratagem against the water-god, and that, as I had read in Pope's
Homer, the liquid deity would beat the hero, when all of a sudden
there were signs that man was the master of this little rustic.
Broadswords of flag and rapiers of water-grass, which had been
quivering merrily, began to hang down and to dip themselves in
loops, and the stones of the brink showed dark green stripes on
their sides as they stood naked.  Then fine little cakes of
conglomerated stuff, which only a great man of nature could
describe, came floating about, and curdling into corners, and
holding on to one another in long-tailed strings.  But they might
do what they liked, and make their very best of it, as they fell
away to nothing upon stones and mud.  For now more important things
began to open, the like of which never had been yielded up before--
plots of slimy gravel, varied with long streaks of yellow mud,
dotted with large double shells, and parted into little oozy runs
by wriggling water-weeds.  And here was great commotion and sad
panic of the fish, large fellows splashing and quite jumping out of
water, as their favorite hovers and shelves ran dry, and darting
away, with their poor backs in the air, to the deepest hole they
could think of.  Hundreds must have come to flour, lard, and butter
if boys had been there to take advantage.  But luckily things had
been done so well that boys were now in their least injurious
moment, destroying nothing worse than their own dinners.

A very little way below the old wooden bridge the little river ran
into a deepish pool, as generally happens at or near a corner,
especially where there is a confluence sometimes.  And seeing
nothing, as I began to search intently, stirring with a long-
handled spud which I had brought, I concluded that even my golden
eagle had been carried into that deep place.  However, water or no
water, I resolved to have it out with that dark pool as soon as the
rest of the channel should be drained, which took a tormenting time
to do; and having thick boots on, I pinned up my skirts, and
jumping down into the shoals, began to paddle in a fashion which
reminded me of childish days passed pleasantly in the Blue River.

Too busy thus to give a thought to any other thing, I did not even
see the miller, until he said,

"Good-day, miss," lifting his hat, with a nice kind smile.  "Very
busy, miss, I see, and right you are to be so.  The water will be
upon us again in less than half an hour.  Now let me clear away
they black weeds for you.  I brought this little shivel a-purpose.
If I may make so bold, miss, what do 'e look to find here?"

"I have not the very smallest notion," I could only answer; "but if
there is any thing, it must be in that hole.  I have searched all
the shallow part so closely that I doubt whether even a sixpence
could escape me, unless it were buried in the mud or pebbles.  Oh,
how can I manage to search that hole?  There must be a yard of
water there."

"One thing I ought to have told 'e for to do," Master Withypool
whispered, as he went on shoveling--"to do what the boys do when
they lose a farden--to send another after un.  If so be now, afore
the water was run out, you had stood on that there bridge, and
dropped a bright coin into it, a new half crown or a two-shilling
piece, why, the chances would be that the run of the current would
'a taken it nigh to the likeliest spot for holding any other little
matter as might 'a dropped, permiskous, you might say, into this
same water."

"I have done so," I answered; "I have done that very thing, though
not at all with that object.  The day before yesterday a beautiful
coin, a golden eagle of America, fell from my pocket on that upper
plank, and rolled into the water.  I would not lose it for a great
deal, because it was given to me by my dearest friend, the greatest
of all millers."

"And ha'n't you found it yet, miss?  Well, that is queer.  Perhaps
we shall find it now, with something to the back of it.  I thought
yon hole was too far below the bridge.  But there your gold must
be, and something else, most likely.  Plaise to wait a little bit,
and us 'll have the wet out of un.  I never should 'a thought of
that but for your gold guinea, though."

With these words Master Withypool pulled his coat off and rolled up
his shirt sleeves, displaying arms fit to hold their own even with
Uncle Sam's almost; and then he fell to with his shovel and dug,
while I ran with my little spud to help.

"Plaise keep out of way, miss; I be afeard of knocking you.  Not
but what you works very brave indeed, miss."

Knowing what men are concerning "female efforts," I got out of the
strong man's way, although there was plenty of room for me.  What
he wanted to do was plain enough--to dig a trench down the empty
bed of the Moon River, deep enough to drain that pit before the
stream came down again.

"Never thought to run a race against my own old dam," he said, as
he stopped for a moment to recover breath.  "Us never knows what us
may have to do.  Old dam must be a'most busting now.  But her's
sound enough, till her beginneth to run over."

I did not say a word, because it might have done some mischief, but
I could not help looking rather anxiously up stream, for fear of
the water coming down with a rush, as it very soon must do.  Master
Withypool had been working, not as I myself would have done, from
the lips of the dark pit downward, but from a steep run some twenty
yards below, where there was almost a little cascade when the river
was full flowing; from this he had made his channel upward, cutting
deeper as he came along, till now, at the brink of the obstinate
pool, his trench was two feet deep almost.  I had no idea that any
man could work so with a shovel, which seems such a clumsy tool
compared with a spade: but a gentleman who knows the country and
the people told me that, with their native weapon, Moonites will do
as much digging in an hour as other folk get through in an hour and
a half with a spade.  But this may be only, perhaps, because they
are working harder.

"Now," said Master Withypool at last, standing up, with a very red
face, and desiring to keep all that unheeded--"now, miss, to you it
belongeth to tap this here little cornder, if desirable.  Plaise to
excoose of me going up of bank to tell 'e when the wet cometh down
again."

"Please to do nothing of the sort," I answered, knowing that he
offered to stand out of sight from a delicate dread of intrusion.
"Please to tap the pool yourself, and stay here, as a witness of
what we find in it."

"As you plaise, miss, as you plaise.  Not a moment for to lose in
arguing.  Harken now, the water is atopping of our dam.  Her will
be here in five minutes."

With three or four rapid turns of his shovel, which he spun almost
as fast as a house-maid spins a mop, he fetched out the plug of
earth severing his channel from the deep, reluctant hole.  And then
I saw the wisdom of his way of working: for if he had dug downward
from the pool itself, the water would have followed him all the
way, and even drowned his tool out of its own strokes; whereas now,
with a swirl and a curl of ropy mud, away rushed the thick,
sluggish, obstinate fluid, and in less than two minutes the hole
was almost dry.

The first thing I saw was my golden eagle, lodged about half-way
down the slope on a crust of black sludge, from which I caught it
up and presented it to Master Withypool, as a small token and
record of his kindness; and to this day he carries it upon his
Sunday watch chain.

"I always am lucky in finding things," I exclaimed, while he
watched me, and the up stream too, whence a babble of water was
approaching.  "As sure as I live I have found it!"

"No doubt about your living, miss.  And the Captain were always
lively.  But what have your bright eyes hit upon?  I see nort for
the life of me."

"Look there," I cried, "at the very bottom of it--almost under the
water.  Here, where I put my spud--a bright blue line!  Oh, can I
go down, or is it quicksand?"

"No quicksand in our little river, miss.  But your father's
daughter shannot go into the muck, while John Withypool stands by.
I see un now, sure enough; now I see un!  But her needeth care, or
her may all goo away in mullock.  Well, I thought my eyes was sharp
enough; but I'm blest if I should have spied that, though.  A bit
of flint, mebbe, or of blue glass bottle.  Anyhow, us will see the
bottom of un."

He was wasting no time while he spoke, but working steadfastly for
his purpose, fixing the blade of his shovel below the little blue
line I was peering at, so that no slip of the soft yellow slush
should bury it down, and plunge over it.  If that had once
happened, good-by to all chance of ever beholding this thing again,
for the river was coming, with fury and foam, to assert its ancient
right of way.

With a short laugh the miller jumped down into the pit.  "Me to be
served so, by my own mill-stream!  Lor', if I don't pay you out for
this!"

His righteous wrath failed to stop the water from pouring into the
pit behind him; and, strong as he was, he nearly lost his footing,
having only mud to stand upon.  It seemed to me that he was going
to be drowned, and I offered him the handle of my spud to help him;
but he stopped where he was, and was not going to be hurried.

"I got un now," he said; "now I don't mind coming out.  You see if
I don't pay you out for this!  Why, I always took you for a
reasonable hanimal."

He shook his fist strongly at the river, which had him well up to
the middle by this time; and then he disdainfully waded out, with
wrath in all his countenance.

"I've a great mind to stop there, and see what her would do," he
said to me, forgetting altogether what he went for.  "And I would,
if I had had my dinner.  A scat of a thing as I can manage with my
thumb!  Ah, you have made a bad day of it."

"But what have you found, Mr. Withypool?" I asked, for I could not
enter into his wrath against the water, wet as he was to the
shoulders.  "You have something in your hand.  May I see it, if you
please?  And then do please to go home and change your clothes."

"A thing I never did in my life, miss, and should be ashamed to
begin at this age.  Clothes gets wet, and clothes dries on us, same
as un did on the sheep afore us; else they gets stiff and creasy.
What this little thing is ne'er a body may tell, in my line of
life--but look'th aristocratic."

The "mullock," as he called it, from his hands, and from the bed
where it had lain so long, so crusted the little thing which he
gave me, that I dipped it again in the swelling stream, and rubbed
it with both hands, to make out what it was.  And then I thought
how long it had lain there; and suddenly to my memory it came, that
in all likelihood the time of that was nineteen years this very
day.

"Will another year pass," I cried, "before I make out all about it?
What are you, and who, now looking at me with such sad, sad eyes?"

For I held in my hand a most handsome locket, of blue enamel and
diamonds, with a back of chased gold, and in front the miniature of
a beautiful young woman, done as they never seem to do them now.
The work was so good, and the fitting so close, that no drop of
water had entered, and the face shone through the crystal glass as
fresh as the day it was painted.  A very lovely face it was, yet
touched with a shade of sadness, as the loveliest faces generally
are; and the first thought of any beholder would be, "That woman
was born for sorrow."

The miller said as much when I showed it to him.

"Lord bless my heart!  I hope the poor craitur' hathn't lasted half
so long as her pictur' hath."



CHAPTER XLIV

HERMETICALLY SEALED


The discovery which I have described above (but not half so well as
the miller tells it now) created in my young heart a feeling of
really strong curiosity.  To begin with, how could this valuable
thing have got into the Moon-stream, and lain there so long,
unsought for, or at best so unskillfully sought for?  What
connection could it have with the tragic death of my grandfather?
Why was that man so tardily come to search for it, if he might do
so without any body near him?  Again, what woman was this whose
beauty no water or mud could even manage to disguise?  That last
was a most disturbing question to one's bodily peace of mind.  And
then came another yet more urgent--what was in the inside of this
tight case?

That there was something inside of it seemed almost a certainty.
The mere value of the trinket, or even the fear that it ever might
turn up as evidence, would scarcely have brought that man so often
to stir suspicion by seeking it; though, after so long a time, he
well might hope that suspicion was dead and buried.  And being
unable to open this case--after breaking three good nails over it,
and then the point of a penknife--I turned to Master Withypool, who
was stamping on the grass to drain himself.

"What sort of a man was that," I asked, "who wanted you to do what
now you have so kindly done for me?  About a month or six weeks
ago?  Do please to tell me, as nearly as you can."

If Mrs. Withypool had been there, she might have lost all patience
with me for putting long questions so selfishly to a man who had
done so much for me, and whose clothes were now dripping in a wind
which had arisen to test his theory of drying.  He must have lost a
large quantity of what scientific people call "caloric."  But never
a shiver gave he in exchange.

"Well, miss," he said, "I was thinking a'most of speaking on that
very matter.  More particular since you found that little thing,
with the pretty lady inside of it.  It were borne in on my mind
that thissom were the very thing he were arter."

"No doubt of it," I answered, with far less patience, though being
comparatively dry.  "But what was he like?  Was he like this
portrait?"

"This picture of the lady?  No; I can't say that he were, so much.
The face of a big man he hath, with short black fringes to it.
Never showeth to my idea any likeliness of a woman.  No, no, miss;
think you not at all that you have got him in that blue thing.
Though some of their pictures is like men, the way they dress up
nowadays."

"I did not mean that it was meant for him; what I mean is, do you
see any sign of family likeness?  Any resemblance about the eyes,
or mouth, or forehead?"

"Well, now, I don't know but what I might," replied Master
Withypool, gazing very hard; "if I was to look at 'un long enough,
a' might find some'at favoring of that tall fellow, I do believe.
Indeed, I do believe the more I look, the more I diskivers the
image of him."

The good and kind miller's perception of the likeness strengthened
almost too fast, as if the wish were father to the thought, until I
saw clearly how selfish I was in keeping him in that state so long;
for I knew, from what Mrs. Busk had told me, that in spite of all
his large and grand old English sentiments about his clothes, his
wife would make him change them all ere ever she gave him a bit of
dinner, and would force him then to take a glass of something hot.
So I gave him a thousand thanks, though not a thousandth part of
what he deserved, and saw him well on his homeward way before I
went back to consider things.

As soon as my landlady was at leisure to come in and talk with me,
and as soon as I had told her how things happened, and shown her
our discovery, we both of us did the very same thing, and said
almost the very same words.  Our act was, with finger and nail and
eye, to rime into every jot of it; and our words were,

"I am sure there is something inside.  If not, it would open
sensibly."

In the most senseless and obstinate manner it refused not only to
open, but to disclose any thing at all about itself.  Whether it
ever had been meant to open, and if so, where, and by what means;
whether, without any gift of opening, it might have a hidden thing
inside; whether, when opened by force or skill, it might show
something we had no business with, or (which would be far worse)
nothing at all--good Mrs. Busk and myself tested, tapped, and felt,
and blew, and listened, and tried every possible overture, and
became at last quite put out with it.

"It is all of a piece with the villains that owned it," the
postmistress exclaimed at last.  "There is no penetrating either it
or them.  Most likely they have made away with this beautiful lady
on the cover.  Kill one, kill fifty, I have heard say.  I hope
Master Withypool will let out nothing, or evil it will be for you,
miss.  If I was you, I would carry a pistol."

"Now please not to frighten me, Mrs. Busk.  I am not very brave at
the best of times, and this has made me so nervous.  If I carried a
pistol, I should shoot myself the very first hour of wearing it.
The mere thought of it makes me tremble.  Oh, why was I ever born,
to do man's work?"

"Because, miss, a man would not have done it half so well.  When
you saw that villain digging, a man would have rushed out and
spoiled all chance.  And now what man could have ever found this?
Would Master Withypool ever have emptied the Moon River for a man,
do you think?  Or could any man have been down among us all this
time, in this jealous place, without his business being long ago
sifted out and scattered over him?  No, no, miss; you must not talk
like that--and with me as well to help you.  The rogues will have
reason to wish, I do believe, that they had only got a man to deal
with."

In this argument there were points which had occurred to me before;
but certainly it is a comfort to have one's own ideas in a doubtful
matter reproduced, and perhaps put better, by a mind to which one
may have lent them, perhaps, with a loan all unacknowledged.
However, trouble teaches care, and does it so well that the master
and the lesson in usage of words are now the same; therefore I
showed no sign of being suggested with my own suggestions, but only
asked, quietly, "What am I to do?"

"My dear young lady," Mrs. Busk replied, after stopping some time
to think of it, "my own opinion is, for my part, that you ought to
consult somebody."

"But I am, Mrs. Busk.  I am now consulting you."

"Then I think, miss, that this precious case should be taken at
once to a jeweler, who can open it without doing any damage, which
is more than we can do."

"To be sure; I have thought of that," I replied.  "But how can that
be done without arousing curiosity?--without the jeweler seeing its
contents, if indeed it has any?  And in that case the matter would
be no longer at our own disposal, as now it is.  I have a great
mind to split it with a hammer.  What are the diamonds to me?"

"It is not the diamonds, but the picture, miss, that may be most
important.  And more than that, you might ruin the contents, so as
not to make head or tale of them.  No, no; it is a risk that must
be run; we must have a jeweler, but not one of this neighborhood."

"Then I shall have to go to London again, and perhaps lose
something most important here.  Can you think of no other way out
of it?"

"No, miss, at present I see nothing else.  Unless you will place it
all in the hands of the police."

"Constable Jobbins, to wit, or his son!  No, thank you, Mrs. Busk,
not yet.  Surely we are not quite reduced to such a hopeless pass
as that.  My father knew what the police were worth, and so does
Betsy, and so does Major Hockin.  'Pompous noodles,' the Major
calls them, who lay hold of every thing by the wrong end."

"Then if he can lay hold of the right end, miss, what better could
you do than consult him?"

I had been thinking of this already, and pride alone debarred me.
That gentleman's active nature drove him to interfere with other
people's business, even though he had never heard of them; and yet
through some strange reasoning of his own, or blind adoption of
public unreason, he had made me dislike, or at any rate not like,
him, until he began to show signs at last of changing his opinion.
And now the question was, had he done that enough for me, without
loss of self-respect, to open my heart to him, and seek counsel?

In settling that point the necessity of the case overrode, perhaps,
some scruples; in sooth, I had nobody else to go to.  What could I
do with Lord Castlewood?  Nothing; all his desire was to do exactly
what my father would have done: and my father had never done any
thing more than rove and roam his life out.  To my mind this was
dreadful now, when every new thing rising round me more and more
clearly to my mind established what I never had doubted--his
innocence.  Again, what good could I do by seeking Betsy's opinion
about it, or that of Mrs. Price, or Stixon, or any other person
I could think of?  None whatever--and perhaps much harm.  Taking
all in all, as things turn up, I believed myself to be almost equal
to the cleverest of those three in sense, and in courage not
inferior.  Moreover, a sort of pride--perhaps very small, but not
contemptible--put me against throwing my affairs so much into the
hands of servants.

For this idea Uncle Sam, no doubt the most liberal of men, would
perhaps condemn me.  But still I was not of the grand New World,
whose pedigrees are arithmetic (at least with many of its items,
though the true Uncle Sam was the last for that); neither could I
come up to the largeness of universal brotherhood.  That was not to
be expected of a female; and few things make a man more angry than
for his wife to aspire to it.  No such ideas had ever troubled me;
I had more important things to think of, or, at any rate, something
to be better carried out.  And of all these desultory thoughts it
came that I packed up that odious but very lovely locket, without
further attempt to unriddle it, and persuaded my very good and
clever Mrs. Busk to let me start right early.  By so doing I could
have three hours with a good gentleman always in a hurry, and yet
return for the night to Shoxford, if he should advise me so.

Men and women seem alike to love to have their counsels taken; and
the equinox being now gone by, Mrs. Busk was ready to begin before
the tardy sun was up, who begins to give you short measure at once
when he finds the weights go against him.  Mrs. Busk considered not
the sun, neither any of his doings.  The time of day was more
momentous than any of the sun's proceedings.  Railway time was what
she had to keep (unless a good customer dropped in), and as for the
sun--"clock slow, clock fast," in the almanacs, showed how he
managed things; and if that was not enough, who could trust him to
keep time after what he had done upon the dial of Ahaz?  Reasoning
thus--if reason it was--she packed me off in a fly for the nearest
railway station, and by midday I found the Major laboring on his
ramparts.

After proper salutations, I could not help expressing wonder at the
rapid rise of things.  Houses here and houses there, springing up
like children's teeth, three or four in a row together, and then a
long gap, and then some more.  And down the slope a grand hotel,
open for refreshment, though as yet it had no roof on; for the
Major, in virtue of his charter, defied all the magistrates to stop
him from selling whatever was salable on or off the premises.  But
noblest and grandest of all to look at was the "Bruntsea Athenaeum,
Lyceum, Assembly-Rooms, Institution for Mutual Instruction,
Christian Young Men's Congress, and Sanitary, Saline, Hydropathic
Hall, at nominal prices to be had gratis."

"How you do surprise me!" I said to Major Hockin, after reading all
that, which he kindly requested me to do with care; "but where are
the people to come from?"

"Erema," he replied, as if that question had been asked too often,
"you have not had time to study the laws of political economy--the
noblest of noble sciences.  The first of incontrovertible facts is
that supply creates demand.  Now ask yourself whether there could
even be a Yankee if ideas like yours had occurred to Columbus?"

This was beyond me; for I never could argue, and strove to the
utmost not to do so.  "You understand those things, and I do not,"
said I, with a smile, which pleased him.  "My dear aunt Mary always
says that you are the cleverest man in the world; and she must know
most about it."

"Partiality! partiality!" cried the Major, with a laugh, and
pulling his front hair up.  "Such things pass by me like the idle
wind; or rather, perhaps, they sadden me, from my sense of my own
deficiencies.  But, bless me! dinner must be waiting.  Look at that
fellow's trowel--he knows: he turns up the point of it like a
spoon.  They say that he can smell his dinner two miles off.  We
all dine at one o'clock now, that I may rout up every man-Jack of
them."

The Major sounded a steam-guard's whistle, and led me off in the
rapidly vanishing wake of his hungry workmen.



CHAPTER XLV

CONVICTION


Sir Montague Hockin, to my great delight, was still away from
Bruntsea.  If he had been there, it would have been a most awkward
thing for me to meet him, or to refuse to do so.  The latter course
would probably have been the one forced upon me by self-respect and
affection toward my cousin; and yet if so, I could scarcely have
avoided an explanation with my host.  From the nature of the
subject, and several other reasons, this would have been most
unpleasant; and even now I was haunted with doubts, as I had been
from the first, whether I ought not to have told Mrs. Hockin long
ago what had been said of him.  At first sight that seemed the
honest thing to do; but three things made against it.  It might
seem forward and meddlesome; it must be a grievous thing to my
cousin to have his sad story discussed again; and lastly, I had
promised Mrs. Price that her words should go no further.  So that
on the whole perhaps I acted aright in keeping that infamous tale
to myself as long as ever it was possible.

But now ere ever I spoke of him--which I was always loath to do--
Mrs. Hockin told me that he very seldom came to see them now, and
when he did come he seemed to be uneasy and rather strange in his
manners.  I thought to myself that the cause of this was clear.
Sir Montague, knowing that I went to Castlewood, was pricked in his
conscience, and afraid of having his vile behavior to my cousin
disclosed.  However, that idea of mine was wrong, and a faulty
conception of simple youth.  The wicked forgive themselves so
quickly, if even they find any need of it, that every body else is
supposed to do the same.  With this I have no patience.  A wrong
unrepented of and unatoned gathers interest, instead of getting
discount, from lost time.  And so I hated that man tenfold.

Good Mrs. Hockin lamented his absence not only for the sake of her
darling fowls, but also because she considered him a check upon the
Major's enterprise.  Great as her faith was in her husband's
ability and keenness, she was often visited with dark misgivings
about such heavy outlay.  Of economy (as she often said) she
certainly ought to know something, having had to practice it as
strictly as any body in the kingdom, from an age she could hardly
remember.  But as for what was now brought forward as a great
discovery--economy in politics--Mrs. Hockin had tried to follow
great opinions, but could only find, so far, downright extravagance.
Supply (as she had observed fifty times with her own butcher and
fishmonger), instead of creating demand, produced a lot of people
hankering round the corner, till the price came down to nothing.
And if it were so with their institutions--as her dear husband
called his new public-house--who was to find all the interest due
to the building and land societies?  Truly she felt that Sir Rufus
Hockin, instead of doing any good to them, had behaved very badly
in leaving them land, and not even a shilling to work it with.

It relieved her much to tell me this, once for all and in strict
confidence; because her fine old-fashioned (and we now may say
quite obsolete) idea of duty toward her husband forbade her ever to
say to him, or about him, when it could be helped, any thing he
might not like, any thing which to an evil mind might convey a
desire on her part to meddle with--with--

"Political economy," I said; and she laughed, and said, Yes, that
was just it.  The Major of course knew best, and she ought with all
her heart to trust him not to burden their old days with debt,
after all the children they had brought up and fairly educated upon
the professional income of a distinguished British officer, who is
not intended by his superiors to provide successors.

"Perhaps it is like the boiled eggs they send me," the old lady
said, with her soft sweet smile, "for my poor hens to sit upon.
Their race is too good to be made common.  So now they get tinkers'
and tailors' boys, after much competition, and the crammed sons of
cooks.  And in peace-time they do just as well."

Of such things I knew nothing; but she seemed to speak with
bitterness, the last thing to be found in all her nature, yet
discoverable--as all bad things (except its own) are--by the
British government.  I do not speak from my own case, in which they
discovered nothing.

By the time these things had been discussed, my host (who was
always particular about his dress) came down to dinner, and not
until that was over could I speak of the subject which had brought
me there.  No sooner had I begun my tale than they both perceived
that it must neither be flurried nor interrupted, least of all
should it be overheard.

"Come into my lock-up," cried the Major; "or, better still, let us
go out of doors.  We can sit in my snuggery on the cliff, with only
gulls and jackdaws to listen, and mount my telescope and hoist my
flag, and the men know better than to skulk their work.  I can see
every son of a gun of them as clearly as if I had them on parade.
You wish Mrs. Hockin to come, I suppose.  Very well, let us be off
at once.  I shall count my fellows coming back from dinner."

With a short quick step the Major led the way to a beautifully
situated outpost at a corner of the cliff, where land and sea for
many a fair league rolled below.  A niche of the chalk had been
cleverly enlarged and scooped into a shell-shaped bower, not,
indeed, gloriously overhung, as in the far West might have been,
but broken of its white defiant glare by climbing and wandering
verdure.  Seats and slabs of oak were fixed to check excess of
chalkiness, and a parapet of a pattern which the Major called
Egyptian saved fear of falling down the cliff, and served to spread
a paper on, or to rest a telescope.

"From this point," said the Major, crossing wiry yet substantial
legs, "the whole of my little domain may be comprised as in a
bird's-eye view.  It is nothing, of course, much less than nothing,
compared with the Earl of Crowcombe's, or the estate of Viscount
Gamberley; still, such as it is, it carries my ideas, and it has an
extent of marine frontage such as they might envy.  We are asked 5
pounds per foot for a thread of land fronting on a highway, open to
every kind of annoyance, overlooked, without any thing to look at.
How much, then, per fathom (or measure, if you please, by cable-
lengths) is land worth fronting the noble, silent, uncontaminating,
healthful sea?  Whence can come no coster-mongers' cries, no
agitating skir of bagpipes or the maddening hurdy-gurdy, no German
band expecting half a crown for the creation of insanity; only
sweet murmur of the wavelets, and the melodious whistle of a
boatman catching your breakfast lobster.  Where, again, if you love
the picturesque--"

"My dear," said Mrs. Hockin, gently, "you always were eloquent from
the first day I saw you; and if you reconstitute our borough, as
you hope, and enter Parliament for Bruntsea, what a sensation you
will create!  But I wished to draw your attention to the fact that
Erema is waiting to tell her tale."

"To be sure.  I will not stop her.  Eloquence is waste of time, and
I never yet had half a second to spare.  Fear no eloquence from me;
facts and logic are my strong points.  And now, Erema, show what
yours are."

At first this made me a little timid, for I had never thought that
any strong points would be needed for telling a simple tale.  To my
mind the difficulty was, not to tell the story, but to know what to
make of it when told; and soon I forgot all about myself in telling
what I had seen, heard, and found.

The Major could not keep himself from stamping great holes through
his--something I forget the name of, but people sow it to make turf
of chalk--and dear "Aunt Mary's" soft pink cheeks, which her last
grandchild might envy, deepened to a tone of rose; while her eyes,
so full of heavenly faith when she got upon lofty subjects, took a
most human flash and sparkle of hatred not theological.

"Seven!" she cried; "oh, Nicholas, Nicholas, you never told me
there were seven!"

"There were not seven graves without the mother," the Major
answered, sternly.  "And what odds whether seven or seventy?  The
criminality is the point, not the accumulation of results.  Still,
I never heard of so big a blackguard.  And what did he do next, my
dear?"

The way in which they took my story was a great surprise to me,
because, although they were so good, they had never paid any
attention to it until it became exciting.  They listened with mere
politeness until the scent of a very wicked man began to taint my
narrative; but from that moment they drew nearer, and tightened
their lips, and held their breath, and let no word escape them.  It
made me almost think that people even of pure excellence, weaned as
they are from wicked things by teaching and long practice, must
still retain a hankering for them done at other people's cost.

"And now," cried the Major, "let us see it"--even before I had time
to pull it out, though ready to be quick, from a knowledge of his
ways.  "Show it, and you shall have my opinion.  And Mary's is
certain to agree with mine.  My dear, that makes yours so
priceless."

"Then, Nicholas, if I retain my own, yours is of no value.  Never
mind that.  Now don't catch words, or neither opinion will be worth
a thought.  My dear, let us see it and then judge."

"My own idea, but not so well expressed," Major Hockin answered, as
he danced about, while I with stupid haste was tugging at my
package of the hateful locket.  For I had not allowed that
deceitful thing any quarters in my pocket, where dear little relics
of my father lay, but had fastened it under my dress in a manner
intended in no way for gentlemen to think about.  Such little
things annoy one's comfort, and destroy one's power of being quite
high-minded.  However, I got it out at last, and a flash of the sun
made the difference.

"Brilliants, Mary!" the Major cried; "brilliants of first water;
such as we saw, you know where; and any officer in the British army
except myself, I do believe, would have had them at once in his
camlet pouch--my dear, you know all about it.  Bless my heart, how
slow you are!  Is it possible you have forgotten it?  There came
out a fellow, and I cut him down, as my duty was, without ceremony.
You know how I used to do it, out of regulation, with a slash like
this--"

"Oh, Nicholas, you will be over the cliff!  You have shown me how
you used to do it, a thousand times--but you had no cricks in your
back then: and remember how brittle the chalk is."

"The chalk may be brittle, but I am tough.  I insist upon doing
every thing as well as I did it forty years ago.  Mary, you ought
not to speak to me like that.  Eighteen, nineteen, twenty
brilliants, worth twenty pounds apiece upon an average, I do
believe.  Four hundred pounds.  That would finish our hotel."

"Nicholas!"

"My dear, I was only in fun.  Erema understands me.  But who is
this beautiful lady?"

"The very point," I exclaimed, while he held it so that the pensive
beauty of the face gleamed in soft relief among bright blue enamel
and sparkling gems.  "The very thing that I must know--that I would
give my life to know--that I have fifty thousand fancies--"

"Now don't be excited, Erema, if you please.  What will you give me
to tell you who it is?"

"All those diamonds, which I hate the sight of, and three-quarters
of my half nugget; and if that is not enough--"

"It is a thousand times too much; I will tell you for just one
smile, and I know it, will be a smile of unbelief."

"No, no; I will believe it, whoever you say," with excitement
superior to grammar, I cried; "only tell me at once--don't be so
long."

"But then you won't believe me when I do tell you," the Major
replied, in the most provoking way.  "I shall tell you the last
person you would ever think of, and then you will only laugh at
me."

"I won't laugh; how can I laugh in such a matter?  I will believe
you if you say it is--Aunt Mary."

"My dear, you had better say at once that it is I, and have no more
mystery about it."  Mrs. Hockin was almost as impatient as myself.

"Mrs. Hockin, you must indeed entertain an exalted idea of your own
charms.  I knew that you were vain, but certainly did not--Well,
then, if you will allow me no peace, this is the lady that lives
down in the ruin, and stands like a pillar by my pillar-box."

"I never thought you would joke like that," I cried, with vexation
and anger.  "Oh, is it a subject to be joked about?"

"I never was graver in my life; and you promised implicitly to
believe me.  At any rate, believe that I speak in earnest."

"That I must believe, when you tell me so.  But what makes you
think such a wonderful thing?  I should have thought nothing more
impossible.  I had made up my mind that it was Flittamore who lived
down here; but this can not be she.  Flittamore was unheard of at
the time of my grandfather's death.  Moreover, her character was
not like this; she was giddy and light and heartless.  This lady
had a heart--good or bad, a deep one.  Most certainly it is not
Flittamore."

"Flittamore!  I do not remember that name.  You should either tell
us all or tell us nothing."  The Major's tone was reproachful, and
his eyes from their angular roofs looked fierce.

"I have not told you," I said, "because it can have nothing to do
with it.  The subject is a painful one, and belongs to my family
only."

"Enough.  I am not inquisitive--on the other hand, too forgetful.
I have an appointment at 3.25.  It takes me seven minutes and a
quarter to get there.  I must be two minutes and three-quarters
late.  Mrs. Hockin, mount the big telescope and point it at the
ramparts; keep the flag up also.  Those fellows will be certain
that I am up here, while I enfilade them from the western end with
this fine binocular.  Surprises maintain discipline.  Good-by, my
dear, and, Miss Castlewood, good-by.  Tea at 6.30, and not too much
water."



CHAPTER XLVI

VAIN ZEAL


Leaving his telescope leveled at the men, the Major marched off
with his opera-glass in a consciously provoking style, and Mrs.
Hockin most heartily joined me in condemning such behavior.  In a
minute or two, however, she would not have one word said against
him, and the tide of her mind (as befits a married woman) was
beyond all science; so that the drift of all words came back to her
husband's extraordinary merits.  And certainly these, if at all
like her description, deserved to be dwelt upon at very precious
periods.

However, I had heard enough of them before; for the Major himself
was not mute upon this point, though comparatively modest, and
oftentimes deprecating praise ere ever he received it.  And so I
brought Mrs. Hockin back at last to talk about the lady who was
living in the ruin.

"It is not quite a ruin," she said.  "My dear husband is fond of
picturesque expressions.  However, it is not in very good repair;
and being unable to get possession of it, through some legal
quibble, possibly he may look at it from a rather unfavorable point
of view.  And for the same reason--though he is so purely just--he
may have formed a bad opinion of the strange individual who lives
there.  What right has she to be living without his leave upon his
own manor?  But there she is, and she does not care for us or any
body.  She fetches all she wants, she speaks to none, and if any
body calls for rates or taxes, or any other public intrusion, they
may knock and knock, but never get in, and at last they go away
again."

"But surely that can not go on forever.  Bruntsea is such an
enlightened place."

"Our part of it is, but the rest quite benighted.  As the man says--
I forget his name, but the man that misunderstands us so--his
contention is that 'Desolate Hole,' as the Major calls it, although
in the middle of our land, is entirely distinct from it.  My
husband never will put up with that--his love of justice is far too
strong--and he means to have a lawsuit.  But still he has reasons
for not beginning yet; and he puts up with a great deal, I am sure.
It is too bad for them to tease him so."

"It does seem a very sad thing," I replied; "and the poor soul
living there all alone!  Even in the summer it is bad enough; but
whatever will she do when the winter comes?  Why, the sea in bad
weather must be almost in upon her.  And the roar of the pebbles
all night!  Major Hockin will never allow her to stay there."

"What can he do, when he can not get in, and they even deny his
title?  I assure you, Erema, I have sent down cream, and even a
dozen of my precious eggs, with the lady of the manor's
compliments; but instead of being grateful, they were never taken
in; and my Polly--'Miss Polly Hopkins,' you know--very wisely took
it all to her grandmother."

"To her grandmother instead of mine, as the Major facetiously calls
her.  And now he says this is her portrait; and instead of giving
his reasons, runs away!  Really you must excuse me, Aunt Mary, for
thinking that your good husband has a little too much upon his mind
sometimes."

The old lady laughed, as I loved to see her do.  "Well, my dear,
after that, I think you had better have it out with him.  He comes
home to tea at 6.30, which used to be half past six in my days.  He
is very tired then, though he never will allow it, and it would not
be fair to attack him.  I give him a mutton-chop, or two poached
eggs, or some other trifle of nourishment.  And then I make him
doze for an hour and a half, to soothe his agitated intellect.  And
when he wakes he has just one glass of hot water and sugar, with a
little Lochnagar.  And then he is equal to any thing--backgammon,
bezique, or even conversation."

Impatient as I was, I saw nothing better; and by this time I was
becoming used to what all of us must put up with--the long
postponement of our heavy cares to the light convenience of others.
Major Hockin might just as well have stopped, when he saw how
anxious I was.  Uncle Sam would have stopped the mill itself, with
a dozen customers waiting; but no doubt he had spoiled me; and even
that should not make me bitter.  Aunt Mary and I understood one
another.  We gazed away over the breadth of the sea and the gleam
of its texture, and we held our peace.

Few things are more surprising than the calm way in which ripe age
looks on at things which ought to amaze it.  And yet any little one
of its own concerns grows more important, perhaps, than ever as the
shadow of the future dwindles.  Major Hockin had found on the beach
a pebble with a streak of agate in it.  He took it as the harbinger
of countless agates, and resolved to set up a lapidary, with a
tent, or even a shop, perhaps--not to pay, but to be advertised,
and catch distinguished visitors.

"Erema, you are a mighty finder; you found the biggest nugget yet
discovered.  You know about stones from the Rocky Mountains, or at
least the Sierra Nevada.  You did not discover this beautiful
agate, but you saw and greatly admired it.  We might say that a
'young lady, eminent for great skill in lithology, famed as the
discoverer,' etc.  Hold it between your eyes and this candle, but
wet it in the slop-basin first; now you see the magnificent veins
of blue."

"I see nothing of the kind," I said; for really it was too bad of
him.  "It seems to me a dirty bit of the commonest flint you could
pick up."

This vexed him more than I wished to have done, and I could not
help being sorry; for he went into a little fit of sulks, and Aunt
Mary almost frowned at me.  But he could not stay long in that
condition, and after his doze and his glass he came forth as lively
and meddlesome as ever.  And the first thing he did was to ask me
for the locket.

"Open it?" he cried; "why, of course I can; there is never any
difficulty about that.  The finest workmanship in the world is that
of the Indian jewelers.  I have been among them often; I know all
their devices and mechanism, of which the European are bad copies.
I have only to look round this thing twice, and then pronounce my
Sesame."

"My dear, then look round it as fast as you can," said his wife,
with a traitorous smile at me, "and we won't breathe a Sess till it
flies asunder."

"Mary, Miss Castlewood makes you pert, although herself so well
conducted.  However, I do not hesitate to say that I will open this
case in two minutes."

"Of course you will, dear," Mrs. Hockin replied, with provoking
acquiescence.  "The Major never fails, Erema, in any thing he is so
sure about; and this is a mere child's toy to him.  Well, dear,
have you done it?  But I need not ask.  Oh, let us see what is
inside of it!"

"I have not done it yet, Mrs. Hockin; and if you talk with such
rapidity, of course you throw me out.  How can I command my
thoughts, or even recall my experience?"

"Hush! now hush, Erema!  And I myself will hush most reverently."

"You have no reverence in you, and no patience.  Do you expect me
to do such a job in one second?  Do you take me for a common
jeweler?  I beg you to remember--"

"Well, my dear, I remember only what you told us.  You were to turn
it round twice, you know, and then cry Sesame.  Erema, was it not
so?"

"I never said any thing of the sort.  What I said was simply this--
However, to reason with ladies is rude; I shall just be off to my
study."

"Where you keep your tools, my darling," Mrs. Hockin said, softly,
after him: "at least, I mean, when you know where they are."

I was astonished at Aunt Mary's power of being so highly provoking,
and still more at her having the heart to employ it.  But she knew
best what her husband was; and to worship forever is not wise.

"Go and knock at his door in about five minutes," Mrs. Hockin said
to me, with some mischief in her eyes.  "If he continues to fail,
he may possibly take a shorter way with it.  And with his tools so
close at hand--"

"Oh," I exclaimed, "his geological hammer--that dreadful crusher!
May I go at once?  I detest that thing, but I can not have it
smashed."

"He will not break it up, my dear, without your leave.  He never
would think of such a thing, of course.  However, you may as well
go after him."

It was wrong of Mrs. Hockin to make me do this; and I felt quite
ashamed of myself when I saw the kind old Major sitting by his
lamp, and wrinkling his forehead into locks and keys of puzzle, but
using violence to his own mind alone.  And I was the more ashamed
when, instead of resenting my intrusion, he came to meet me, and
led me to his chair, and placed the jeweled trinket in my hand, and
said, "My dear, I give it up.  I was wrong in taking it away from
you.  You must consult some one wiser."

"That odious thing!" I answered, being touched by this unusual
humility of his; "you shall not give it up; and I know no wiser
person.  A lapidary's tricks are below your knowledge.  But if you
are not tired of me and offended, may I leave it to you to get it
opened?"

"I would like nothing better," he replied, recovering his natural
briskness and importance; "but you ought to be there, my dear; you
must be there.  Are you sure that you ought not rather to take it
to your good cousin Lord Castlewood?  Now think before you answer."

"I need not think twice of that, Major Hockin.  Good and learned as
my father's cousin is, he has distinctly refused to help me, for
some mysterious reason of his own, in searching into this question.
Indeed, my great hope is to do it without him: for all that I know,
he might even wish to thwart me."

"Enough, my dear; it shall be just as you wish.  I brought you to
England, and I will stand by you.  My cousin, Colonel Gundry, has
committed you to me.  I have no patience with malefactors.  I never
took this matter up, for very many reasons; and among them not the
least was that Sampson, your beloved 'Uncle Sam,' thought it better
not to do so.  But if you desire it, and now that I feel certain
that an infamous wrong has been done to you--which I heartily beg
your pardon for my doubt of--by the Lord of all justice, every
thing else may go to the devil, till I see it out.  Do you desire
it, Erema?"

"I certainly do not wish that any of your great works should be
neglected.  But if, without that, you can give me your strong help,
my only difficulty will be to thank you."

"I like plain speaking, and you always speak plainly; sometimes too
plainly," he said, recollecting little times when he had the worst
of it.  "How far do you trust me now?"

"Major Hockin, I trust you altogether.  You may make mistakes, as
all men do--"

"Yes, yes, yes.  About my own affairs; but I never do that for
other people.  I pay a bill for twopence, if it is my own.  If I am
trustee of it, I pay three half-pence."

His meaning was a little beyond me now; but it seemed better not to
tell him so; for he loved to explain his own figures of speech,
even when he had no time to spare for it.  And he clearly expected
me to ask him to begin; or at least it seemed so from his eyebrows.
But that only came home to me afterward.

"Please not to speak of my affairs like that," I said, as if I were
quite stupid; "I mean to pay fourpence for every twopence--both to
friends and enemies."

"You are a queer girl; I have always said so.  You turn things to
your own ideas so.  However, we must put up with that, though none
of my daughters have ever done it; for which I am truly thankful.
But now there is very little time to lose.  The meaning of this
thing must be cleared up at once.  And there is another thing to be
done as well, quite as important, in my opinion.  I will go to
London with you to-morrow, if you like.  My clever little
Cornishman will see to things here--the man that sets up all the
angles."

"But why should I hurry you to London so?" I asked.  "Surely any
good country jeweler could manage it?  Or let us break it open."

"On no account," he answered; "we might spoil it all; besides the
great risk to the diamonds, which are very brittle things.  To
London we must take it, for this reason--the closure of this case
is no jeweler's work; of that I have quite convinced myself.  It is
the work of a first-rate lapidary, and the same sort of man must
undo it."

To this I agreed quite readily, because of such things I knew
nothing; whereas my host spoke just as if he had been brought up to
both those walks of art.  And then I put a question which had long
been burning on my tongue.

"What made you imagine, Major Hockin, that this very beautiful face
could have ever been that of the old lady living in the ruin?"

"In Desolate Hole?  I will tell you at once; and then call it, if
you like, an imagination.  Of all the features of the human face
there is none more distinctive than the eyebrow.  'Distinctive' is
not exactly what I mean--I mean more permanently marked and clear.
The eyes change, the nose changes, so does the mouth, and even the
shape of the forehead sometimes; but the eyebrows change very
little, except in color.  This I have noticed, because my own may
perhaps be a little peculiar; and they have always been so.  At
school I received a nickname about it, for boys are much sharper
than men about such things; and that name after fifty years fits as
well as ever.  You may smile, if you like; I shall not tell you
what it was, but leave you to re-invent it, if you can.  Now look
at this first-rate miniature.  Do you see an unusual but not
uncomely formation of the eyebrows?"

"Certainly I do; though I did not observe it until you drew my
attention.  I had only regarded the face, as a whole."

"The face, as a whole, is undoubtedly fine.  But the eyebrows have
a peculiar arch, and the least little turn at the lower end, as if
they designed to rise again.  The lady of Desolate Hole has the
same."

"But how can you tell?  How very strange!  I thought she let nobody
see her face."

"You are perfectly right about that, Erema; so far at least as she
has vouchsafed to exhibit her countenance to me.  Other people may
be more fortunate.  But when I met her for the second time, being
curious already about her, I ventured to offer my services, with my
inborn chivalry, at a place where the tide was running up, and
threatened to surround her.  My politeness was not appreciated, as
too often is the case; for she made me a very stiff bow, and turned
away.  Her face had been covered by the muffler of her cloak, as if
the sea-breeze were too much for her; and she did not even raise
her eyes.  But before she turned away, I obtained a good glance at
her eyebrows--and they were formed like these."

"But her age, Major Hockin!  Her age--what is it?"

"Upon that proverbially delicate point I can tell you but little,
Erema.  Perhaps, however, I may safely say that she can not be much
under twenty."

"It is not right to provoke me so.  You call her 'the old woman,'
and compare her to your letter-box.  You must have some idea--is
she seventy?"

"Certainly not, I should say; though she can not expect me to
defend her, when she will not show her face to me; and what is far
worse, at my time of life, she won't even pay me a half-penny of
rent.  Now let us go back to Aunt Mary, my dear; she always insists
upon packing overnight."



CHAPTER XLVII

CADMEIAN VICTORY


Before two o'clock of the following day Major Hockin and myself
were in London, and ready to stay there for two or three days, if
it should prove needful.  Before leaving Bruntsea I had written
briefly to Lord Castlewood, telling him that important matters had
taken me away from Shoxford, and as soon as I could explain them, I
would come and tell him all about it.  This was done only through
fear of his being annoyed at my independence.

From London Bridge the Major took a cab direct to Clerkenwell; and
again I observed that of all his joys one of the keenest was to
match his wits against a cabman's.  "A regular muff, this time," he
said, as he jerked up and down with his usual delight in displaying
great knowledge of London; "no sport to be had out of him.  Why, he
stared at me when I said 'Rosamond Street,' and made me stick on
'Clerkenwell.'  Now here he is taking us down Snow Hill, when he
should have been crossing Smithfield.  Smithfield, cabby,
Smithfield!"

"Certain, Sir, Smiffle, if you gives the order;" and he turned the
poor horse again, and took us up the hill, and among a great number
of barriers.  "No thoroughfare," "No thoroughfare," on all hands
stretched across us; but the cabman threaded his way between, till
he came to the brink of a precipice.  The horse seemed quite ready,
like a Roman, to leap down it, seeing nothing less desirable than
his present mode of life, till a man with a pickaxe stopped him.

"What are you at?" cried the Major, with fury equalled by nothing
except his fright.  "Erema, untie my big rattan.  Quick--quick--"

"Captain," said the cabman, coolly, "I must have another shilling
for this job.  A hextra mile and a quarter, to your orders.  You
knows Lunnon so much better.  Smiffle stopped--new railway--new
meat market--never heered of that now, did you?"

"You scoundrel, drive straight to the nearest police office."

"Must jump this little ditch, then, Captain.  Five pun' fine for
you, when we gets there.  Hold on inside, old gentleman.  Kuck,
kuck, Bob, you was a hunter once.  It ain't more than fifty feet
deep, my boy."

"Turn round! turn round, I tell you! turn round!  If your neck is
forfeit, you rogue, mine is not.  I never was so taken in in my
life!"  Major Hockin continued to rave, and amid many jeers we
retreated humbly, and the driver looked in at us with a gentle
grin.  "And I thought he was so soft, you know!  Erema, may I swear
at him?"

"On no account," I said.  "Why, after all, it is only a shilling,
and the loss of time.  And then, you can always reflect that you
have discharged, as you say, a public duty, by protesting against a
vile system."

"Protesting is very well, when it pays," the Major answered,
gloomily; "but to pay for protesting is another pair of shoes."

This made him cross, and he grew quite fierce when the cabman smote
him for eight-pence more.  "Four parcels on the roof, Captain," he
said, looking as only a cabman can look at his money, and spinning
his extra shilling.  "Twopence each under new hact, you know.
Scarcely thought a hofficer would 'a tried evasion."

"You consummate scoundrel--and you dress yourself like a
countryman!  I'll have your badge indorsed--I'll have your license
marked.  Erema, pay the thief; it is more than I can do."

"Captain, your address, if you please; I shall summon you for
scurrilous language, as the hact directs.  Ah, you do right to be
driven to a pawn shop."

Triumphantly he drove off, while the Major cried, "Never tie up my
rattan again.  Oh, it was Mrs. Hockin, was it?  What a fool I was
not to stop on my own manor!"

"I pray you to disdain such low impudence," I said, for I could not
bear to see him shake like that, and grieved to have brought him
into it.  "You have beaten fifty of them--a hundred of them--I have
heard you say."

"Certainly I have, my dear; but I had no Bruntsea then, and could
not afford to pay the rogues.  That makes me feel it so bitterly,
so loftily, and so righteously.  To be treated like this, when I
think of all my labors for the benefit of the rascally human race!
my Institute, my Lyceum, my Mutual Improvement Association, and
Christian Young Men's something.  There is no institution, after
all, to be compared to the tread-mill."

Recovering himself with this fine conclusion, he led me down a
little sloping alley, scarcely wide enough for a wheelbarrow, to an
old black door, where we set down our parcels; for he had taken
his, while I carried mine, and not knowing what might happen yet,
like a true peace-maker I stuck to the sheaf of umbrellas and the
rattan cane.  And thankful I was, and so might be the cabman, to
have that weapon nicely sheathed with silk.

Major Hockin's breath was short, through too much talking without
action, and he waited for a minute at this door, to come back to
his equanimity.  And I thought that our female breath falls short
for the very opposite reason--when we do too much and talk too
little; which happily seldom happens.

He was not long in coming back to his usual sprightliness and
decision.  And it was no small relief to me, who was looking at him
miserably, and longing that his wife was there, through that very
sad one-and-eightpence, when he pulled out a key, which he always
carried as signer and lord of Bruntsea, the key of the town-hall,
which had survived lock, door, and walls by centuries, and
therewith struck a door which must have reminded that key of its
fine old youth.

Before he had knocked so very many times, the door was opened by a
young man wearing an apron and a brown paper cap, who knew Major
Hockin at once, and showed us up stairs to a long low workshop.
Here were many wheels and plates and cylinders revolving by energy
of a strap which came through the floor and went through the
ceiling.  And the young man told us to be careful how we walked,
for fear of getting entangled.  Several men, wearing paper caps and
aprons of leather or baize, were sitting doing dextrous work, no
doubt, and doing it very easily, and the master of them all was
hissing over some fine touch of jewel as a groom does at a horse.
Then seeing us, he dropped his holders, and threw a leather upon
his large lens, and came and took us to a little side room.

"Are you not afraid to leave them?" asked the Major.  "They may
secrete some gems, Mr. Handkin."

"Never," said the lapidary, with some pride.  "I could trust these
men with the Koh-i-noor; which we could have done better, I
believe, than it was done by the Hollanders.  But we don't get the
chance to do much in diamonds, through the old superstition about
Amsterdam, and so on.  No, no; the only thing I can't trust my men
about is to work as hard when I am away as when I am there.  And
now, Sir, what can I do for you?  Any more Bruntsea pebbles?  The
last were not worth the cutting."

"So you said; but I did not think so.  We have some agates as good
as any from Aberystwith or Perthshire.  But what I want now is to
open this case.  It must be done quite privately, for a most
particular reason.  It does open, doesn't it?  I am sure it does."

"Certainly it opens," Mr. Handkin answered, while I trembled with
anxiety as he lightly felt it round the edges with fingers
engrained with corundum.  "I could open it in one instant, but the
enamel might fly.  Will you risk it?"

The Major looked at me, and I said, "Oh no; please not to risk any
thing, if any slower process will do it without risk.  We want it
done without injury."

"Then it will cost a good bit," he replied.  "I can open it for
five shillings, if you run the risk; if that rests with me, I must
charge five pounds."

"Say three," cried the Major.  "Well, then, say four guineas: I
have a lot of work in store for you."

"I never overcharge, and I never depart from my figures," the
lapidary answered.  "There is only one other man in London who
knows the secret of this enamel, and he is my brother.  They never
make such enamel now.  The art is lost, like that of the French
paste of a hundred years ago, which almost puzzles even me until I
go behind it.  I will give you my brother's address if you like;
but instead of five pounds, he will charge you ten guineas--if it
must be done in private.  Without that condition, I can do it for
two pounds.  You wish to know why that should make such a
difference.  Well, for this simple reason: to make sure of the job,
it must be done by daylight; it can be done only in my chief work-
room; if no one is to see what I am about (and my men have sharp
eyes, I can tell you), all my hands must be sacked for the
afternoon, but not without their wages.  That alone would go far
toward the difference, and then there is the dropping of the jobs
in hand, and waste of power, and so on.  I have asked you too
little, Major Hockin, I assure you; but having said, I will stick
to it, although I would much rather you would let me off."

"I have known you for many years," the Major answered--"ever since
you were a boy, with a flat box, working at our Cornish opals.  You
would have done a lot of work for five pounds then.  But I never
knew you overcharge for any thing.  We agree to your terms, and are
obliged to you.  But you guarantee no damage?"

"I will open this locket, take out its contents, whatever they may
be, and reclose it so that the maker, if still alive--which is not
very probable--should not know that it had been meddled with."

"Very well; that is exactly what we want; for I have an idea about
it which I may try to go on with afterward.  And for that it is
essential to have no symptom that it ever has been opened.  What
are these brilliants worth, Mr. Handkin?"

"Well, Sir, in the trade, about a hundred and fifty, though I dare
say they cost three hundred.  And the portrait is worth another
hundred, if I find on the back the marks I expect."

"You do not mean to say that you know the artist?" I could not help
exclaiming, though determined not to speak.  "Oh, then, we shall
find out every thing!"

"Erema, you are a--well, you are a silly!" Major Hockin exclaimed,
and then colored with remembering that rather he should have let my
lapse pass.  But the lapidary seemed to pay no attention, only to
be calling down to some one far below.  "Now mind what you say,"
the Major whispered to me, just as if he were the essence of
discretion.

"The work-room is clear now," Mr. Handkin said; "the fellows were
delighted to get their afternoon.  Now you see that I have to take
off this hoop, and there lies the difficulty.  I could have taken
out the gold back, as I said, with very little trouble, by simply
cutting it.  But the locket would never have been quite the same,
though we put a new back; and, more than that, the pressure of the
tool might flaw the enamel, or even crack the portrait, for the
make of this thing is peculiar.  Now first I submit the rim or
verge, without touching the brilliants, mind you, to the action of
a little preparation of my own--a gentle but penetrative solvent.
You are welcome to watch me; you will be none the wiser; you are
not in the trade, though the young lady looks as if she would make
a good polisher.  Very well: if this were an ordinary closure, with
two flat surfaces meeting, the solvent would be absorbed into the
adhesion, expansion would take place, and there we have it.  But
this is what we call a cyme-joint, a cohesion of two curved
surfaces, formed in a reflex curve which admits the solvent most
reluctantly, or, indeed, not at all, without too long application.
For that, then, another kind of process is needful, and we find it
in frictional heat applied most gradually and judiciously.  For
that I must have a buff-leather wheel, whose revolutions are timed
to a nicety, and that wheel I only have in this room.  Now you see
why I sent the men away."

Though I watched his work with great interest, it is out of my
power to describe it now, and, moreover, it is not needful.  Major
Hockin, according to his nature, grew quite restless and impatient,
and even went out for a walk, with his cane unpacked and unsheathed
against cabmen.  But I was content to wait and watch, having always
heard and thought that good work will not do itself, but must have
time and skill to second it.  And Mr. Handkin, moving arms, palms,
and fingers beautifully, put the same thought into words.

"Good work takes a deal of time to do; but the man that does it all
the time knows well that it will take long to undo.  Here it comes
undone at last!"

As he spoke, the excitable Major returned.

"Done it, eh?  Well, you are a clever fellow.  Now don't look
inside it; that is no part of your business, nor mine either,
unless this young lady desires it.  Hand it to her first, my
friend."

"Wait half a minute," said the lapidary; "it is so far opened that
the hoop spins round, but it must not be taken off until it cools.
The lady may lift it then with care.  I have done this job as a
piece of fine art; I have no wish to see any more of it."

"Handkin, don't you be so touchy to a brother Cornishman.  I
thought that I was Cornish enough, but you go cliffs beyond me."

"Well, Major Hockin," the lapidary answered, "I beg your pardon, if
I said harm.  But a man doing careful and skilled work--and skilled
work it is, at every turn of the hand, as miss can bear witness,
while you walked off--he don't care who it is, Major Hockin, he
would fight his own brother to maintain it."

"Very well, very well.  Let us come away.  I always enter into
every body's feelings.  I see yours as clearly, Handkin, as if you
had laid them open on that blessed wheel.  My insight has always
been remarkable.  Every one, without exception, says that of me.
Now come away, come away--will you never see?"

Intent as I was upon what lay in my left palm relaxing itself, I
could not help being sorry for the way in which the man of art,
after all his care, was ground down by his brother Cornishman.
However, he had lived long enough in the world to feel no surprise
at ingratitude.

Now I went to one of the windows, as the light (which had been very
good) began to pale from its long and labored sufferance of London,
and then, with soft and steady touch, I lifted off the loosened
hoop.  A smell of mustiness--for smells go through what nothing
else can--was the first thing to perceive, and then, having moved
the disk of gold, I found a piece of vellum.  This was doubled, and
I opened it, and read, in small clear writing:


"May 7, 1809 A.D., George, Lord Castlewood, married Winifred, only
child of Thomas Hoyle, as this his signature witnesseth.

"CASTLEWOOD.

"(Witness) THOMAS HOYLE."


There was nothing more inside this locket, except two little wisps
of hair tied with gold thread, and the miniature upon ivory,
bearing on the back some anagram, probably that of the artist.

Already had I passed through a great many troubles, changes,
chances, and adventures which always seem strange (when I come to
look back), but never surprised me at the moment.  Indeed, I might
almost make bold to pronounce that not many persons of my age and
sex have been visited, wholly against their own will, by such a
series of incidents, not to say marvelous, but at any rate fairly
to be called unusual.  And throughout them perhaps it will be
acknowledged by all who have cared to consider them, that up to the
present time I did not fail more than themselves might have done in
patience.  And in no description of what came to pass have I
colored things at all in my own favor--at least so far as intention
goes--neither laid myself out to get sympathy, though it often
would have done me a world of good.

But now I am free to confess that my patience broke down very
sadly.  Why, if what was written on that vellum was true, and Major
Hockin correct as well, it came to no less than this, that my own
dear father was a base-born son, and I had no right to the name I
was so proud of!  If, moreover, as I now began to dream, that
terrible and mysterious man did not resemble my father so closely
without some good reason, it seemed too likely that he might be his
elder brother and the proper heir.

This was bad enough to think of, but an idea a thousandfold worse
assailed me in the small hours of the night, as I lay on Mrs.
Strouss's best bed, which she kept for consuls, or foreign barons,
or others whom she loved to call "international notorieties."
Having none of these now, she assigned me that bed after hearing
all I had to say, and not making all that she might have done of
it, because of the praise that would fall to Mrs. Busk.

However, she acknowledged that she knew nothing of the history of
"the poor old lord."  He might have carried on, for all she could
tell, with many wives before his true one--a thing she heard too
much of; but as for the Captain not being his true son and the
proper heir to the peerage, let any one see him walk twice, and
then have a shadow of a doubt about it!  This logic pleased but
convinced me not, and I had to go to bed in a very unhappy,
restless, and comfortless state of mind.

I hope that, rather than myself, that bed, full of international
confusion, is to blame for the wicked ideas which assailed me while
I could not even try to sleep.  One of them--and a loyal daughter
could scarcely have a worse one--was that my own dear father,
knowing Lord Castlewood's bad behavior, and his own sad plight in
consequence, and through that knowledge caring little to avenge his
death, for wife and children's sake preferred to foil inquiry
rather than confront the truth and challenge it.  He might not have
meant to go so far, at first beginning with it; but, starting once,
might be driven on by grievous loss, and bitter sense of recreant
friends, and the bleak despair of a homeless world before him.  And
serving as the scape-goat thus, he might have received from the
real culprit a pledge for concealment of the family disgrace.



CHAPTER XLVIII

A RETURN CALL


In the morning I labored to dismiss these thoughts, these shameful
suspicions, almost as injurious to my father's honor as it was to
suspect him of the crime itself.  And calling back my memories of
him, and dwelling on what Mr. Shovelin said, and Uncle Sam and
others, I became quite happy in the firm conviction that I ought to
be put upon bread and water for having such vile visions.  Then
suddenly a thing came to my mind which shattered happy penitence.

Major Hockin had spoken of another purpose which he had in store
while bringing me thus to London--another object, that is to say,
besides the opening of the trinket.  And this his second intention
was to "have it out," as he expressed it, "with that league of curs
and serpents, Vypan, Goad, and Terryer."  This was the partnership
whose card of business had been delivered at the sawmills under
circumstances which, to say the least, required explanation.  And
the Major, with strong words and tugs of his head-crest, had vowed
to get that explanation, or else put the lot of them into a police
dock.

Moreover, when, at the opening of the locket, I did not think fit
to show the lapidary what I had found inside it, except the
painting on ivory (which proved to be as he expected), and when my
companion suppressed curiosity at the risk of constitution, and
while I could scarcely tell what I was about (through sudden shock
and stupidity), I must have been hurried on to tell Major Hockin
the whole of the private things I had discovered.  For, in truth,
there was scarcely any time to think; and I was afraid of giving
way, which must have befallen me without relief of words; and being
so much disturbed I may, in the cab, have rushed off for comfort to
the Major, sitting so close to me.  No doubt I did so, from what
happened afterward; but in the morning, after such a night, I
really could not be certain what I had said to Betsy, and what to
him.

A large mind would have been steady throughout, and regarded the
question of birth as a thing to which we, who are not consulted
about it, should bear ourselves indifferently.  And gladly would I
have done so, if I could, but the power was not in me.  No doubt it
served me right for having been proud about such a trifle; but
though I could call it a trifle as long as it seemed to be in my
favor, my strength of mind was not enough to look at it so when
against me.

Betsy told me not to be like that, for I had a great deal to go
through yet, and must not be drawing on my spirit so, every atom of
which would be needful.  For the General--as she called the Major--
was coming to fetch me at eleven o'clock to face some abominable
rascals, and without any breakfast how could I do it?  Then I
remembered all about the appointment to go to Messrs. Vypan, Goad,
and Terryer, and beginning to think about them, I saw sad
confirmation of my bad ideas.  My father's wicked elder brother by
another mother had left his own rights pending, as long as my
father lived, for good reason.  For if the latter had turned
against him, through a breach of compact, things might go ill in a
criminal court; but having him silenced now by death, this man
might come forward boldly and claim estates and title.  His first
point would be to make sure as sure could be of the death of my
father, to get hold of his private papers, and of me, who might
possess dangerous knowledge.  And if this were so, one could
understand at once Mr. Goad's attempt upon Uncle Sam.

"Now none of this! none of this, I say, Erema!" Major Hockin
exclaimed, as he ran in and saw me scarcely even caring to hold my
own with the gentle Maximilian--to which name Mr. Strouss was
promoted from the too vernacular "Hans."  "My dear, I never saw you
look ill before.  Why, bless my heart, you will have crows'-feet!
Nurse, what are you doing with her?  Look at her eyes, and be
ashamed of yourself.  Give her goulard, tisane, tiffany--I never
know what the proper word is--something, any thing, volatile Sally,
hartshorn, ammonia, aromatic vinegar, saline draught, or something
strong.  Why, I want her to look at her very, very best."

"As if she was a-going to a ball, poor dear!" Betsy Strouss
replied, with some irony.  "A young lady full of high spirits by
nature, and have never had her first dance yet!  The laws and
institutions of this kingdom is too bad for me, General.  I shall
turn foreigner, like my poor husband."

"It is vere goot, vere goot always," said the placid Maximilian;
"foreigner dis way, foreigner dat way; according to de hills, or de
sea, or de fighting, or being born, or someting else."

"Hold your tongue, Hans," cried his Wilhelmina; "remember that you
are in England now, and must behave constitutionally.  None of your
loose outlandish ideas will ever get your bread in England.  Was I
born according to fighting, or hills, or sea, or any thing less
than the will of the Lord, that made the whole of them, and made
you too?  General, I beg you to excuse him, if you can.  When he
gets upon such things, he never can stop.  His goodness is very
great; but he must have a firm hand put upon his 'philosophy.'
Maximilian, you may go and smoke your pipe for an hour and a
quarter, and see where the cheapest greens and oil are, for his
Excellence is coming in to-night; and mind you get plenty of stump
in them.  His Excellence loves them, and they fill the dish,
besides coming cheaper.  Now, Miss Erema, if you please, come here.
Trust you in me, miss, and soon I will make you a credit to the
General."

I allowed her to manage my dress and all that according to her own
ideas; but when she entreated to finish me up with the "leastest
little touch of red, scarcely up to the usual color, by reason of
not sleeping," I stopped her at once, and she was quite content
with the color produced by the thought of it.  Meanwhile Major
Hockin, of course, was becoming beyond all description impatient.
He had made the greatest point of my being adorned, and expected it
done in two minutes!  And he hurried me so, when I did come down,
that I scarcely noticed either cab or horse, and put on my new
gloves anyhow.

"My dear, you look very nice," he said at last, when thoroughly
tired of grumbling.  "That scoundrel of a Goad will be quite amazed
at sight of the child he went to steal."

"Mr. Goad!" I replied, with a shudder, caused, perhaps, by dark
remembrance; "if we go to the office, you surely will not expect me
to see Mr. Goad himself?"

"That depends, as the Frenchmen say.  It is too late now to shrink
back from any thing.  If I can spare you, I will.  If not, you must
not be ashamed to show yourself."

"I am never ashamed to show myself.  But I would rather not go to
that place at all.  If things should prove to be as I begin to
think, I had better withdraw from the whole of it, and only lament
that I ever began.  My father was right; after all, my father was
wise; and I ought to have known it.  And perhaps Uncle Sam knew the
truth, and would not tell me, for fear of my rushing to the
Yosemite.  Cabman, please to turn the horse and go in the opposite
direction."  But the Major pulled me back, and the driver lifted
his elbow and said, "All right."

"Erema," the Major began, quite sternly, "things are gone a little
too far for this.  We are now embarked upon a most important
investigation"--even in my misery I could scarce help smiling at
his love of big official words--"an investigation of vast
importance.  A crime of the blackest dye has been committed, and
calmly hushed up, for some petty family reason, for a period of
almost twenty years.  I am not blaming your father, my dear; you
need not look so indignant.  It is your own course of action,
remember, which has led to the present--the present--well, let us
say imbroglio.  A man of honor and an officer of her Majesty's
service stands now committed at your request--mind, at your own
request--"

"Yes, yes, I know; but I only meant you to--to go as far as I
should wish."

"Confidential instructions, let us say; but there are times when
duty to society overrides fine feeling.  I have felt that already.
The die is cast.  No half-and-half measures, no beating about the
bush, for me.  After what I saw yesterday, and the light that burst
upon me, I did not act hastily--I never do, though slow coaches may
have said so.  I put this and that together carefully, and had my
dinner, and made up my mind.  And you see the result in that man on
the box."

"The cabman?  Oh yes, you resolved to have a cab, and drive to
those wicked informers."

"Where are your eyes?  You are generally so quick.  This morning
you are quite unlike yourself--so weak, so tearful, and timorous.
Have you not seen that by side of the cabman there sits another man
altogether?  One of the most remarkable men of the age, as your
dear Yankees say."

"Not a policeman in disguise, I hope.  I saw a very common,
insignificant man.  I thought he was the driver's groom, perhaps."

"Hush! he hears every thing, even on this granite.  He is not a
policeman; if he were, a few things that disgrace the force never
would happen.  If the policemen of England did their duty as our
soldiers do, at once I would have gone to them; my duty would have
been to do so.  As it is, I go to our private police, who would not
exist if the force were worth a rap.  Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, in
spite of Goad's clumsiness, rank second.  I go to the first of all
these firms, and I get their very cleverest rascal."

Major Hockin, speaking in this hoarse whisper--for he could not
whisper gently--folded his arms, and then nodded his head, as much
as to say, "I have settled it now.  You have nothing to do but
praise me."  But I was vexed and perplexed too much to trust my
voice with an answer.

"The beauty of this arrangement is," he continued, with vast
complacency, "that the two firms hate one another as the devil
hates--no, that won't do; there is no holy water to be found among
them--well, as a snake hates a slow-worm, let us say.  'Set a thief
to catch a thief' is a fine old maxim; still better when the two
thieves have robbed one another."

As he spoke, the noble stranger slipped off the driving seat
without troubling the cabman to stop his jerking crawl, and he did
it so well that I had no chance of observing his nimble face or
form.  "You are disappointed," said the Major, which was the last
thing I would have confessed.  "You may see that man ten thousand
times, and never be able to swear to him.  Ha! ha! he is a oner!"

"I disdain such mean tricks beyond all expression," I exclaimed, as
was only natural, "and every thing connected with them.  It is so
low to talk of such things.  But what in the world made him do it?
Where does he come from, and what is his name?"

"Like all noble persons, he has got so many names that he does not
know which is the right one; only his are short and theirs are
long.  He likes 'Jack' better than any thing else, because it is
not distinctive.  'Cosmopolitan Jack,' some call him, from his
combining the manners and customs, features and figures, of nearly
all mankind.  He gets on with every one, for every one is gratified
by seeing himself reflected in him.  And he can jump from one frame
to another as freely as Proteus or the populace.  And yet, with all
that, he is perfectly honest to any allegiance he undertakes.  He
would not betray us to Vypan, Goad, and Terryer for your great
nugget and the Castlewood estates."

"I have heard that there are such people," I said; "but what can he
possibly know about me?  And what is he coming to do for us now?"

"He knows all about you, for a very simple reason.  That you do not
know him, is a proof of his ability.  For you must have met him
times out of number.  This is the fellow employed by your good but
incapable cousin, Lord Castlewood."

"He is not incapable; he is a man of great learning, and noble
character--"

"Well, never mind that; you must not be so hot.  What I mean is
that he has done nothing for you beyond providing for your safety.
And that he certainly did right well, and at considerable expense,
for this man can't be had for nothing.  You need have been under no
terror at all in any of the scenes you have been through.  Your
safety was watched for continually."

"Then why did he not come and help me?  Why did he not find out
that horrible man?"

"Because it was not in his orders, and Jack is the last man to go
beyond those.  He is so clever that the stupid Moonites took him
for a stupid Moonite.  You should have employed him yourself,
Erema; but you are so proud and independent."

"I should hope so, indeed.  Should I put up with deceit?  If the
truth is not to be had without falsehood, it is not worth having.
But what is this man to do here now?"

"That depends upon circumstances.  He has better orders than I
could give, for I am no hand at scheming.  Here we are; or here we
stop.  Say nothing till I tell you.  Pray allow me the honor.  You
keep in the background, remember, with your veil, or whatever you
call it, down.  Nobody stops at the very door.  Of course that is
humbug--we conform to it."

With a stiff inclination, the gallant Major handed me out of the
cab in a quiet corner of a narrow street, then paid the driver with
less fuss than usual, and led me into a queer little place marked
in almost illegible letters, "Little England Polygon."  "You have
the card, my dear?" he whispered; "keep it till I call you in.  But
be ready to produce it in a moment.  For the rest, I leave you to
your own wit.  Jack is on the watch, mind."

There were two doors near together, one a brave door with a plate,
and swung on playing hinges, the other of too secluded a turn to
even pronounce itself "private."  We passed through the public
door, and found only a lobby, with a boy on guard.  "Mr. Goad?
Yes, Sir.  This way, Sir," cried the boy.  "Lady stay?  Yes, Sir;
waiting-room for ladies.  Chair, miss; here, if you please--first
right.  Mr. Goad, second on the left.  Knock twice.  Paper, miss?
Poker chained at this time of year.  Bell A, glass of water.  Bell
B, cup of tea, if ladies grows impatient."

If I had been well, I might have reduced this boy to his proper
magnitude, for I never could endure young flippancy; but my spirits
were so low that the boy banged the door with a fine sense of
having vanquished me.  And before there was any temptation to ring
Bell A, not to mention Bell B, the sound of a wrathful voice began
coming.  Nearer and nearer it came, till the Major strode into the
"ladies' waiting-room," and used language no ladies should wait
for.

"Oh, don't!" I said; "what would Mrs. Hockin say?  And consider me
too, Major Hockin, if you please."

"I have considered you, and that makes me do it.  Every body knows
what I am.  Did I ever exaggerate in all my life?  Did I ever say
any thing without just grounds?  Did I ever take any distorted
views?  Did I ever draw upon my imagination?  Erema, answer me this
instant!"

"I do not remember a single instance of your drawing upon your
imagination," I answered, gravely, and did not add, "because there
is none to draw upon."

"Very well.  I was sure of your concurrence.  Then just come with
me.  Take my arm, if you please, and have the thief's card ready.
Now keep your temper and your self-command."

With this good advice, the Major, whose arm and whole body were
jerking with wrath, led me rapidly down the long passage and
through a door, and my eyes met the eyes of the very man who had
tried to bribe Uncle Sam of me.  He never saw me then, and he did
not know me now; but his insolent eyes fell under mine.  I looked
at him quietly, and said nothing.

"Now, Mr. Goad, you still assert that you never were in California--
never even crossed the Atlantic.  This young lady under my
protection--don't you be afraid, my dear--is the Honorable Erema
Castlewood, whom you, in the pay of a murderer, went to fetch, and
perhaps to murder.  Now, do you acknowledge it?  You wrote her
description, and ought to know her.  You double-dyed villain, out
with it!"

"Major Hockin," said Mr. Goad, trying to look altogether at his
ease, but failing, and with his bull-dog forehead purple, "if
indeed you are an officer--which I doubt for the credit of her
Majesty's service--if the lady were not present, I should knock you
down."  And the big man got up as if to do it.

"Never mind her," my companion answered, in a magnanimous manner;
"she has seen worse than that, poor thing.  Here I am--just come
and do it."

The Major was scarcely more than half the size of Mr. Goad in mere
bodily bulk, and yet he defied him in this way.  He carefully took
his blue lights off, then drew up the crest of his hair, like his
wife's most warlike cock a-crowing, and laid down his rattan upon a
desk, and doubled his fists, and waited.  Then he gave a blink from
the corner of his gables, clearly meaning, "Please to stop and see
it out."  It was a distressing thing to see, and the Major's
courage was so grand that I could not help smiling.  Mr. Goad,
however, did not advance, but assumed a superior manner.

"Major," he said, "we are not young men; we must not be so hasty.
You carry things with too high a hand, as veteran officers are apt
to do.  Sir, I make allowance for you; I retract my menace, and
apologize.  We move in different spheres of life, Sir, or I would
offer you my hand."

"No, thank you!" the Major exclaimed, and then looked sorry for his
arrogance.  "When a man has threatened me, and that man sees the
mistake of doing so, I am pacified, Sir, in a moment; but it takes
me some time to get over it.  I have served his Gracious Majesty,
and now hers, in every quarter of the civilized globe, with
distinction, Sir--with distinction, and thanks, and no profit to
taint the transaction, Sir.  In many battles I have been menaced
with personal violence, and have received it, as in such positions
is equitable.  I am capable, Sir, of receiving it still, and
repaying it, not without interest."

"Hang it, Major, if a man is sorry, a soldier forgives him frankly.
You abused me, and I rashly threatened you.  I beg your pardon, as
a man should do, and that should be an end to it."

"Very well, very well; say no more about it.  But am I to
understand that you still deny in that barefaced manner, with my
witness here, the fact of your having been at Colonel Gundry's--my
cousin, Sir, and a man not to be denied, without an insult to
myself--a man who possesses ingots of gold, ingots of gold, enough
to break the Bank of England, and a man whose integrity doubles
them all.  Have you not heard of the monster nugget, transcending
the whole of creation, discovered by this young lady looking at
you, in the bed of the saw-mill river, and valued at more than half
a million?"

"You don't mean to say so?  When was it?  Sylvester never said a
word about it--the papers, I mean, never mentioned it."

"Try no more--well, I won't say lies, though they are confounded
lies--what I mean is, no further evasion, Mr. Goad.  Sylvester's
name is enough, Sir.  Here is the card of your firm, with your own
note of delivery on the back, handed by you to my cousin, the
Colonel.  And here stands the lady who saw you do it."

"Major, I will do my very best to remember.  I am here, there,
every where--China one day, Peru the next, Siberia the day after.
And this young lady found the nugget, did she?  How wonderfully
lucky she must be!"

"I am lucky; I find out every thing; and I shall find out you, Mr.
Goad."  Thus I spoke on the spur of the moment, and I could not
have spoken better after a month of consultation.  Rogues are
generally superstitious.  Mr. Goad glanced at me with a shudder, as
I had gazed at him some three years back; and then he dropped his
bad, oily-looking eyes.

"I make mistakes sometimes," he said, "as to where I have been and
where I have not.  If this young lady saw me there, it stands to
reason that I may have been there.  I have a brother extremely
similar.  He goes about a good deal also.  Probably you saw my
brother."

"I saw no brother of yours, but yourself.  Yourself--your mean and
cowardly self--and I shall bring you to justice."

"Well, well," he replied, with a poor attempt to turn the matter
lightly; "I never contradict ladies; it is an honor to be so
observed by them.  Now, Major, can you give me any good reason for
drawing upon a bad memory?  My time is valuable.  I can not refer
to such by-gone matters for nothing."

"We will not bribe you, if that is what you mean," Major Hockin
made answer, scornfully.  "This is a criminal case, and we have
evidence you little dream of.  Our only offer is--your own safety,
if you make a clean breast of it.  We are on the track of a
murderer, and your connection with him will ruin you.  Unless you
wish to stand in the dock at his side, you will tell us every
thing."

"Sir, this is violent language."

"And violent acts will follow it: if you do not give up your
principal, and every word you know about him, you will leave this
room in custody.  I have Cosmopolitan Jack outside, and the police
at a sign from him will come."

"Is this job already in the hands of the police, then?"

"No, not yet.  I resolved to try you first.  If you refuse, it will
be taken up at once; and away goes your last chance, Sir."

Mr. Goad's large face became like a field of conflicting passions
and low calculations.  Terror, fury, cupidity, and doggedness never
had a larger battle-field.

"Allow me at least to consult my partners," he said, in a low voice
and almost with a whine; "we may do things irregular sometimes, but
we never betray a client."

"Either betray your client or yourself," the Major answered, with a
downright stamp.  "You shall consult no one.  You have by this
watch forty-five seconds to consider it."

"You need not trouble yourself to time me," the other answered,
sulkily; "my duty to the firm overrides private feeling.  Miss
Castlewood, I call you to witness, since Major Hockin is so
peppery--"

"Peppery, Sir, is the very last word that ever could be applied to
me.  My wife, my friends, every one that knows me, even my
furthest-off correspondents, agree that I am pure patience."

"It may be so, Major; but you have not shown it.  Miss Castlewood,
I have done you no harm.  If you had been given up to me, you would
have been safer than where you were.  My honor would have been
enlisted.  I now learn things which I never dreamed of--or, at
least--at least only lately.  I always believed the criminality to
be on the other side.  We never ally ourselves with wrong.  But
lately things have come to my knowledge which made me doubtful as
to facts.  I may have been duped--I believe I have been: I am
justified, therefore, in turning the tables."

"If you turn tables," broke in the Major, who was grumbling to
himself at the very idea of having any pepper in his nature--"Goad,
if you turn tables, mind you, you must do it better than the
mesmerists.  Out of this room you do not stir; no darkness--no
bamboozling!  Show your papers, Sir, without sleight of hand.
Surrender, or you get no quarter."

To me it was quite terrifying to see my comrade thus push his
victory.  Mr. Goad could have killed him at any moment, and but for
me perhaps would have done so.  But even in his fury he kept on
casting glances of superstitious awe at me, while I stood quite
still and gazed at him.  Then he crossed the room to a great case
of drawers, unlocked something above the Major's head, made a
sullen bow, and handed him a packet.



CHAPTER XLIX

WANTED, A SAWYER


To judge Mr. Goad by his own scale of morality and honor, he
certainly had behaved very well through a trying and unexpected
scene.  He fought for his honor a great deal harder than ever it
could have deserved of him; and then he strove well to appease it
with cash, the mere thought of which must have flattered it.
However, it was none the worse for a little disaster of this kind.
At the call of duty it coalesced with interest and fine sense of
law, and the contact of these must have strengthened it to face any
future production.

For the moment he laid it aside in a drawer--and the smallest he
possessed would hold it--and being compelled to explain his
instructions (partly in short-hand and partly in cipher), he
kindly, and for the main of it truly, interpreted them as follows:

"July 31, 1858.--Received directions from M. H. to attend without
fail, at whatever expense, to any matter laid before us by a tall,
dark gentleman bearing his card.  M. H. considerably in our debt;
but his father can not last long.  Understand what he means, having
dealt with this matter before, and managed well with it.

"August 2.--Said gentleman called, gave no name, and was very
close.  Had experienced some great wrong.  Said that he was true
heir to the C. estates now held by Lord C.  Only required a little
further evidence to claim them; and some of this was to be got
through us.  Important papers must be among the effects of the old
lord's son, lately dead in California, the same for whom a reward
had been offered, and we had been employed about it.  Must get
possession of those papers, and of the girl, if possible.  Yankees
to be bribed, at whatever figure, and always stand out for a high
one.  Asked where funds were to come from; gave good reference, and
verified it.  To be debited to the account of M. H.  Said we would
have nothing to do with it without more knowledge of our principal.
Replied, with anger, that he himself was Lord C., ousted by
usurpers.  Had not the necessary proofs as yet, but would get them,
and blast all his enemies.  Had doubts about his sanity, and still
greater about his solvency.  Resolved to inquire into both points.

"August 3.--M. H. himself, as cool as ever, but shammed to be
indignant.  Said we were fools if we did not take it up.  Not a
farthing would he pay of his old account, and fellows like us could
not bring actions.  Also a hatful of money was to be made of this
job, managed snugly.  Emigrants to California were the easiest of
all things to square up.  A whole train of them disappeared this
very year, by Indians or Mormons, and no bones made.  The best and
most active of us must go--too ticklish for an agent.  We must
carry on all above-board out there, and as if sent by British
government.  In the far West no one any wiser.  Resolved to go
myself, upon having a certain sum in ready.

"August 5.--The money raised.  Start for Liverpool to-morrow.
Require a change, or would not go.  May hit upon a nugget, etc.,
etc."

Mr. Goad's memoranda of his adventures, and signal defeat by Uncle
Sam, have no claim to be copied here, though differing much from my
account.  With their terse unfeeling strain, they might make people
laugh who had not sadder things to think of.  And it matters very
little how that spy escaped, as such people almost always seem to
do.

"Two questions, Goad, if you please," said Major Hockin, who had
smiled sometimes, through some of his own remembrances; "what has
happened since your return, and what is the name of the gentleman
whom you have called 'M.H.?'"

"Is it possible that you do not know, Sir?  Why, he told us quite
lately that you were at his back!  You must know Sir Montague
Hockin."

"Yes, yes; certainly I do," the old man said, shortly, with a quick
gleam in his eyes; "a highly respected gentleman now, though he may
have sown his wild oats like the rest.  To be sure; of course I
know all about it.  His meaning was good, but he was misled."

In all my little experience of life nothing yet astonished me more
than this.  I scarcely knew whom to believe, or what.  That the
Major, most upright of men, should take up his cousin's roguery--
all new to him--and speak of him thus!  But he gave me a nudge; and
being all confusion, I said nothing, and tried to look at neither
of them, because my eyes must always tell the truth.

"As to the other point," Mr. Goad went on; "since my embassy
failed, we have not been trusted with the confidence we had the
right to expect.  Ours is a peculiar business, Sir:  'Trust me in
all, or trust me not at all,' as one of our modern poets says, is
the very essence of it.  And possibly, Major, if that had been
done, even your vigor and our sense of law might not have extorted
from me what you have heard.  Being cashiered, as we are, we act
according to the strictest honor in divulging things no longer
confided to us."

"Goad, you have done yourself the utmost credit, legally,
intellectually, and--well, I will not quite say morally.  If I ever
have a nasty job to do--at least I mean a stealthy one--which God,
who has ever kept me straight, forbid!--I will take care not to
lose your address.  I have a very queer thing occurring on my
manor--I believe it is bound up with this affair--never mind; I
must think--I hate all underhanded work."

"Major, our charges are strictly moderate.  We do in a week what
takes lawyers a twelvemonth.  Allow me to hand you one of our new
cards."

"No, no.  My pockets are all full.  And I don't want to have it
found among my papers.  No offense, Mr. Goad, no offense at all.
Society is not as it was when I was young.  I condemn no modern
institutions, Sir, though the world gets worse every day of its
life."

In terror of committing himself to any connection with such a firm,
the Major put on his dark lights again, took up his cane, and let
every body know, with a summary rap on the floor, that he might
have relaxed, but would not allow any further liberty about it.
And as he marched away, not proudly, yet with a very nice firmness,
I was almost afraid to say any thing to him to disturb his high
mental attitude.  For Mrs. Hockin must have exclaimed that here was
a noble spectacle.

"But one thing," I forced myself to suggest; "do ask one thing
before we go.  That strange man who called himself 'Lord
Castlewood' here, and 'Captain Brown' at Soberton--have they any
idea where to find him now?  And why does he not come forward?"

My comrade turned back, and put these questions; and the private
inquirer answered that they had no idea of his whereabouts, but
could easily imagine many good reasons for his present reserve of
claim.  For instance, he might be waiting for discovery of further
evidence; or (which was even more likely) for the death of the
present Lord Castlewood, which could not be very far distant, and
would remove the chief opponent.  It grieved me deeply to find that
my cousin's condition was so notorious, and treated of in such a
cold-blooded way, like a mule fallen lame, or a Chinaman in Frisco.

"My dear, you must grow used to such things," Major Hockin
declared, when he saw that I was vexed, after leaving those selfish
premises.  "If it were not for death, how could any body live?
Right feeling is shown by considering such points, and making for
the demise of others even more preparation than for our own.
Otherwise there is a selfishness about it by no means Christian-
minded.  You look at things always from such an intense and even
irreligious point of view.  But such things are out of my line
altogether.  Your Aunt Mary understands them best."

"Would you be able," I said, "to account to Aunt Mary conscientiously
for that dreadful story which I heard you tell?  I scarcely knew
where I stood, Major Hockin."

"You mean about Montague?  Family honor must be defended at any
price.  Child, I was greatly pained to go beyond the truth; but in
such a case it is imperative.  I was shocked and amazed at my
cousin's conduct; but how could I let such a fellow know that?  And
think what I owe to his father, Sir Rufus?  No, no; there are times
when Bayard himself must stretch a point.  Honor and religion alike
demand it; and Mrs. Hockin need never hear of it."

"Certainly I shall not speak of it," I answered, though a little
surprised at his arguments; "but you mean, of course, to find out
all about it.  It seems to me such a suspicious thing.  But I never
could bear Sir Montague."

The Major smiled grimly, and, perceiving that he wished to drop the
subject, I said no more.  He had many engagements in London always,
and I must not attempt to engross his time.  However, he would not
for a moment hear of leaving me any where but with Betsy, for
perhaps he saw how strange I was.  And, being alone at last with
her, I could keep up my pride no longer.

Through all that had happened, there never had been such a dreadful
trial as I had borne this day without a word to any one.  Danger
and loss and sad dreariness of mind, from want of young
companionship; mystery also, and obscurity of life, had always been
my fortune.  With all of these I had striven, to the best of my
very small ability, having from nature no gift except the dull one
of persistence.  And throughout that struggle I had felt quite sure
that a noble yearning for justice and a lofty power of devotion
were my two impelling principles.  But now, when I saw myself
sprung of low birth, and the father of my worship base-born, down
fell all my arduous castles, and I craved to go under the earth and
die.

For every word of Mr. Goad, and every crooked turn of little things
in twist against me--even the Major's last grim smile--all began to
work together, and make up a wretched tumult, sounding in my ears
like drums.  Where was the use of going on, of proving any body's
guilt or any body's innocence, if the utmost issue of the whole
would be to show my father an impostor?  Then, and only then, I
knew that love of abstract justice is to little minds impossible,
that sense of honor is too prone to hang on chance of birth, and
virtue's fountain, self-respect, springs but ill from parental
taint.

When I could no longer keep such bitter imaginings to myself, but
poured them forth to Betsy, she merely laughed, and asked me how I
could be such a simpleton.  Only to think of my father in such a
light was beyond her patience!  Where was my pride, she would like
to know, and my birth, and my family manners?  However, she did
believe there was something in my ideas, if you turned them inside
out, and took hold of them by the other end.  It was much more
likely, to her mind, that the villain, the unknown villain at the
bottom of all the misery, was really the son born out of wedlock,
if any such there were at all, and therefore a wild harum-scarum
fellow like Ishmael in the Book of Genesis.  And it would be just
of a piece, she thought, with the old lord's character to drive
such a man to desperation by refusing to give him a farthing.

"All that might very well be," I answered; "but it would in no way
serve to explain my father's conduct, which was the great mystery
of all."  Nevertheless, I was glad to accept almost any view of the
case rather than that which had forced itself upon me since the
opening of the locket.  Any doubt of that most wretched conclusion
was a great relief while it lasted; and, after so long a time of
hope and self-reliance, should I cast away all courage through a
mere suspicion?

While I was thus re-assuring myself, and being re-assured by my
faithful nurse, sad news arrived, and drove my thoughts into
another crooked channel.  Mrs. Hockin, to meet my anxiety for some
tidings from California, had promised that if any letter came, she
would not even wait for the post, but forward it by special
messenger.  And thus, that very same evening, I received a grimy
epistle, in an unknown hand, with the postmark of Sacramento.
Tearing it open, I read as follows:


"MISS 'REMA,--No good luck ever came, since you, to this Blue River
Station, only to be washed away, and robbed by greasers, and shot
through the ribs, and got more work than can do, and find an
almighty nugget sent by Satan.  And now the very worst luck of all
have come, wholly and out of all denial, by you and your faces and
graces and French goings on.  Not that I do not like you, mind; for
you always was very polite to me, and done your best when you found
me trying to put up with the trials put on me.  But now this trial
is the worst of all that ever come to my establishings; and to go
away now as I used to think of doing when tyrannized upon is out of
my way altogether, and only an action fit for a half-breed.  Sawyer
Gundry hath cut and run, without a word behind him--no instructions
for orders in hand, and pouring in--no directions where to find
him, not even 'God bless you' to any one of the many hands that
looked up to him.  Only a packet of dollars for me to pay the wages
for two months to come, and a power of lawyer to receive all debts,
and go on anyhow just the same.  And to go on just the same is more
than the worst of us has the heart for, without the sight of his
old red face.  He may have been pretty sharp, and too much the
master now and then, perhaps; but to do without him is a darned
sight worse, and the hands don't take to me like him.  Many's the
time I have seen his faults, of having his own way, and such likes,
and paying a man beyond his time if his wife was out of order.  And
many's the time I have said myself I was fitter to be at the head
of it.

"About that I was right enough, perhaps, if I had started upon my
own hook; but to stand in the tracks he has worn to his own foot is
to go into crooked compasses.  There is never a day without some
hand threatening to strike and to better himself, as if they were
hogs to come and go according to the acorns; and such low words I
can never put up with, and packs them off immediate.  No place can
be carried on if the master is to shut up his lips to impudence.
And now I have only got three hands left, with work enough for
thirty, and them three only stopped on, I do believe, to grumble of
me if the Sawyer do come home!

"But what we all want to know--and old Suan took a black stick to
make marks for you--is why the old man hath run away, and where.
Young Firm, who was getting a sight too uppish for me to have long
put up with him, he was going about here, there, and every where,
from the very first time of your going away, opening his mouth a
deal too much, and asking low questions how long I stopped to
dinner.  Old Suan said he was troubled in his mind, as the pale-
faces do about young girls, instead of dragging them to their
wigwams; and she would give him a spell to get over it.  But
nothing came of that; and when the war broke out, he had words with
his grandfather, and went off, so they said, to join the rebels.

"Sawyer let him go, as proud as could be, though he would sooner
have cut his own head off; and the very same night he sat down by
his fire and shammed to eat supper as usual.  But I happened to go
in to get some orders, and, my heart, I would never wish to see
such things again!

"The old man would never waste a bit of victuals, as you know, Miss
'Rema; and, being acquaint with Suan's way of watching, he had
slipped all his supper aside from his plate, and put it on a clean
pocket-handkerchief to lock it in the press till his appetite
should serve; and I caught him in the act, and it vexed him.
'Ha'n't you the manners to knock at the door?' he said; and I said,
'Certainly,' and went back and done it; and, troubled as he was, he
grinned a bit.  Then he bowed his great head, as he always did when
he knew he had gone perhaps a trifle too far with a man in my
position.  I nodded to forgive him, and he stood across, and saw
that he could do no less than liquor me, after such behavior.  But
he only brought out one glass; and I said, 'Come, Colonel, square
is square, you know.'  'Excuse of me, Martin,' he said; 'but no
drop of strong drink passes the brim of my mouth till this
gallivanting is done with.  I might take too much, as the old men
do, to sink what they don't want to think on.'  'You mean about
bully-cock Firm,' says I; 'rebel Firm--nigger-driver Firm.'
'Hush!' he said; 'no bad words about it.  He has gone by his
conscience and his heart.  What do we know of what come inside of
him?'

"This was true enough, for I never did make that boy out to my
liking: and the old man now was as stiff as a rock, and pretty nigh
as peculiar.  He made me a cocktail of his own patent, to show how
firm his hand was; but the lines of his face was like wainscot
mouldings, and the cords of his arm stood out like cogs.  Then he
took his long pipe, as he may have done perhaps every blessed night
for the last fifty years; but that length of time ought to have
learned him better than to go for to fill it upside down.  'Ha,
ha!' he said; 'every thing is upside down since I was a man under
heaven--countries and nations and kindreds and duties; and why not
a old tobacco-pipe?  That's the way babies blow bubbles with them.
We shall all have to smoke 'em that way if our noble republic is
busted up.  Fill yours, and try it, Martin.'

"Instead of enjoying my cocktail, Miss 'Rema, I never was so down
at mouth; for, to my mind, his old heart was broken while he
carried on so.  And let every body say what they will, one thing
there is no denying of.  Never was seen on this side of the big
hills a man fit to walk in the tracks of Uncle Sam, so large and
good-hearted according to his lights, hard as a grizzly bear for a
man to milk him, but soft in the breastbone as a young prairie-hen
for all folk down upon their nine-pins.

"You may be surprised, miss, to find me write so long.  Fact is,
the things won't go out of my mind without it.  And it gives me a
comfort, after all I may have said, to put good opinions upon
paper.  If he never should turn up again, my language will be to
his credit; whereas if he do come back, with the betting a horse to
a duck against it, to his pride he will read this testimonial of
yours, faithfully, MARTIN CLOGFAST.

"P.S.--Can't carry on like this much longer.  Enough to rip one's
heart up.  You never would know the old place, miss.  The heads of
the horses is as long as their tails with the way they carry them;
the moss is as big as a Spaniard's beard upon the kitchen door-
sill; and the old dog howls all day and night, like fifty thousand
scalpers.  Suan saith, if you was to come back, the lad might run
home after you.  'Tisn't the lad I cares about so much, but poor
old Sawyer, at his time of life, swallowed up in the wilderness."



CHAPTER L

THE PANACEA


As if my own trouble were not enough, so deeply was I grieved by
this sad news that I had a great mind to turn back on my own and
fly to far-off disasters.  To do so appeared for the moment a noble
thing, and almost a duty; but now, looking back, I perceive that my
instinct was right when it told me to stay where I was, and see out
my own sad story first.  And Betsy grew hot at the mere idea of my
hankering after a miller's affairs, as she very rudely expressed
it.  To hear about lords and ladies, and their crimes and
adventures, was lovely; but to dwell upon people of common birth,
and in trade, was most unbeseeming.  A man who mended his own mill,
and had hands like horn--well, even she was of better blood than
that, she hoped.

Before these large and liberal views had fairly been expounded,
Major Hockin arrived, with his mind in such a state that he opened
his watch every second.

"Erema, I must speak to you alone," he cried; "no, not even you,
Mrs. Strouss, if you please.  If my ward likes to tell you, why, of
course she can; but nobody shall say that I did.  There are things
that belong to the family alone.  The most loyal retainers--you
know what I mean."

"General, I was not aware that you belonged to the family.  But
this way, Sir; this way, if you please.  There is lath and plaster
to that wall, and a crack in the panel of the door, Sir.  But here
is a room where I keep my jams, with double brick and patent locks,
from sweet-toothed lodgers.  The 'scutcheon goes over the key-hole,
General.  Perhaps you will see to that, while I roll up the carpet
outside; and then, if any retainers come, you will hear their
footsteps."

"Bless the woman, what a temper she has!" whispered the Major, in
dread of her ears.  "Is she gone, Erema?  She wants discipline."

"Yes, she is gone," I said, trying to be lightsome; "but you are
enough to frighten any one."

"So far from that, she has quite frightened me.  But never mind
such trifles.  Erema, since I saw you I have discovered, I may
almost say, every thing."

Coming upon me so suddenly, even with all allowance made for the
Major's sanguine opinion of his own deeds, this had such effect
upon my flurried brain that practice alone enabled me to stand
upright and gaze at him.

"Perhaps you imagined when you placed the matter in my hands, Miss
Castlewood," he went on, with sharp twinkles from the gables of his
eyes, but soft caresses to his whiskers, "that you would be left in
the hands of a man who encouraged a crop of hay under his feet.
Never did you or any body make a greater mistake.  That is not my
character, Miss Castlewood."

"Why do you call me 'Miss Castlewood' so?  You quite make me doubt
my own right to the name."

Major Hockin looked at me with surprise, which gladdened even more
than it shamed me.  Clearly his knowledge of all, as he described
it, did not comprise the disgrace which I feared.

"You are almost like Mrs. Strouss to-day," he answered, with some
compassion.  "What way is the wind?  I have often observed that
when one female shows asperity, nearly all the others do the same.
The weather affects them more than men, because they know nothing
about it.  But to come back--are you prepared to hear what I have
got to tell you?"

I bowed without saying another word.  For he should be almost the
last of mankind to give a lecture upon irritation.

"Very well; you wish me to go on.  Perceiving how sadly you were
upset by the result of those interviews, first with Handkin, and
then with Goad, after leaving you here I drove at once to the
office, studio, place of business, or whatever you please to call
it, of the famous fellow in the portrait line, whose anagram,
private mark, or whatever it is, was burned into the back of the
ivory.  Handkin told me the fellow was dead, or, of course, his
work would be worth nothing; but the name was carried on, and the
register kept, at a little place somewhere in Soho, where, on the
strength of his old repute, they keep up a small trade with
inferior hands.  I gave them a handsome order for a thing that will
never be handsome, I fear--my old battered physiognomy.  And then I
produced the locket which in some queer state of mind you had given
me, and made them hunt out their old books, and at last discovered
the very entry.  But to verify it I must go to Paris, where his son
is living."

"Whose son?  Lord Castlewood's?"

"Erema, have you taken leave of your senses?  What son has Lord
Castlewood?  The artist's son, to be sure; the son of the man who
did the likeness.  Is it the vellum and the stuff upon it that has
so upset your mind?  I am glad that you showed it to me, because it
would have been mean to do otherwise.  But show it to no one else,
my dear, except your cousin, Lord Castlewood.  He has the first
right of all to know it, though he will laugh at it as I do.
Trumpery of that sort!  Let them produce a certified copy of a
register.  If they could do that, need they ever have shot that
raffish old lord--I beg pardon, my dear--your highly respected
grandfather?  No, no; don't tell me.  Nicholas Hockin was never in
any way famous for want of brains, my dear, and he tells you to
keep your pluck up."

"I never can thank you enough," I replied, "for such inspiriting
counsel.  I have been rather miserable all this day.  And I have
had such a letter from America!"

Without my intending any offer of the kind, or having such idea at
the furthest tip of any radius of mind, I found myself under a
weight about the waist, like the things the young girls put on now.
And this was the arm of the Major, which had been knocked about in
some actions, but was useful still to let other people know, both
in this way and that, what he thought of them.  And now it let me
know that he pitied me.

This kindness from so old a soldier made me partial to him.  He had
taken an age to understand me, because my father was out of the
army almost before I was born, and therefore I had no traditions.
Also, from want of drilling, I had been awkward to this officer,
and sometimes mutinous, and sometimes a coward.  All that, however,
he forgave me when he saw me so downhearted; and while I was
striving to repress all signs, the quivering of my lips perhaps
suggested thoughts of kissing.  Whereupon he kissed my forehead
with nice dry lips, and told me not to be at all afraid.

"How many times have you been brave?" he inquired, to set me
counting, knowing from all his own children, perhaps, that nothing
stops futile tears and the waste of sobs like prompt arithmetic.
"Six, if not seven, times you have displayed considerable valor.
Are you going to fall away through some wretched imagination of
your own?  Now don't stop to argue--time will not allow it.  I have
put Cosmopolitan Jack as well upon the track of Captain Brown.  I
have not told you half of what I could tell, and what I am doing;
but never mind, never mind; it is better that you should not know
too much, my dear.  Young minds, from their want of knowledge of
the world, are inclined to become uneasy.  Now go to bed and sleep
soundly, Erema, for we have lots to do to-morrow, and you have had
a most worrying day to-day.  To-morrow, of course, you must come
with me to Paris.  You can parleyvoo better than I can."

However, as it happened, I did nothing of the kind, for when he
came back in the morning, and while he was fidgeting and hurrying
me, and vowing that we should lose the tidal train, a letter from
Bruntsea was put into my hand.  I saw Mrs. Price's clear writing,
followed by good Aunt Mary's crooked lines, and knew that the
latter must have received it too late to be sent by her messenger.
In few words it told me that if I wished to see my cousin alive,
the only chance was to start immediately.

Shock and self-reproach and wonder came (as usual) before grief,
which always means to stay, and waits to get its mourning ready.  I
loved and respected my cousin more deeply than any one living, save
Uncle Sam; and now to lose them both at once seemed much too
dreadful to be true.  There was no time to think.  I took the
Major's cab, and hurried off to Paddington, leaving him to catch
his tidal train.

Alas! when I got to Castlewood, there was but a house of mourning!
Faithful Stixon's eyes were dim, and he pointed upward and said,
"Hush!"  I entered with great awe, and asked, "How long?"  And he
said, "Four-and-twenty hours now; and a more peacefuller end was
never seen, and to lament was sinful; but he was blessed if he
could help it."  I told him, through my tears, that this was
greatly to his credit, and he must not crush fine feelings, which
are an honor to our nature.  And he said that I was mistress now,
and must order him to my liking.

I asked him to send Mrs. Price to me, if she was not too busy; and
he answered that he believed her to be a very good soul, and handy.
And if he ever had been thought to speak in a sense disparishing
of her, such things should not be borne in mind, with great
afflictions over us.  Mrs. Price, hearing that I was come, already
was on her way to me, and now glanced at the door for Mr. Stixon to
depart, in a manner past misunderstanding.

"He gives himself such airs!" she said; "sometimes one would think--
but I will not trouble you now with that, Miss Castlewood, or Lady
Castlewood--which do you please to be called, miss?  They say that
the barony goes on, when there is no more Viscount."

"I please to be called 'Miss Castlewood,' even if I have any right
to be called that.  But don't let us talk of such trifles now.  I
wish to hear only of my cousin."

"Well, you know, ma'am, what a sufferer he has been for years.
If ever an angel had pains all over, and one leg compulsory of a
walking-stick, that angel was his late lordship.  He would stand up
and look at one, and give orders in that beautiful silvery voice of
his, just as if he was lying on a bed of down.  And never a twitch,
nor a hitch in his face, nor his words, nor any other part of him.
I assure you, miss, that I have been quite amazed and overwhelmed
with interest while looking at his poor legs, and thinking--"

"I can quite enter into it.  I have felt the same.  But please to
come to what has happened lately."

"The very thing I was at the point of doing.  Then last Sunday, God
alone knows why, the pain did not come on at all.  For the first
time for seven years or more the pain forgot the time-piece.  His
lordship thought that the clock was wrong; but waited with his
usual patience, though missing it from the length of custom,
instead of being happy.  But when it was come to an hour too late
for the proper attack of the enemy, his lordship sent orders for
Stixon's boy to take a good horse and ride to Pangbourne for a
highly respectable lawyer.  There was no time to fetch Mr. Spines,
you see, miss, the proper solicitor, who lives in London.  The
gentleman from Pangbourne was here by eight o'clock; and then and
there his lordship made his will, to supersede all other wills.  He
put it more clearly, the lawyer said, than he himself could have
put it, but not, of course, in such legal words, but doubtless far
more beautiful.  Nobody in the house was forgotten; and the rule of
law being, it seems, that those with best cause to remember must
not witness, two of the tenants were sent for, and wrote down their
names legitimate.  And then his lordship lay back and smiled, and
said, 'I shall have no more pain.'

"All that night and three days more he slept as sound as a little
child, to make up for so many years.  We called two doctors in; but
they only whispered and looked dismal, and told us to have hot
water ready at any hour of the day or night.  Nobody loved him as I
did, miss, from seeing so much of his troubles and miraculous way
of bearing them; and I sat by the hour and hour, and watched him,
trusting no paid nurses.

"It must have been eight o'clock on Wednesday morning--what is to-
day?  Oh, Friday--then Thursday morning it must have been, when the
clouds opened up in the east, and the light of the sun was on the
window-sill, not glaring or staring, but playing about, with
patterns of leaves between it; and I went to screen it from his
poor white face; but he opened his eyes, as if he had been half
awake, half dreaming, and he tried to lift one of his thin, thin
hands to tell me not to do it.  So I let the curtain stay as it
was, and crept back, and asked, very softly, 'Will your lordship
have some breakfast?'

"He did not seem to comprehend me, but only watched the window; and
if ever a blessed face there was, looking toward heaven's glory,
his lordship had it, so that I could scarcely keep from sobbing.
For I never had seen any living body die, but knew that it must be
so.  He heard me catching my breath, perhaps, or at any rate he
looked at me; and the poor angel knew that I was a woman; and being
full of high respect, as he always was for females--in spite of the
way they had served him--it became apparent to his mind that the
pearl button of his neck was open, as ordered by the doctors.  And
he tried to lift his hand to do it; and then he tried to turn away,
but could not manage either.  Poor dear! the only movement he could
make was to a better world.

"Then I drew the sheet across his chest, and he gave me a little
smile of thanks, and perhaps he knew whose hand it was.  But the
look of his kind soft eyes was flickering--not steady, I mean,
miss--but glancing and stopping and going astray, as drops of rain
do on the window-glass.  But I could not endure to examine him
much; at such a holy time I felt that to watch death was unholy.

"Perhaps I ought to have rung the bell for others to be present.
But his lordship was always shy, you know, miss; and with none of
his kindred left, and no wife to say 'good-by' to him, right or
wrong I resolved alone to see him depart to his everlasting rest.
And people may talk about hirelings, but I think nobody loved him
as I did."

Here Mrs. Price broke fairly down, and I could not help admiring
her.  To a faithful servant's humility and duty she had added a
woman's pure attachment to one more gifted than herself, and ruined
for life by her own sex.  But she fell away frightened and ashamed
beneath my look, as if I had caught her in sacrilege.

"Well, miss, we all must come and go," she began again, rather
clumsily; "and, good and great as he was, his lordship has left few
to mourn for him.  Only the birds and beasts and animals that he
was so good to; they will miss him, if men don't.  There came one
of his favorite pigeons, white as snow all over, and sat on the
sill of the window, and cooed, and arched up its neck for his
fingers.  And he tried to put his fingers out, but they were ice
already.  Whether that or something else brought home his thoughts,
who knows, miss? but he seemed to mix the pigeon up with some of
his own experience.

"'Say that I have forgiven her, if ever she did harm to me,' he
whispered, without moving lips.  'Times and times, when I was
young, I was not always steady;' and then he seemed to wander in
his mind among old places; and he would have laughed at something
if his voice had been sufficient.

"'Bitter grief and pain shall never come again,' he seemed to
breathe, with a calm, soft smile, like a child with its rhyme about
the rain when the sun breaks out; and sure enough, the sun upon the
quilt above his heart was shining, as if there could be no more
clouds.  Then he whispered a few short words to the Lord, more in
the way of thanks than prayer, and his eyes seemed to close of
their own accord, or with some good spirit soothing them.  And when
or how his sleep passed from this world into the other there was
scarcely the flutter of a nerve to show.  There he lies, like an
image of happiness.  Will you come and see him?"

I followed her to the bedroom, and am very glad that I did so; for
it showed me the bliss of a good man's rest, and took away my fear
of death.



CHAPTER LI

LIFE SINISTER


When business and the little cares of earthly life awoke again,
every one told me (to my great surprise and no small terror at
first, but soon to increasing acquiescence) that I was now the
mistress of the fair estates of Castlewood, and, the male line
being extinct, might claim the barony, if so pleased me; for that,
upon default of male heirs, descended by the spindle.  And as to
the property, with or without any will of the late Lord Castlewood,
the greater part would descend to me under unbarred settlement,
which he was not known to have meddled with.  On the contrary, he
confirmed by his last will the settlement--which they told me was
quite needless--and left me all that he had to leave, except about
a thousand pounds distributed in legacies.  A private letter to me
was sealed up with his will, which, of course, it would not behoove
me to make public.  But thus much--since our family history is,
alas! so notorious--in duty to him I should declare.  He begged me,
if his poor lost wife--of whom he had never spoken to me--should
re-appear and need it, to pay her a certain yearly sum, which I
thought a great deal too much for her, but resolved to obey him
exactly.

Neither the will nor the letter contained any reference to my
grandfather, or the possibility of an adverse claim.  I could not,
however, be quit of deep uneasiness and anxiety, but stanchly
determined that every acre should vanish in folds of "the long
robe" rather than pass to a crafty villain who had robbed me of all
my kindred.  My hatred of that man deepened vastly, as he became
less abstract, while my terror decreased in proportion.  I began to
think that, instead of being the reckless fiend I had taken him
for, he was only a low, plotting, cold-blooded rogue, without even
courage to save him.  By this time he must have heard all about me,
my pursuit of him, and my presence here--then why not come and
shoot me, just as he shot my grandfather?

The idea of this was unwelcome; still, I felt no sort of gratitude,
but rather a lofty contempt toward him for not having spirit to try
it.  In Shoxford church-yard he had expressed (if Sexton Rigg was
not then deceived) an unholy wish to have me there, at the feet of
my brothers and sisters.  Also he had tried to get hold of me--
doubtless with a view to my quietude--when I was too young to
defend myself, and left at haphazard in a lawless land.  What was
the reason, if his mind was still the same, for ceasing to follow
me now?  Was I to be treated with contempt as one who had tried her
best and could do nothing, as a feeble creature whose movements
were not even worth inquiry?  Anger at such an idea began to
supersede fear, as my spirits returned.

Meanwhile Major Hockin was making no sign as to what had befallen
him in Paris, or what Cosmopolitan Jack was about.  But, strangely
enough, he had sent me a letter from Bruntsea instead of Paris, and
addressed in grand style to no less a person than "The right
honorable Baroness Castlewood"--a title which I had resolved, for
the present, neither to claim nor acknowledge.  In that letter the
Major mingled a pennyweight of condolence with more congratulation
than the post could carry for the largest stamp yet invented.  His
habit of mind was to magnify things; and he magnified my small
grandeur, and seemed to think nothing else worthy of mention.

Through love of the good kind cousin I had lost, even more than
through common and comely respect toward the late head of the
family, I felt it impossible to proceed, for the present, with any
inquiries, but left the next move to the other side.  And the other
side made it, in a manner such as I never even dreamed of.

About three weeks after I became, in that sad way, the mistress,
escaping one day from lawyers and agents, who held me in dreary
interview, with long computations of this and of that, and
formalities almost endless, I went, for a breath of good earnest
fresh air, beyond precinct of garden or shrubbery.  To me these
seemed in mild weather to temper and humanize the wind too
strictly, and take the wild spirit out of it; and now, for the turn
of the moment, no wind could be too rough to tumble in.  After long
months of hard trouble, and worry, and fear, and sad shame, and
deep sorrow, the natural spring of clear youth into air and freedom
set me upward.  For the nonce there was nothing upon my selfish
self to keep it downward; troubles were bubbles, and grief a low
thief, and reason almost treason.  I drank the fine fountain of air
unsullied, and the golden light stamped with the royalty of sun.

Hilarious moments are but short, and soon cold sense comes back
again.  Already I began to feel ashamed of young life's selfish
outburst, and the vehement spring of mere bodily health.  On this
account I sat down sadly in a little cove of hill, whereto the soft
breeze from the river came up, with a tone of wavelets, and a
sprightly water-gleam.  And here, in fern and yellow grass and
tufted bights of bottom growth, the wind made entry for the sun,
and they played with one another.

Besting here, and thinking, with my face between my hands, I
wondered what would be the end.  Nothing seemed secure or certain,
nothing even steady or amenable to foresight.  Even guess-work or
the wider cast of dreams was always wrong.  To-day the hills and
valleys, and the glorious woods of wreathen gold, bright garnet,
and deep amethyst, even that blue river yet unvexed by autumn's
turbulence, and bordered with green pasture of a thousand sheep and
cattle--to-day they all were mine (so far as mortal can hold
ownership)--to-morrow, not a stick, or twig, or blade of grass, or
fallen leaf, but might call me a trespasser.  To see them while
they still were mine, and to regard them humbly, I rose and took my
black hat off--a black hat trimmed with mourning gray.  Then
turning round, I met a gaze, the wildest, darkest, and most awful
ever fixed on human face.

"Who are you?  What do you want here?" I faltered forth, while
shrinking back for flight, yet dreading or unable to withdraw my
gaze from his.  The hollow ground barred all escape; my own land
was a pit for me, and I must face this horror out.  Here, afar from
house or refuge, hand of help, or eye of witness, front to front I
must encounter this atrocious murderer.

For moments, which were ages to me, he stood there without a word;
and daring not to take my eyes from his, lest he should leap at me,
I had no power (except of instinct), and could form no thought of
him, for mortal fear fell over me.  If he would only speak, would
only move his lips, or any thing!

"The Baroness is not brave," he said at last, as if reproachfully;
"but she need have no fear now of me.  Does her ladyship happen to
know who I am?"

"The man who murdered my grandfather."

"Yes, if you put a false color on events.  The man who punished a
miscreant, according to the truer light.  But I am not here to
argue points.  I intend to propose a bargain.  Once for all, I will
not harm you.  Try to listen calmly.  Your father behaved like a
man to me, and I will be no worse to you.  The state of the law in
this country is such that I am forced to carry fire-arms.  Will it
conduce to your peace of mind if I place myself at your mercy?"

I tried to answer; but my heart was beating so that no voice came,
only a flutter in my trembling throat.  Wrath with myself for want
of courage wrestled in vain with pale, abject fear.  The hand which
offered me the pistol seemed to my dazed eyes crimson still with
the blood of my grandfather.

"You will not take it?  Very well; it lies here at your service.
If your father's daughter likes to shoot me, from one point of view
it will be just; and but for one reason, I care not.  Don't look at
me with pity, if you please.  For what I have done I feel no
remorse, no shadow of repentance.  It was the best action of my
life.  But time will fail, unless you call upon your courage
speedily.  None of your family lack that; and I know that you
possess it.  Call your spirit up, my dear."

"Oh, please not to call me that!  How dare you call me that?"

"That is right.  I did it on purpose.  And yet I am your uncle.
Not by the laws of men, but by the laws of God--if there are such
things.  Now, have you the strength to hear me?"

"Yes; I am quite recovered now.  I can follow every word you say.
But--but I must sit down again."

"Certainly.  Sit there, and I will stand.  I will not touch or come
nearer to you than a story such as mine requires.  You know your
own side of it; now hear mine.

"More than fifty years ago there was a brave young nobleman,
handsome, rich, accomplished, strong, not given to drink or
gambling, or any fashionable vices.  His faults were few, and
chiefly three--he had a headstrong will, loved money, and possessed
no heart at all.  With chances in his favor, this man might have
done as most men do who have such gifts from fortune.  But he
happened to meet with a maiden far beneath him in this noble world,
and he set his affections--such as they were--upon that poor young
damsel.

"This was Winifred Hoyle, the daughter of Thomas Hoyle, a farmer,
in a lonely part of Hampshire, and among the moors of Rambledon.
The nobleman lost his way, while fishing, and being thirsty, went
to ask for milk.  What matter how it came about?  He managed to win
her heart before she heard of his rank and title.  He persuaded her
even to come and meet him in the valley far from her father's
house, where he was wont to angle; and there, on a lonely wooden
bridge across a little river, he knelt down (as men used to do) and
pledged his solemn truth to her.  His solemn lie--his solemn lie!

"Such love as his could not overleap the bars of rank or the pale
of wealth--are you listening to me carefully?--or, at any rate, not
both of them.  If the poor farmer could only have given his
Winifred 50,000 pounds, the peer would have dropped his pride,
perhaps, so far as to be honest.  But farmers in that land are
poor, and Mr. Hoyle could give his only child his blessing only.
And this he did in London, where his simple mind was all abroad,
and he knew not church from chapel.  He took his daughter for the
wife of a lord, and so she took herself, poor thing! when she was
but his concubine.  In 1809 such tricks were easily played by
villains upon young girls so simple.

"But he gave her attestation and certificate under his own hand;
and her poor father signed it, and saw it secured in a costly case,
and then went home as proud as need be for the father of a peer,
but sworn to keep it three years secret, till the king should give
consent.  Such foul lies it was the pride of a lord to tell to a
farmer.

"You do not exclaim--of course you do not.  The instincts of your
race are in you, because you are legitimate.  Those of the robbed
side are in me, because I am of the robbed.  I am your father's
elder brother.  Which is the worse, you proud young womam, the
dastard or the bastard?"

"You have wrongs, most bitter wrongs," I answered, meeting fierce
eyes mildly; "but you should remember that I am guiltless of those
wrongs, and so was my father.  And I think that if you talk of
birth so, you must know that gentlemen speak quietly to ladies."

"What concern is that of mine?  A gentleman is some one's son.  I
am the son of nobody.  But to you I will speak quietly, for the
sake of your poor father.  And you must listen quietly.  I am not
famous for sweet temper.  Well, this great lord took his toy to
Paris, where he had her at his mercy.  She could not speak a word
of French; she did not know a single soul.  In vain she prayed him
to take her to his English home; or, if not that, to restore her to
her father.  Not to be too long about it--any more than he was--a
few months were enough for him.  He found fault with her manners,
with her speech, her dress, her every thing--all which he had
right, perhaps, to do, but should have used it earlier.  And she,
although not born to the noble privilege of weariness, had been an
old man's darling, and could not put up with harshness.  From words
they came to worse, until he struck her, told her of her shame, or
rather his own infamy, and left her among strangers, helpless,
penniless, and brokenhearted, to endure the consequence.

"There and thus I saw the light beneath most noble auspices.  But I
need not go on with all that.  As long as human rules remain, this
happy tale will always be repeated with immense applause.  My
mother's love was turned to bitter hatred of his lordship, and,
when her father died from grief, to eager thirst for vengeance.
And for this purpose I was born.

"You see that--for a bastard--I have been fairly educated; but not
a farthing did his lordship ever pay for that, or even to support
his casual.  My grandfather Hoyle left his little all to his
daughter Winifred; and upon that, and my mother's toil and mine, we
have kept alive.  Losing sight of my mother gladly--for she was
full of pride, and hoped no more to trouble him, after getting her
father's property--he married again, or rather he married for the
first time without perjury, which enables the man to escape from
it.  She was of his own rank--as you know--the daughter of an earl,
and not of a farmer.  It would not have been safe to mock her,
would it?  And there was no temptation.

"The history of my mother and myself does not concern you.  Such
people are of no account until they grow dangerous to the great.
We lived in cheap places and wandered about, caring for no one, and
cared for by the same.  Mrs. Hoyle and Thomas Hoyle we called
ourselves when we wanted names; and I did not even know the story
of our wrongs till the heat and fury of youth were past.  Both for
her own sake and mine my mother concealed it from me.  Pride and
habit, perhaps, had dulled her just desire for vengeance; and,
knowing what I was, she feared--the thing which has befallen me.
But when I was close upon thirty years old, and my mother eight-
and-forty--for she was betrayed in her teens--a sudden illness
seized her.  Believing her death to be near, she told me, as calmly
as possible, every thing, with all those large, quiet views of the
past, which at such a time seem the regular thing, but make the
wrong tenfold blacker.  She did not die; if she had, it might have
been better both for her and me, and many other people.  Are you
tired of my tale?  Or do you want to hear the rest?"

"You can not be asking me in earnest," I replied, while I watched
his wild eyes carefully.  "Tell me the rest, if you are not
afraid."

"Afraid, indeed!  Then, for want of that proper tendance and
comfort which a few pounds would have brought her, although she
survived, she survived as a wreck, the mere relic and ruin of her
poor unhappy self.  I sank my pride for her sake, and even deigned
to write to him, in rank and wealth so far above me, in every thing
else such a clot below my heel.  He did the most arrogant thing a
snob can do--he never answered my letter.

"I scraped together a little money, and made my way to England, and
came to that house--which you now call yours--and bearded that
noble nobleman--that father to be so proud of!  He was getting on
now in years, and growing, perhaps, a little nervous, and my first
appearance scared him.  He got no obeisance from me, you may be
certain, but still I did not revile him.  I told him of my mother's
state of mind, and the great care she required, and demanded that,
in common justice, he, having brought her to this, should help her.
But nothing would he promise, not a sixpence even, in the way of
regular allowance.  Any thing of that sort could only be arranged
by means of his solicitors.  He had so expensive a son, with a very
large and growing family, that he could not be pledged to any
yearly sum.  But if I would take a draft for 100 pounds, and sign
an acquittance in full of all claims, I might have it, upon proving
my identity.

"What identity had I to prove?  He had taken good care of that.  I
turned my back on him and left the house, without even asking for
his curse, though as precious as a good man's blessing.

"It was a wild and windy night, but with a bright moon rising, and
going across this park--or whatever it is called--I met my brother.
At a crest of the road we met face to face, with the moon across
our foreheads.  We had never met till now, nor even heard of one
another; at least he had never heard of me.  He started back as if
at his own ghost; but I had nothing to be startled at, in this
world or the other.

"I made his acquaintance, with deference, of course, and we got on
very well together.  At one time it seemed good luck for him to
have illegitimate kindred; for I saved his life when he was tangled
in the weeds of this river while bathing.  You owe me no thanks.  I
thought twice about it, and if the name would have ended with him,
I would never have used my basket-knife.  By trade I am a basket-
maker, like many another 'love-child.'

"However, he was grateful, if ever any body was, for I ran some
risk in doing it; and he always did his very best for me, and
encouraged me to visit him.  Not at his home--of course that would
never do--but when he was with his regiment.  Short of money as he
always was, through his father's nature and his own, which in some
points were the very opposite, he was even desirous to give me some
of that; but I never took a farthing from him.  If I had it at all,
I would have it from the proper one.  And from him I resolved to
have it.

"How terrified you look!  I am coming to it now.  Are you sure that
you can bear it?  It is nothing very harrowing; but still, young
ladies--"

"I feel a little faint," I could not help saying; "but that is
nothing.  I must hear the whole of it.  Please to go on without
minding me."

"For my own sake I will not, as well as for yours.  I can not have
you fainting, and bringing people here.  Go to the house and take
food, and recover your strength, and then come here again.  I
promise to be here, and your father's daughter will not take
advantage of my kindness."

Though his eyes were fierce (instead of being sad) and full of
strange tempestuous light, they bore some likeness to my father's,
and asserted power over me.  Reluctant as I was, I obeyed this man,
and left him there, and went slowly to the house, walking as if in
a troubled dream.



CHAPTER LII

FOR LIFE, DEATH


Upon my return, I saw nothing for a time but fans and feathers of
browning fern, dark shags of ling, and podded spurs of broom and
furze, and wisps of grass.  With great relief (of which I felt
ashamed while even breathing it), I thought that the man was afraid
to tell the rest of his story, and had fled; but ere my cowardice
had much time for self-congratulation a tall figure rose from the
ground, and fear compelled me into courage.  For throughout this
long interview more and more I felt an extremely unpleasant
conviction.  That stranger might not be a downright madman, nor
even what is called a lunatic; but still it was clear that upon
certain points--the laws of this country, for instance, and the
value of rank and station--his opinions were so outrageous that his
reason must be affected.  And, even without such proofs as these,
his eyes and his manner were quite enough.  Therefore I had need of
no small caution, not only concerning my words and gestures, but as
to my looks and even thoughts, for he seemed to divine these last
as quickly as they flashed across me.  I never had learned to
conceal my thoughts, and this first lesson was an awkward one.

"I hope you are better," he said, as kindly as it was possible for
him to speak.  "Now have no fear of me, once more I tell you.  I
will not sham any admiration, affection, or any thing of that kind;
but as for harming you--why, your father was almost the only kind
heart I ever met!"

"Then why did you send a most vile man to fetch me, when my father
was dead in the desert?"

"I never did any thing of the sort.  It was done in my name, but
not by me; I never even heard of it until long after, and I have a
score to settle with the man who did it."

"But Mr. Goad told me himself that you came and said you were the
true Lord Castlewood, and ordered him at once to America.  I never
saw truth more plainly stamped on a new situation--the face of a
rogue--than I saw it then on the face of Mr. Goad."

"You are quite right; he spoke the truth--to the utmost of his
knowledge.  I never saw Goad, and he never saw me.  I never even
dreamed of pretending to the title.  I was personated by a mean,
low friend of Sir Montague Hockin; base-born as I am, I would never
stoop to such a trick.  You will find out the meaning of that by-
and-by.  I have taken the law into my own hands--it is the only way
to work such laws--I have committed what is called a crime.  But,
compared with Sir Montague Hockin, I am whiter than yonder
shearling on his way to the river for his evening drink."

I gazed at his face, and could well believe it.  The setting sun
shone upon his chin and forehead--good, resolute, well-marked
features; his nose and mouth were keen and clear, his cheeks curt
and pale (though they would have been better for being a trifle
cleaner).  There was nothing suggestive of falsehood or fraud, and
but for the wildness of the eyes and flashes of cold ferocity, it
might have been called a handsome face.

"Very well," he began again, with one of those jerks which had
frightened me, "your father was kind to me, very kind indeed; but
he knew the old lord too well to attempt to interpose on my behalf.
On the other hand, he gave no warning of my manifest resolve;
perhaps he thought it a woman's threat, and me no better than a
woman!  And partly for his sake, no doubt, though mainly for my
mother's, I made the short work which I made; for he was horribly
straitened--and in his free, light way he told me so--by his hard
curmudgeon of a father.

"To that man, hopeless as he was, I gave fair grace, however, and
plenty of openings for repentance.  None of them would he embrace,
and he thought scorn of my lenity.  And I might have gone on with
such weakness longer, if I had not heard that his coach-and-four
was ordered for the Moonstock Inn.

"That he should dare thus to pollute the spot where he had so
forsworn himself!  I resolved that there he should pay justice,
either with his life or death.  And I went to your father's place
to tell him to prepare for disturbances; but he was gone to see his
wife, and I simply borrowed a pistol.

"Now you need not be at all afraid nor shrink away from me like
that.  I was bound upon stricter justice than any judge that sets
forth on circuit; and I meant to give, and did give, what no judge
affords to the guilty--the chance of leading a better life.  I had
brought my mother to England, and she was in a poor place in
London; her mind was failing more and more, and reverting to her
love-time, the one short happiness of her life.  'If I could but
see him, if I could but see him, and show him his tall and clever
son, he would forgive me all my sin in thinking ever to be his
wife.  Oh, Thomas!  I was too young to know it.  If I could but see
him once, just once!'

"How all this drove me no tongue can tell.  But I never let her
know it; I only said, 'Mother, he shall come and see you if he ever
sees any body more!'  And she trusted me and was satisfied.  She
only said, 'Take my picture, Thomas, to remind him of the happy
time, and his pledge to me inside of it.'  And she gave me what she
had kept for years in a bag of chamois leather, the case of which I
spoke before, which even in our hardest times she would never send
to the pawn-shop.

"The rest is simple enough.  I swore by the God, or the Devil, who
made me, that this black-hearted man should yield either his
arrogance or his life.  I followed him to the Moon valley, and fate
ordained that I should meet him where he forswore himself to my
mother; on that very plank where he had breathed his deadly lies he
breathed his last.  Would you like to hear all about it?"

For answer I only bowed my head.  His calm, methodical way of
telling his tale, like a common adventure with a dog, was more
shocking than any fury.

"Then it was this.  I watched him from the Moonstock Inn to a house
in the village, where he dined with company; and I did not even
know that it was the house of his son, your father--so great a gulf
is fixed between the legitimate and the bastard!  He had crossed
the wooden bridge in going, and was sure to cross it in coming
back.  How he could tread those planks without contrition and
horror--but never mind.  I resolved to bring him to a quiet parley
there, and I waited in the valley.

"The night was soft, and dark in patches where the land or wood
closed in; and the stream was brown and threw no light, though the
moon was on the uplands.  Time and place alike were fit for our
little explanation.  The path wound down the meadow toward me, and
I knew that he must come.  My firm intention was to spare him, if
he gave me a chance of it; but he never had the manners to do that.

"Here I waited, with the cold leaves fluttering around me, until I
heard a firm, slow step coming down the narrow path.  Then a figure
appeared in a stripe of moonlight, and stopped, and rested on a
staff.  Perhaps his lordship's mind went back some five-and-thirty
years, to times when he told pretty stories here; and perhaps he
laughed to himself to think how well he had got out of it.
Whatever his meditations were, I let him have them out, and waited.

"If he had even sighed, I might have felt more kindness toward him;
but he only gave something between a cough and a grunt, and I
clearly heard him say, 'Gout to-morrow morning! what the devil did
I drink port-wine for!'  He struck the ground with his stick and
came onward, thinking far more of his feet than heart.

"Then, as he planted one foot gingerly on the timber and stayed
himself, I leaped along the bridge and met him, and without a word
looked at him.  The moon was topping the crest of the hills and
threw my shadow upon him, the last that ever fell upon his body to
its knowledge.

"'Fellow, out of the way!' he cried, with a most commanding voice
and air, though only too well he knew me; and my wrath against him
began to rise.

"'You pass not here, and you never make another live step on this
earth,' I said, as calmly as now I speak, 'unless you obey my
orders.'

"He saw his peril, but he had courage--perhaps his only virtue.
'Fool! whoever you are,' he shouted, that his voice might fetch him
help; 'none of these moon-struck ways with me!  If you want to rob
me, try it!'

"'You know too well who I am,' I answered, as he made to push me
back.  'Lord Castlewood, here you have the choice--to lick the
dust, or be dust!  Here you forswore yourself; here you pay for
perjury.  On this plank you knelt to poor Winifred Hoyle, whom you
ruined and cast by; and now on this plank you shall kneel to her
son and swear to obey him--or else you die!'

"In spite of all his pride, he trembled as if I had been Death
himself, instead of his own dear eldest son.

"'What do you want!'  As he asked, he laid one hand on the rickety
rail and shook it, and the dark old tree behind him shook.  'How
much will satisfy you?'

"'Miser, none of your money for us! it is too late for your half
crowns!  We must have a little of what you have grudged--having
none to spare--your honor.  My demands are simple, and only two.
My mother is fool enough to yearn for one more sight of your false
face; you will come with me and see her.'

"'And if I yield to that, what next?'

"'The next thing is a trifle to a nobleman like you.  Here I have,
in this blue trinket (false gems and false gold, of course), your
solemn signature to a lie.  At the foot of that you will have the
truth to write, "I am a perjured liar!" and proudly sign it
"Castlewood," in the presence of two witnesses.  This can not hurt
your feelings much, and it need not be expensive.'

"Fury flashed in his bright old eyes, but he strove to check its
outbreak.  The gleaning of life, after threescore years, was
better, in such lordly fields, than the whole of the harvest we
got.  He knew that I had him all to myself, to indulge my filial
affection.

"'You have been misled; you have never heard the truth; you have
only heard your mother's story.  Allow me to go back and to sit in
a dry place; I am tired, and no longer young; you are bound to hear
my tale as well.  I passed a dry stump just now; I will go back:
there is no fear of interruption.'  My lord was talking against
time.

"'From this bridge you do not budge until you have gone on your
knees and sworn what I shall dictate to you; this time it shall be
no perjury.  Here I hold your cursed pledge--'

"He struck at me, or at the locket--no matter which--but it flew
away.  My right arm was crippled by his heavy stick; but I am left-
handed, as a bastard should be.  From my left hand he took his
death, and I threw the pistol after him: such love had he earned
from his love-child!"

Thomas Castlewood, or Hoyle, or whatever else his name was, here
broke off from his miserable words, and, forgetting all about my
presence, set his gloomy eyes on the ground.  Lightly he might try
to speak, but there was no lightness in his mind, and no spark of
light in his poor dead soul.  Being so young, and unacquainted with
the turns of life-worn mind, I was afraid to say a word except to
myself, and to myself I only said, "The man is mad, poor fellow;
and no wonder!"

The sun was setting, not upon the vast Pacific from desert heights,
but over the quiet hills and through the soft valleys of tame
England; and, different as the whole scene was, a certain other sad
and fearful sunset lay before me: the fall of night upon my dying
father and his helpless child, the hour of anguish and despair!
Here at last was the cause of all laid horribly before me; and the
pity deeply moving me passed into cold abhorrence.  But the man was
lost in his own visions.

"So in your savage wrath," I said, "you killed your own father, and
in your fright left mine to bear the brunt of it."

He raised his dark eyes heavily, and his thoughts were far astray
from mine.  He did not know what I had said, though he knew that I
had spoken.  The labor of calling to mind and telling his treatment
of his father had worked upon him so much that he could not freely
shift attention.

"I came for something, something that can be only had from you," he
said, "and only since your cousin's death, and something most
important.  But will you believe me? it is wholly gone, gone from
mind and memory!"

"I am not surprised at that," I answered, looking at his large wan
face, and while I did so, losing half my horror in strange sadness.
"Whatever it is, I will do it for you; only let me know by post."

"I see what you mean--not to come any more.  You are right about
that, for certain.  But your father was good to me, and I loved
him, though I had no right to love any one.  My letter will show
that I wronged him never.  The weight of the world is off my mind
since I have told you every thing; you can send me to the gallows,
if you think fit, but leave it till my mother dies.  Good-by, poor
child.  I have spoiled your life, but only by chance consequence,
not in murder-birth--as I was born."

Before I could answer or call him back, if I even wished to do so,
he was far away, with his long, quiet stride; and, like his life,
his shadow fell, chilling, sombre, cast away.



CHAPTER LIII

BRUNTSEA DEFIANT


Thus at last--by no direct exertion of my own, but by turn after
turn of things to which I blindly gave my little help--the mystery
of my life was solved.  Many things yet remained to be fetched up
to focus and seen round; but the point of points was settled.

Of all concerned, my father alone stood blameless and heroic.  What
tears of shame and pride I shed, for ever having doubted him!--not
doubting his innocence of the crime itself, but his motives for
taking it upon him.  I had been mean enough to dream that my dear
father outraged justice to conceal his own base birth!

That ever such thought should have entered my mind may not make me
charitable to the wicked thoughts of the world at large, but, at
any rate, it ought to do so.  And the man in question, my own
father, who had starved himself to save me!  Better had I been the
most illegal child ever issued into this cold world, than dare to
think so of my father, and then find him the model of every thing.

To hide the perjury, avarice, and cowardice of his father, and to
appease the bitter wrong, he had even bowed to take the dark
suspicion on himself, until his wronged and half-sane brother (to
whom, moreover, he owed his life) should have time to fly from
England.  No doubt he blamed himself as much as he condemned the
wretched criminal, because he had left his father so long unwarned
and so unguarded, and had thoughtlessly used light words about him,
which fell not lightly on a stern, distempered mind.  Hence,
perhaps, the exclamation which had told against him so.

And then when he broke jail--which also told against him terribly--
to revisit his shattered home, it is likely enough that he meant
after that to declare the truth, and stand his trial as a man
should do.  But his wife, perhaps, in her poor weak state, could
not endure the thought of it, knowing how often jury is injury, and
seeing all the weight against him.  She naturally pledged him to
pursue his flight, "for her sake," until she should be better able
to endure his trial, and until he should have more than his own
pure word and character to show.  And probably if he had then been
tried, with so many things against him, and no production of that
poor brother, his tale would have seemed but a flimsy invention,
and "Guilty" would have been the verdict.  And they could not know
that, in such case, the guilty man would have come forward, as we
shall see that he meant to do.

When my father heard of his dear wife's death, and believed, no
doubt, that I was buried with the rest, the gloom of a broken and
fated man, like polar night, settled down on him.  What matter to
him about public opinion or any thing else in the world just now?
The sins of his father were on his head; let them rest there,
rather than be trumpeted by him.  He had nothing to care for; let
him wander about.  And so he did for several years, until I became
a treasure to him--for parental is not intrinsic value--and then,
for my sake, as now appeared, he betook us both to a large kind
land.

Revolving these things sadly, and a great many more which need not
be told, I thought it my duty to go as soon as possible to
Bruntsea, and tell my good and faithful friends what I was loath to
write about.  There, moreover, I could obtain what I wanted to
confirm me--the opinion of an upright, law-abiding, honorable man
about the course I proposed to take.  And there I might hear
something more as to a thing which had troubled me much in the
deepest of my own troubles--the melancholy plight of dear Uncle
Sam.  Wild, and absurd as it may appear to people of no gratitude,
my heart was set upon faring forth in search of the noble Sawyer,
if only it could be reconciled with my duty here in England.  That
such a proceeding would avail but little, seemed now, alas! too
manifest; but a plea of that kind generally means that we have no
mind to do a thing.

Be that as it will, I made what my dear Yankees--to use the Major's
impertinent phrase--call "straight tracks" for that ancient and
obsolete town, rejuvenized now by its Signor.  The cause of my good
friend's silence--not to use that affected word "reticence"--was
quite unknown to me, and disturbed my spirit with futile guesses.

Resolute, therefore, to pierce the bottom of every surviving
mystery, I made claim upon "Mr. Stixon, junior"--as "Stixon's boy"
had now vindicated his right to be called, up to supper-time--and
he with high chivalry responded.  Not yet was he wedded to Miss
Polly Hopkins, the daughter of the pickled-pork man; otherwise
would he or could he have made telegraphic blush at the word
"Bruntsea?"  And would he have been quite so eager to come?

Such things are trifling, compared to our own, which naturally fill
the universe.  I was bound to be a great lady now, and patronize
and regulate and drill all the doings of nature.  So I durst not
even ask, though desiring much to do so, how young Mr. Stixon was
getting on with his delightful Polly.  And his father, as soon as
he found me turned into the mistress, and "his lady" (as he would
have me called thenceforth, whether or no on my part), not another
word would he tell me of the household sentiments, politics, or
romances.  It would have been thought a thing beneath me to put any
nice little questions now, and I was obliged to take up the tone
which others used toward me.  But all the while I longed for
freedom, Uncle Sam, Suan Isco, and even Martin of the Mill.

Law business, however, and other hinderances, kept me from starting
at once for Bruntsea, impatient as I was to do so.  Indeed, it was
not until the morning of the last Saturday in November that I was
able to get away.  The weather had turned to much rain, I remember,
with two or three tempestuous nights, and the woods were almost
bare of leaves, and the Thames looked brown and violent.

In the fly from Newport to Bruntsea I heard great rollers
thundering heavily upon the steep bar of shingle, and such a lake
of water shone in the old bed of the river that I quite believed at
first that the Major had carried out his grand idea, and brought
the river back again.  But the flyman shook his head, and looked
very serious, and told me that he feared bad times were coming.
What I saw was the work of the Lord in heaven, and no man could
prevail against it.  He had always said, though no concern of his--
for he belonged to Newport--that even a British officer could not
fly in the face of the Almighty.  He himself had a brother on the
works, regular employed, and drawing good money, and proud enough
about it; and the times he had told him across a pint of ale--
howsomever, our place was to hope for the best; but the top of the
springs was not come yet, and a pilot out of Newport told him the
water was making uncommon strong; but he did hope the wind had nigh
blowed itself out; if not, they would have to look blessed sharp
tomorrow.  He had heard say that in time of Queen Elizabeth
sixscore of houses was washed clean away, and the river itself
knocked right into the sea; and a thing as had been once might just
come to pass again, though folk was all so clever now they thought
they wor above it.  But, for all that, their grandfathers' goggles
might fit them.  But here we was in Bruntsea town, and, bless his
old eyes--yes!  If I pleased to look along his whip, I might see
ancient pilot come, he did believe, to warn of them!

Following his guidance, I descried a stout old man, in a sailor's
dress, weather-proof hat, and long boots, standing on a low
seawall, and holding vehement converse with some Bruntsea boatmen
and fishermen who were sprawling on the stones as usual.

"Driver, you know him.  Take the lower road," I said, "and ask what
his opinion is."

"No need to ask him," the flyman answered; "old Banks would never
be here, miss, if he was of two opinions.  He hath come to fetch
his daughter out of harm, I doubt, the wife of that there Bishop
Jim, they call him--the chap with two nails to his thumb, you know.
Would you like to hear how they all take it, miss?"

With these words he turned to the right, and drove into Major
Hockin's "Sea Parade."  There we stopped to hear what was going on,
and it proved to be well worth our attention.  The old pilot
perhaps had exhausted reason, and now was beginning to give way to
wrath.  The afternoon was deepening fast, with heavy gray clouds
lowering, showing no definite edge, but streaked with hazy lines,
and spotted by some little murky blurs or blots, like tar pots,
carried slowly.

"Hath Noah's Ark ever told a lie?" the ancient pilot shouted,
pointing with one hand at these, and with a clinched fist at the
sea, whence came puffs of sullen air, and turned his gray locks
backward.  "Mackerel sky when the sun got up, mermaiden's eggs at
noon, and now afore sunset Noah's Arks!  Any of them breweth a gale
of wind, and the three of them bodes a tempest.  And the top of the
springs of the year to-morrow.  Are ye daft, or all gone upon the
spree, my men?  Your fathers would 'a knowed what the new moon
meant.  Is this all that cometh out of larning to read?"

"Have a pinch of 'bacco, old man," said one, "to help you off with
that stiff reel.  What consarn can he be of yourn?"

"Don't you be put out, mate," cried another.  "Never came sea as
could top that bar, and never will in our time.  Go and calk your
old leaky craft, Master Banks."

"We have rode out a good many gales without seeking prophet from
Newport--a place never heerd on when this old town was made."

"Come and wet your old whistle at the 'Hockin Arms,' Banks.  You
must want it, after that long pipe."

"'Hockin Arms,' indeed!" the pilot answered, turning away in a rage
from them.  "What Hockin Arms will there be this time to-morrow?
Hockin legs wanted, more likely, and Hockin wings.  And you poor
grinning ninnies, as ought to have four legs, ye'll be praying that
ye had them to-morrow.  However, ye've had warning, and ye can't
blame me.  The power of the Lord is in the air and sea.  Is this
the sort of stuff ye trust in?"

He set one foot against our Major's wall--an action scarcely honest
while it was so green--and, coming from a hale and very thickset
man, the contemptuous push sent a fathom of it outward.  Rattle,
rattle went the new patent concrete, starting up the lazy-pated
fellows down below.

"You'll try the walls of a jail," cried one.  "You go to Noah's
Ark," shouted another.  The rest bade him go to a place much worse;
but he buttoned his jacket in disdain, and marched away, without
spoiling the effect by any more weak words.

"Right you are," cried my flyman--"right you are, Master Banks.
Them lubbers will sing another song to-morrow.  Gee up, old hoss,
then!"

All this, and the ominous scowl of the sky and menacing roar of the
sea (already crowding with black rollers), disturbed me so that I
could say nothing, until, at the corner of the grand new hotel, we
met Major Hockin himself, attired in a workman's loose jacket, and
carrying a shovel.  He was covered with mud and dried flakes of
froth, and even his short white whiskers were incrusted with
sparkles of brine; but his face was ruddy and smiling, and his
manner as hearty as ever.

"You here, Erema!  Oh, I beg pardon--Baroness Castlewood, if you
please.  My dear, again I congratulate you."

"You have as little cause to do that as I fear I can find in your
case.  You have no news for me from America?  How sad!  But what a
poor plight you yourself are in!"

"Not a bit of it.  At first sight you might think so; and we
certainly have had a very busy time.  Send back the fly.  Leave
your bag at our hotel.  Porter, be quick with Lady Castlewood's
luggage.  One piece of luck befalls me--to receive so often this
beautiful hand.  What a lot of young fellows now would die of
envy--"

"I am glad that you still can talk nonsense," I said; "for I truly
was frightened at this great lake, and so many of your houses even
standing in the water."

"It will do them good.  It will settle the foundations and
crystallize the mortar.  They will look twice as well when they
come out again, and never have rats or black beetles.  We were
foolish enough to be frightened at first; and there may have been
danger a fortnight ago.  But since that tide we have worked day and
night, and every thing is now so stable that fear is simply
ridiculous.  On the whole, it has been a most excellent thing--
quite the making, in fact, of Bruntsea."

"Then Bruntsea must be made of water," I replied, gazing sadly at
the gulf which parted us from the Sea Parade, the Lyceum, and
Baths, the Bastion Promenade, and so on; beyond all which the
streaky turmoil and misty scud of the waves were seen.

"Made of beer, more likely," he retorted, with a laugh.  "If my
fellows worked like horses--which they did--they also drank like
fishes.  Their mouths were so dry with the pickle, they said.  But
the total abstainers were the worst, being out of practice with the
can.  However, let us make no complaints.  We ought to be truly
thankful; and I shall miss the exercise.  That is why you have
heard so little from me.  You see the position at a glance.  I have
never been to Paris at all, Erema.  I have not rubbed up my
parleywoo, with a blast from Mr. Bellows.  I was stopped by a
telegram about this job--acrior illum.  I had some Latin once,
quite enough for the House of Commons, but it all oozed out at my
elbows; and to ladies (by some superstition) it is rude--though
they treat us to bad French enough.  Never mind.  What I want to
say is this, that I have done nothing, but respected your sad
trouble; for you took a wild fancy to that poor bedridden, who
never did you a stroke of good except about Cosmopolitan Jack, and
whose removal has come at the very nick of time.  For what could
you have done for money, with the Yankees cutting each other's
throats, and your nugget quite sure to be annexed, or, at the very
best, squared up in greenbacks?"

"You ought not to speak so, Major Hockin.  If all your plans were
not under water, I should be quite put out with you.  My cousin was
not bedridden; neither was he at all incapable, as you have called
him once or twice.  He was an infinitely superior man to--to what
one generally sees; and when you have heard what I have to tell, in
his place you would have done just as he did.  And as for money,
and 'happy release'--as the people who never want it for themselves
express it--such words simply sicken me; at great times they are so
sordid."

"What is there in this world that is not sordid--to the young in
one sense, and to the old in another?"

Major Hockin so seldom spoke in this didactic way, and I was so
unable to make it out, that, having expected some tiff on his part
at my juvenile arrogance, I was just in the mould for a deep
impression from sudden stamp of philosophy.  I had nothing to say
in reply, and he went up in my opinion greatly.

He knew it; and he said, with touching kindness, "Erema, come and
see your dear aunt Mary.  She has had an attack of rheumatic gout
in her thimble-finger, and her maids have worried her out of her
life, and by far the most brilliant of her cocks (worth 20 pounds
they tell me) breathed his last on Sunday night, with gapes, or
croup, or something.  This is why you have not heard again from
her.  I have been in the trenches day and night, stoning out the
sea with his own stones, by a new form of concrete discovered by
myself.  And unless I am very much mistaken--in fact, I do not
hesitate to say--But such things are not in your line at all.  Let
us go up to the house.  Our job is done, and I think Master Neptune
may pound away in vain.  I have got a new range in the kitchen now,
partly of my own invention; you can roast, or bake, or steam, or
stew, or frizzle kabobs--all by turning a screw.  And not only
that, but you can keep things hot, piping hot, and ripening, as it
were, better than when they first were done.  Instead of any burned
iron taste, or scum on the gravy, or clottiness, they mellow by
waiting, and make their own sauce.  If I ever have time I shall
patent this invention; why, you may burn brick-dust in it, Bath-
brick, hearth-stone, or potsherds!  At any hour of the day or
night, while the sea is in this condition, I may want my dinner;
and there we have it.  We say grace immediately, and down we sit.
Let us take it by surprise, if it can be taken so.  Up through my
chief drive, instanter!  I think that I scarcely ever felt more
hungry.  The thought of that range always sets me off.  And one of
its countless beauties is the noble juicy fragrance."

Major Hockin certainly possessed the art--so meritorious in a host--
of making people hungry; and we mounted the hill with alacrity,
after passing his letter-box, which reminded me of the mysterious
lady.  He pointed to "Desolate Hole," as he called it, and said
that he believed she was there still, though she never came out now
to watch their house.  And a man of dark and repelling aspect had
been seen once or twice by his workmen, during the time of their
night relays, rapidly walking toward Desolate Hole.  How any one
could live in such a place, with the roar and the spray of the sea,
as it had been, at the very door, and through the windows, some
people might understand, but not the Major.

Good Mrs. Hockin received me with her usual warmth and kindness,
and scolded me for having failed to write more to her, as all
people seem to do when conscious of having neglected that duty
themselves.  Then she showed me her thimble-finger, which certainly
was a little swollen; and then she poured forth her gratitude for
her many blessings, as she always did after any little piece of
grumbling.  And I told her that if at her age I were only a quarter
as pleasant and sweet of temper, I should consider myself a
blessing to any man.

After dinner my host produced the locket, which he had kept for the
purpose of showing it to the artist's son in Paris, and which he
admired so intensely that I wished it were mine to bestow on him.
Then I told him that, through a thing wholly unexpected--the
confession of the criminal himself--no journey to Paris was needful
now.  I repeated that strange and gloomy tale, to the loud
accompaniment of a rising wind and roaring sea, while both my
friends listened intently.

"Now what can have led him so to come to you?" they asked; "and
what do you mean to do about it?"

"He came to me, no doubt, to propose some bargain, which could not
be made in my cousin's lifetime.  But the telling of his tale made
him feel so strange that he really could not remember what it was.
As to what I am to do, I must beg for your opinion; such a case is
beyond my decision."  Mrs. Hockin began to reply, but stopped,
looking dutifully at her lord.

"There is no doubt what you are bound to do, at least in one way,"
the Major said.  "You are a British subject, I suppose, and you
must obey the laws of the country.  A man has confessed to you a
murder--no matter whether it was committed twenty years ago or two
minutes; no matter whether it was a savage, cold-blooded,
premeditated crime, or whether there were things to palliate it.
Your course is the same; you must hand him over.  In fact, you
ought never to have let him go."

"How could I help it?" I pleaded, with surprise.  "It was
impossible for me to hold him."

"Then you should have shot him with his own pistol.  He offered it
to you.  You should have grasped it, pointed it at his heart, and
told him that he was a dead man if he stirred."

"Aunt Mary, would you have done that?" I asked.  "It is so easy to
talk of fine things!  But in the first place, I had no wish to stop
him; and in the next, I could not if I had."

"My dear," Mrs. Hockin replied, perceiving my distress at this view
of the subject, "I should have done exactly what you did.  If the
laws of this country ordain that women are to carry them out
against great strong men, who, after all, have been sadly injured,
why, it proves that women ought to make the laws, which to my mind
is simply ridiculous."



CHAPTER LIV

BRUNTSEA DEFEATED


Little sleep had I that night.  Such conflict was in my mind about
the proper thing to be done next, and such a war of the wind
outside, above and between the distant uproar of the long
tumultuous sea.  Of that sound much was intercepted by the dead
bulk of the cliff, but the wind swung fiercely over this, and
rattled through all shelter.  In the morning the storm was furious;
but the Major declared that his weather-glass had turned, which
proved that the gale was breaking.  The top of the tide would be at
one o'clock, and after church we should behold a sight he was
rather proud of--the impotent wrath of the wind and tide against
his patent concrete.

"My dear, I scarcely like such talk," Mrs. Hockin gently
interposed.  "To me it seems almost defiant of the power of the
Lord.  Remember what happened to poor Smeaton--at least I think his
name was Smeaton, or Stanley, was it?  But I dare say you know
best.  He defied the strength of the Lord, like the people at the
mouth of their tent, and he was swallowed up."

"Mary, my dear, get your prayer-book.  Rasper's fly is waiting for
us, and the parson has no manners.  When he drops off, I present to
the living; and I am not at all sure that I shall let George have
it.  He is fond of processions, and all that stuff.  The only
procession in the Church of England is that of the lord of the
manor to his pew.  I will be the master in my own church."

"Of course, dear, of course; so you ought to be.  It always was so
in my father's parish.  But you must not speak so of our poor
George.  He may be 'High-Church,' as they call it; but he knows
what is due to his family, and he has a large one coming."

We set off hastily for the church, through blasts of rain and
buffets of wind, which threatened to overturn the cab, and the
seaward window was white, as in a snowstorm, with pellets of froth,
and the drift of sea-scud.  I tried to look out, but the blur and
the dash obscured the sight of every thing.  And though in this
lower road we were partly sheltered by the pebble ridge, the driver
was several times obliged to pull his poor horse up and face the
wind, for fear of our being blown over.

That ancient church, with its red-tiled spire, stands well up in
the good old town, at the head of a street whose principal object
now certainly is to lead to it.  Three hundred years ago that
street had business of its own to think of, and was brave perhaps
with fine men and maids at the time of the Spanish Armada.  Its
only bravery now was the good old church, and some queer gables,
and a crypt (which was true to itself by being buried up to the
spandrels), and one or two corners where saints used to stand,
until they were pelted out of them, and where fisher-like men, in
the lodging season, stand selling fish caught at Billingsgate.  But
to Bruntsea itself the great glory of that street was rather of
hope than of memory.  Bailiff Hopkins had taken out three latticed
windows, and put in one grand one of plate-glass, with "finishing"
blinds all varnished.  And even on a Sunday morning Bruntsea wanted
to know what ever the bailiff was at behind them.  Some said that
he did all his pickling on a Sunday; and by putting up "spectacle
glass" he had challenged the oldest inhabitant to come and try his
focus.

Despite all the rattle and roar of the wind, we went on in church
as usual.  The vicar had a stout young curate from Durham, who
could outshout any tempest, with a good stone wall between them;
and the Bruntsea folk were of thicker constitution than to care an
old hat for the weather.  Whatever was "sent by the Lord" they took
with a grumble, but no excitement.  The clock in front of the
gallery told the time of the day as five minutes to twelve, when
the vicar, a pleasant old-fashioned man, pronounced his text, which
he always did thrice over to make us sure of it.  And then he
hitched up his old black gown, and directed his gaze at the lord of
the manor, to impress the whole church with authority.  Major
Hockin acknowledged in a proper manner this courtesy of the
minister by rubbing up his crest, and looking even more wide-awake
than usual; whereas Aunt Mary, whose kind heart longed to see her
own son in that pulpit, calmly settled back her shoulders, and
arranged her head and eyes so well as to seem at a distance in rapt
attention, while having a nice little dream of her own.  But
suddenly all was broken up.  The sexton (whose license as warden of
the church, and even whose duty it was to hear the sermon only
fitfully, from the tower arch, where he watched the boys, and
sniffed the bakehouse of his own dinner)--to the consternation of
every body, this faithful man ran up the nave, with his hands above
his head, and shouted,

"All Brownzee be awash, awash"--sounding it so as to rhyme with
"lash"--"the zea, the zea be all over us!"

The clergyman in the pulpit turned and looked through a window
behind him, while all the congregation rose.

"It is too true," the preacher cried; "the sea is in over the bank,
my friends.  Every man must rush to his own home.  The blessing of
the Lord be on you through His fearful visitation!"

He had no time to say more; and we thought it very brave of him to
say that, for his own house was in the lower village, and there he
had a wife and children sick.  In half a minute the church was
empty, and the street below it full of people, striving and
struggling against the blast, and breasting it at an incline like
swimmers, but beaten back ever and anon and hurled against one
another, with tattered umbrellas, hats gone, and bonnets hanging.
And among them, like gulls before the wind, blew dollops of spray
and chunks of froth, with every now and then a slate or pantile.

All this was so bad that scarcely any body found power to speak, or
think, or see.  The Major did his very best to lead us, but could
by no means manage it.  And I screamed into his soundest ear to
pull Aunt Mary into some dry house--for she could not face such
buffeting--and to let me fare for myself as I might.  So we left
Mrs. Hockin in the bailiff's house, though she wanted sadly to come
with us, and on we went to behold the worst.  And thus, by running
the byes of the wind, and craftily hugging the corners, we got to
the foot of the street at last, and then could go no further.

For here was the very sea itself, with furious billows panting.
Before us rolled and ran a fearful surf of crested whiteness, torn
by the screeching squalls, and tossed in clashing tufts and
pinnacles.  And into these came, sweeping over the shattered chine
of shingle, gigantic surges from the outer deep, towering as they
crossed the bar, and combing against the sky-line, then rushing
onward, and driving the huddle of the ponded waves before them.

The tide was yet rising, and at every blow the wreck and the havoc
grew worse and worse.  That long sweep of brick-work, the "Grand
Promenade," bowed and bulged, with wall and window knuckled in and
out, like wattles; the "Sea Parade" was a parade of sea; and a
bathing-machine wheels upward lay, like a wrecked Noah's Ark, on
the top of the "Saline-Silico-Calcareous Baths."

The Major stood by me, while all his constructions "went by the
board," as they say at sea; and verily every thing was at sea.  I
grieved for him so that it was not the spray alone that put salt
drops on my cheeks.  And I could not bear to turn and look at his
good old weather-beaten face.  But he was not the man to brood upon
his woes in silence.  He might have used nicer language, perhaps,
but his inner sense was manful.

"I don't care a damn," he shouted, so that all the women heard him.
"I can only say I am devilish glad that I never let one of those
houses."

There was a little band of seamen, under the shelter of a garden
wall, crouching, or sitting, or standing (or whatever may be the
attitude, acquired by much voyaging and experience of bad weather,
which can not be solved, as to centre of gravity, even by the man
who does it), and these men were so taken with the Major's
manifesto, clinched at once and clarified to them by strong, short
language, that they gave him a loud "hurrah," which flew on the
wings of the wind over house-tops.  So queer and sound is English
feeling that now Major Hockin became in truth what hitherto he was
in title only--the lord and master of Bruntsea.

"A boat! a boat!" he called out again.  "We know not who are
drowning.  The bank still breaks the waves; a stout boat surely
could live inside it."

"Yes, a boat could live well enough in this cockle, though never
among them breakers," old Barnes, the fisherman, answered, who used
to take us out for whiting; "but Lord bless your honor, all the
boats are thumped to pieces, except yonner one, and who can get at
her?"

Before restoring his hands to their proper dwelling-place--his
pockets--he jerked his thumb toward a long white boat, which we had
not seen through the blinding scud.  Bereft of its brethren, or
sisters--for all fluctuating things are feminine--that boat
survived, in virtue of standing a few feet higher than the rest.
But even so, and mounted on the last hump of the pebble ridge, it
was rolling and reeling with stress of the wind and the wash of
wild water under it.

"How nobly our Lyceum stands!" the Major shouted, for any thing
less than a shout was dumb.  "This is the time to try institutions.
I am proud of my foundations."

In answer to his words appeared a huge brown surge, a mountain
ridge, seething backward at the crest with the spread and weight of
onset.  This great wave smote all other waves away, or else
embodied them, and gathered its height against the poor worn pebble
bank, and descended.  A roar distinct above the universal roar
proclaimed it; a crash of conflict shook the earth, and the
shattered bank was swallowed in a world of leaping whiteness.  When
this wild mass dashed onward into the swelling flood before us,
there was no sign of Lyceum left, but stubs of foundation, and a
mangled roof rolling over and over, like a hen-coop.

"Well, that beats every thing I ever saw," exclaimed the gallant
Major.  "What noble timber!  What mortise-work!  No London scamping
there, my lads.  But what comes here?  Why, the very thing we
wanted!  Barnes, look alive, my man.  Run to your house, and get a
pair of oars and a bucket."

It was the boat, the last surviving boat of all that hailed from
Bruntsea.  That monstrous billow had tossed it up like a school-
boy's kite, and dropped it whole, with an upright keel, in the
inland sea, though nearly half full of water.  Driven on by wind
and wave, it labored heavily toward us; and more than once it
seemed certain to sink as it broached to and shipped seas again.
But half a dozen bold fishermen rushed with a rope into the short
angry surf--to which the polled shingle bank still acted as a
powerful breakwater, else all Bruntsea had collapsed--and they
hauled up the boat with a hearty cheer, and ran her up straight
with, "Yo--heave--oh!" and turned her on her side to drain, and
then launched her again, with a bucket and a man to bail out the
rest of the water, and a pair of heavy oars brought down by Barnes,
and nobody knows what other things.

"Naught to steer with.  Rudder gone!" cried one of the men, as the
furious gale drove the boat, athwart the street, back again.

"Wants another oar," said Barnes.  "What a fool I were to bring
only two!"

"Here you are!" shouted Major Hockin.  "One of you help me to pull
up this pole."

Through a shattered gate they waded into a little garden, which had
been the pride of the season at Bruntsea; and there from the ground
they tore up a pole, with a board at the top nailed across it, and
the following not rare legend:  "Lodgings to let.  Inquire within.
First floor front, and back parlors."

"Fust-rate thing to steer with!  Would never have believed you had
the sense!"  So shouted Barnes--a rough man, roughened by the
stress of storm and fright.  "Get into starn-sheets if so liketh.
Ye know, ye may be useful."

"I defy you to push off without my sanction.  Useful, indeed!  I am
the captain of this boat.  All the ground under it is mine.  Did
you think, you set of salted radicals, that I meant to let you go
without me?  And all among my own houses!"

"Look sharp, governor, if you has the pluck, then.  Mind, we are
more like to be swamped than not."

As the boat swung about, Major Hockin jumped in, and so, on the
spur of the moment, did I.  We staggered all about with the heave
and roll, and both would have fallen on the planks, or out over, if
we had not tumbled, with opposite impetus, into the arms of each
other.  Then a great wave burst and soaked us both, and we fell
into sitting on a slippery seat.

Meanwhile two men were tugging at each oar, and Barnes himself
steering with the sign-board; and the head of the boat was kept
against the wind and the billows from our breakwater.  Some of
these seemed resolved (though shorn of depth and height in
crossing) to rush all over us and drown us in the washer-women's
drying ground.  By skill and presence of mind, our captain, Barnes,
foiled all their violence, till we got a little shelter from the
ruins of the "Young Men's Christian Institute."

"Hold all!" cried Barnes; "only keep her head up, while I look
about what there is to do."

The sight was a thing to remember; and being on the better side now
of the scud, because it was flying away from us, we could make out
a great deal more of the trouble which had befallen Bruntsea.  The
stormy fiord which had usurped the ancient track of the river was
about a furlong in width, and troughed with white waves vaulting
over.  And the sea rushed through at the bottom as well, through
scores of yards of pebbles, as it did in quiet weather even, when
the tide was brimming.  We in the tossing boat, with her head to
the inrush of the outer sea, were just like people sitting upon the
floats or rafts of a furious weir; and if any such surge had topped
the ridge as the one which flung our boat to us, there could be no
doubt that we must go down as badly as the Major's houses.
However, we hoped for the best, and gazed at the desolation inland.

Not only the Major's great plan, but all the lower line of old
Bruntsea, was knocked to pieces, and lost to knowledge in freaks of
wind-lashed waters.  Men and women were running about with favorite
bits of furniture, or feather-beds, or babies' cradles, or whatever
they had caught hold of.  The butt ends of the three old streets
that led down toward the sea-ground were dipped, as if playing
seesaw in the surf, and the storm made gangways of them and
lighthouses of the lamp-posts.  The old public-house at the corner
was down, and the waves leaping in at the post-office door, and
wrecking the globes of the chemist.

"Drift and dash, and roar and rush, and the devil let loose in the
thick of it.  My eyes are worn out with it.  Take the glass, Erema,
and tell us who is next to be washed away.  A new set of clothes-
props for Mrs. Mangles I paid for the very day I came back from
town."

With these words, the lord of the submarine manor (whose strength
of spirit amazed me) offered his pet binocular, which he never went
without upon his own domain.  And fisherman Barnes, as we rose and
fell, once more saved us from being "swamped" by his clever way of
paddling through a scallop in the stern, with the board about the
first floor front to let.

The seamen, just keeping way on the boat, sheltered their eyes with
their left hands, and fixed them on the tumultuous scene.

I also gazed through the double glass, which was a very clear one;
but none of us saw any human being at present in any peril.

"Old pilot was right, after all," said one; "but what a good job as
it come o' middle day, and best of all of a Sunday!"

"I have heered say," replied another, "that the like thing come to
pass nigh upon three hunder years agone.  How did you get your
things out, Jem Bishop?"

Jem, the only one of them whose house was in the havoc, regarded
with a sailor's calmness the entry of the sea through his bedroom
window, and was going to favor us with a narrative, when one of his
mates exclaimed,

"What do I see yonner, lads?  Away beyond town altogether.  Seemeth
to me like a fellow swimming.  Miss, will you lend me spy-glass?
Never seed a double-barreled one before.  Can use him with one eye
shut, I s'pose?"

"No good that way, Joe," cried Barnes, with a wink of superior
knowledge, for he often had used this binocular.  "Shut one eye for
one barrel--stands to reason, then, you shut both for two, my son."

"Stow that," said the quick-eyed sailor, as he brought the glass to
bear in a moment.  "It is a man in the water, lads, and swimming to
save the witch, I do believe."

"Bless me!" cried the Major; "how stupid of us!  I never thought
once of that poor woman.  She must be washed out long ago.  Pull
for your lives, my friends.  A guinea apiece if you save her."

"And another from me," I cried.  Whereupon the boat swept round,
and the tough ash bent, and we rushed into no small danger.  For
nearly half a mile had we to pass of raging and boisterous water,
almost as wild as the open sea itself at the breaches of the pebble
ridge.  And the risk of a heavy sea boarding us was fearfully
multiplied by having thus to cross the storm instead of breasting
it.  Useless and helpless, and only in the way, and battered about
by wind and sea, so that my Sunday dress was become a drag, what
folly, what fatuity, what frenzy, I might call it, could ever have
led me to jump into that boat?  "I don't know.  I only know that I
always do it," said my sensible self to its mad sister, as they
both shut their eyes at a great white wave.  "If I possibly
survive, I will try to know better.  But ever from my childhood I
am getting into scrapes."

The boat labored on, with a good many grunts, but not a word from
any one.  More than once we were obliged to fetch up as a great
billow topped the poor shingle bank; and we took so much water on
board that the men said afterward that I saved them.  I only
remember sitting down and working at the bucket with both hands,
till much of the skin was gone, and my arms and many other places
ached.  But what was that to be compared with drowning?

At length we were opposite "Desolate Hole," which was a hole no
longer, but filled and flooded with the churning whirl and reckless
dominance of water.  Tufts and tussocks of shattered brush and
rolling wreck played round it, and the old gray stone of mullioned
windows split the wash like mooring-posts.  We passed and gazed;
but the only sound was the whistling of the tempest, and the only
living sight a sea-gull, weary of his wings, and drowning.

"No living creature can be there," the Major broke our long
silence.  "Land, my friends, if land we may.  We risk our own lives
for nothing."

The men lay back on their oars to fetch the gallant boat to the
wind again, when through a great gap in the ruins they saw a sight
that startled manhood.  At the back of that ruin, on the landward
side, on a wall which, tottered under them, there were two figures
standing.  One a tall man, urging on, the other a woman shrinking.
At a glance, or with a thought, I knew them both.  One was Lord
Castlewood's first love, the other his son and murderer.

Our men shouted with the whole power of their hearts to tell that
miserable pair to wait till succor should be brought to them.  And
the Major stood up and waved his hat, and in doing so tumbled back
again.  I can not tell--how could I tell in the thick of it?--but
an idea or a flit of fancy touched me (and afterward became
conviction) that while the man heard us not at all, and had no
knowledge of us, his mother turned round and saw us all, and faced
the storm in preference.

Whatever the cause may have been, at least she suddenly changed her
attitude.  The man had been pointing to the roof, which threatened
to fall in a mass upon them, while she had been shuddering back
from the depth of eddying waves below her.  But now she drew up her
poor bent figure, and leaned on her son to obey him.

Our boat, with strong arms laboring for life, swept round the old
gable of the ruin; but we were compelled to "give it wide berth,"
as Captain Barnes shouted; and then a black squall of terrific wind
and hail burst forth.  We bowed our heads and drew our bodies to
their tightest compass, and every rib of our boat vibrated as a
violin does; and the oars were beaten flat, and dashed their drip
into fringes like a small-toothed comb.

That great squall was either a whirlwind or the crowning blast of a
hurricane.  It beat the high waves hollow, as if it fell from the
sky upon them; and it snapped off one of our oars at the hilt, so
that two of our men rolled backward.  And when we were able to look
about again the whole roof of "Desolate Hole" was gone, and little
of the walls left standing.  And how we should guide our course, or
even save our lives, we knew not.

We were compelled to bring up--as best we might--with the boat's
head to the sea, and so to keep it by using the steering gear
against the surviving oar.  As for the people we were come to save,
there was no chance whatever of approaching them.  Even without the
mishap to the oar, we never could have reached them.

And indeed when first we saw them again they seemed better off than
ourselves were.  For they were not far from dry land, and the man
(a skillful and powerful swimmer) had a short piece of plank, which
he knew how to use to support his weak companion.

"Brave fellow! fine fellow!" the Major cried, little knowing whom
he was admiring.  "See how he keeps up his presence of mind!  Such
a man as that is worth any thing.  And he cares more for her than
he does for himself.  He shall have the Society's medal.  One more
long and strong stroke, my noble friend.  Oh, great God! what has
befallen him?"

In horror and pity we gazed.  The man had been dashed against
something headlong.  He whirled round and round in white water, his
legs were thrown up, and we saw no more of him.  The woman cast off
the plank, and tossed her helpless arms in search of him.  A
shriek, ringing far on the billowy shore, declared that she had
lost him; and then, without a struggle, she clasped her hands, and
the merciless water swallowed her.

"It is all over," cried Major Hockin, lifting his drenched hat
solemnly.  "The Lord knoweth best.  He has taken them home."



CHAPTER LV

A DEAD LETTER


With that great tornado, the wind took a leap of more points of the
compass than I can tell.  Barnes, the fisherman, said how many; but
I might be quite wrong in repeating it.  One thing, at any rate,
was within my compass--it had been blowing to the top of its
capacity, direct from the sea, but now it began to blow quite as
hard along the shore.  This rough ingratitude of wind to waves,
which had followed each breath of its orders, produced extraordinary
passion, and raked them into pointed wind-cocks.

"Captain, we can't live this out," cried Barnes; "we must run her
ashore at once; tide has turned; we might be blown out to sea, with
one oar, and then the Lord Himself couldn't save us."

Crippled as we were, we contrived to get into a creek, or
backwater, near the Major's gate.  Here the men ran the boat up,
and we all climbed out, stiff, battered, and terrified, but doing
our best to be most truly thankful.

"Go home, Captain, as fast as you can, and take the young lady
along of you," said Mr. Barnes, as we stood and gazed at the
weltering breadth of disaster.  "We are born to the drip, but not
you, Sir; and you are not so young as you was, you know."

"I am younger than ever I was," the lord of the manor answered,
sternly, yet glancing back to make sure of no interruption from his
better half--who had not even heard of his danger.  "None of that
nonsense to me, Barnes.  You know your position, and I know mine.
On board of that boat you took the lead, and that may have misled
you.  I am very much obliged to you, I am sure, for all your skill
and courage, which have saved the lives of all of us.  But on land
you will just obey me."

"Sartinly, Captain.  What's your orders?"

"Nothing at all.  I give no orders.  I only make suggestions.  But
if your experience sees a way to recover those two poor bodies, let
us try it at once--at once, Barnes.  Erema, run home.  This is no
scene for you.  And tell Margaret to put on the double-bottomed
boiler, with the stock she made on Friday, and a peck of patent
pease.  There is nothing to beat pea soup; and truly one never
knows what may happen."

This was only too evident now, and nobody disobeyed him.

Running up his "drive" to deliver that message, at one of the many
bends I saw people from Bruntsea hurrying along a footpath through
the dairy-farm.  While the flood continued this was their only way
to meet the boat's crew.  On the steps of "Smuggler's Castle" (as
Bruntlands House was still called by the wicked) I turned again,
and the new sea-line was fringed with active searchers.  I knew
what they were looking for, but, scared and drenched and shivering
as I was, no more would I go near them.  My duty was rather to go
in and comfort dear Aunt Mary and myself.  In that melancholy quest
I could do no good, but a great deal of harm, perhaps, if any thing
was found, by breaking forth about it.

Mrs. Hockin had not the least idea of the danger we had encountered.
Bailiff Hopkins had sent her home in Rasper's fly by an inland
road, and she kept a good scolding quite ready for her husband, to
distract his mind from disaster.  That trouble had happened she
could not look out of her window without knowing; but could it be
right, at their time of life, to stand in the wet so, and challenge
Providence, and spoil the first turkey-poult of the season?

But when she heard of her husband's peril, in the midst of all his
losses, his self-command, and noble impulse first of all to rescue
life, she burst into tears, and hugged and kissed me, and said the
same thing nearly fifty times.

"Just like him.  Just like my Nicholas.  You thought him a
speculative, selfish man.  Now you see your mistake, Erema."

When her veteran husband came home at last (thoroughly jaded, and
bringing his fishermen to gulp the pea soup and to gollop the
turkey), a small share of mind, but a large one of heart, is
required to imagine her doings.  Enough that the Major kept saying,
"Pooh-pooh!" and the more he said, the less he got of it.

When feelings calmed down, and we returned to facts, our host and
hero (who, in plain truth, had not so wholly eclipsed me in
courage, though of course I expected no praise, and got none, for
people hate courage in a lady), to put it more simply, the Major
himself, making a considerable fuss, as usual--for to my mind he
never could be Uncle Sam--produced from the case of his little
"Church Service," to which he had stuck like a Briton, a sealed and
stamped letter, addressed to me at Castlewood, in Berkshire--
"stamped," not with any post-office tool, but merely with the red
thing which pays the English post.

Sodden and blurred as the writing was, I knew the clear, firm hand,
the same which on the envelope at Shoxford had tempted me to
meanness.  This letter was from Thomas Hoyle; the Major had taken
it from the pocket of his corpse; all doubt about his death was
gone.  When he felt his feet on the very shore, and turned to
support his mother, a violent wave struck the back of his head upon
Major Hockin's pillar-box.

Such sadness came into my heart--though sternly it should have been
gladness--that I begged their pardon, and went away, as if with a
private message.  And wicked as it may have been, to read was more
than once to cry.  The letter began abruptly:

"You know nearly all my story now.  I have only to tell you what
brought me to you, and what my present offer is.  But to make it
clear, I must enlarge a little.

"There was no compact of any kind between your father and myself.
He forbore at first to tell what he must have known, partly,
perhaps, to secure my escape, and partly for other reasons.  If he
had been brought to trial, his duty to his family and himself would
have led him, no doubt, to explain things.  And if that had failed,
I would have returned and surrendered myself.  As things happened,
there was no need.

"Through bad luck, with which I had nothing to do, though doubtless
the whole has been piled on my head, your father's home was
destroyed, and he seems to have lost all care for every thing.  Yet
how much better off was he than I!  Upon me the curse fell at
birth; upon him, after thirty years of ease and happiness.
However, for that very reason, perhaps, he bore it worse than I
did.  He grew imbittered against the world, which had in no way
ill-treated him; whereas its very first principle is to scorn all
such as I am.  He seems to have become a misanthrope, and a
fatalist like myself.  Though it might almost make one believe the
existence of such a thing as justice to see pride pay for its
wickedness thus--the injury to the outcast son recoil upon the
pampered one, and the family arrogance crown itself with the
ignominy of the family.

"In any case, there was no necessity for my interference; and being
denied by fate all sense of duty to a father, I was naturally
driven to double my duty to my mother, whose life was left hanging
upon mine.  So we two for many years wandered about, shunning
islands and insular prejudice.  I also shunned your father, though
(so far as I know) he neither sought me nor took any trouble to
clear himself.  If the one child now left him had been a son, heir
to the family property and so on, he might have behaved quite
otherwise, and he would have been bound to do so.  But having only
a female child, who might never grow up, and, if she did, was very
unlikely to succeed, he must have resolved at least to wait.  And
perhaps he confirmed himself with the reflection that even if
people believed his tale (so long after date and so unvouched), so
far as family annals were concerned, the remedy would be as bad as
the disease.  Moreover, he owed his life to me, at great risk of my
own; and to pay such a debt with the hangman's rope would scarcely
appear quite honorable, even in the best society.

"It is not for me to pretend to give his motives, although from my
knowledge of his character I can guess them pretty well, perhaps.
We went our several ways in the world, neither of us very
fortunate.

"One summer, in the Black Forest, I fell in with an outcast
Englishman, almost as great a vagabond as myself.  He was under the
ban of the law for writing his father's name without license.  He
did not tell me that, or perhaps even I might have despised him,
for I never was dishonest.  But one great bond there was between
us--we both detested laws and men.  My intimacy with him is the one
thing in life which I am ashamed of.  He passed by a false name
then, of course.  But his true name was Montague Hockin.  My mother
was in very weak health then, and her mind for the most part
clouded; and I need not say that she knew nothing of what I had
done for her sake.  That man pretended to take the greatest
interest in her condition, and to know a doctor at Baden who could
cure her.

"We avoided all cities (as he knew well), and lived in simple
villages, subsisting partly upon my work, and partly upon the
little income left by my grandfather, Thomas Hoyle.  But, compared
with Hockin, we were well off; and he did his best to swindle us.
Luckily all my faith in mankind was confined to the feminine
gender, and not much even of that survived.  In a very little time
I saw that people may repudiate law as well from being below as
from being above it.

"Then he came one night, with the finest style and noblest contempt
of every thing.  We must prepare ourselves for great news, and all
our kindness to him would be repaid tenfold in a week or two.  Let
me go into Freyburg that time to-morrow night, and listen.  I asked
him nothing as to what he meant, for I was beginning to weary of
him, as of every body.  However, I thought it just worth while,
having some one who bought my wicker-work, to enter the outskirts
of the town on the following evening, and wait to be told if any
news was stirring.  And the people were amazed at my not knowing
that last night the wife of an English lord--for so they called
him, though no lord yet--had run away with a golden-bearded man,
believed to be also English.

"About that you know more, perhaps, than I do.  But I wish you to
know what that Hockin was, and to clear myself of complicity.  Of
Herbert Castlewood I knew nothing, and I never even saw the lady.
And to say (as Sir Montague Hockin has said) that I plotted all
that wickedness, from spite toward all of the Castlewood name, is
to tell as foul a lie as even he can well indulge in.

"It need not be said that he does not know my story from any word
of mine.  To such a fellow I was not likely to commit my mother's
fate.  But he seems to have guessed at once that there was
something strange in my history; and then, after spying and low
prying at my mother, to have shaped his own conclusion.  Then,
having entirely under his power that young fool who left a kind
husband for him, he conceived a most audacious scheme.  This was no
less than to rob your cousin, the last Lord Castlewood, not of his
wife and jewels and ready money only, but also of all the
disposable portion of the Castlewood estates.  For the lady's
mother had taken good care, like a true Hungarian, to have all the
lands settled upon her daughter, so far as the husband could deal
with them.  And though, at the date of the marriage, he could not
really deal at all with them--your father being still alive--it
appears that his succession (when it afterward took place) was
bound, at any rate, as against himself.  A divorce might have
canceled this--I can not say--but your late cousin was the last
man in the world to incur the needful exposure.  Upon this they
naturally counted.

"The new 'Lady Hockin' (as she called herself, with as much right
as 'Lady Castlewood') flirted about while her beauty lasted; but
even then found her master in a man of deeper wickedness.  But if
her poor husband desired revenge--which he does not seem to have
done, perhaps--he could not have had it better.  She was seized
with a loathsome disease, which devoured her beauty, like Herod and
his glory.  I believe that she still lives, but no one can go near
her; least of all, the fastidious Montague."

At this part of the letter I drew a deep breath, and exclaimed,
"Thank God!" I know not how many times; and perhaps it was a crime
of me to do it even once.

"Finding his nice prospective game destroyed by this little
accident--for he meant to have married the lady after her husband's
death, and set you at defiance; but even he could not do that now,
little as he cares for opinion--what did he do but shift hands
altogether?  He made up his mind to confer the honor of his hand on
you, having seen you somewhere in London, and his tactics became
the very opposite of what they had been hitherto.  Your father's
innocence now must be maintained instead of his guiltiness.

"With this in view, he was fool enough to set the detective police
after me--me, who could snap all their noses off!  For he saw how
your heart was all set on one thing, and expected to have you his
serf forever, by the simple expedient of hanging me.  The
detectives failed, as they always do.  He also failed in his
overtures to you.

"You did your utmost against me also, for which I bear you no
ill-will, but rather admire your courage.  You acted in a
straightforward way, and employed no dirty agency.  Of your simple
devices I had no fear.  However, I thought it as well to keep an
eye upon that Hockin, and a worthy old fool, some relation of his,
who had brought you back from America.  To this end I kept my head-
quarters near him, and established my mother comfortably.  She was
ordered sea air, and has had enough.  To-morrow I shall remove her.
By the time you receive this letter we shall both be far away, and
come back no more; but first I shall punish that Hockin.  Without
personal violence this will be done.

"Now what I propose to you is simple, moderate, and most strictly
just.  My mother's little residue of life must pass in ease and
comfort.  She has wronged no one, but ever been wronged.  Allow her
300 pounds a year, to be paid as I shall direct you.  For myself I
will not take a farthing.  You will also restore, as I shall
direct, the trinket upon which she sets great value, and for which
I sought vainly when we came back to England.  I happen to know
that you have it now.

"In return for these just acts, you have the right to set forth the
whole truth publicly, to proclaim your father's innocence, and (as
people will say) his chivalry; and, which will perhaps rejoice you
also, to hear no more of

"THOMAS HOYLE.

"P.S.--Of course I am trusting your honor in this.  But your
father's daughter can be no sneak; as indeed I have already
proved."



CHAPTER LVI

WITH HIS OWN SWORD


"What a most wonderful letter!" cried the Major, when, after
several careful perusals, I thought it my duty to show it to him.
"He calls me a 'worthy old fool,' does he?  Well, I call him
something a great deal worse--an unworthy skulk, a lunatic, a
subverter of rank, and a Radical!  And because he was a bastard, is
the whole world base?  And to come and live like that in a house of
mine, and pay me no rent, and never even let me see him!  Your
grandfather was quite right, my dear, in giving him the cold
shoulder.  Of course you won't pay him a farthing."

"You forget that he is dead," I answered, "and his poor mother with
him.  At least he behaved well to his mother.  You called him a
hero--when you knew not who he was.  Poor fellow, he is dead!  And,
in spite of all, I can not help being very sorry for him."

"Yes, I dare say.  Women always are.  But you must show a little
common-sense, Erema.  Your grandfather seems to have had too much,
and your father far too little.  We must keep this matter quiet.
Neither the man nor the woman must we know, or a nice stir we shall
have in all the county papers.  There must be an inquest, of
course, upon them both; but none of the fellows read this
direction, for the admirable reason that they can not read.  Our
coming forward could do no good, and just now Bruntsea has other
things to think of; and, first and foremost, my ruin, as they say."

"Please not to talk of that," I exclaimed.  "I can raise any
quantity of money now, and you shall have it without paying
interest.  You wanted the course of the river restored, and now you
have more--you have got the very sea.  You could float the Bridal
Veil itself, I do believe, at Bruntsea."

"You have suggested a fine idea," the Major exclaimed, with
emphasis.  "You certainly should have been an engineer.  It is a
thousand times easier--as every body knows--to keep water in than
to keep it out.  Having burst my barricade, the sea shall stop
inside and pay for it.  Far less capital will be required.  By
Jove, what a fool I must have been not to see the hand of
Providence in all this!  Mary, can you spare me a minute, my dear?
The noblest idea has occurred to me.  Well, never mind, if you are
busy; perhaps I had better not state it crudely, though it is not
true that it happens every hour.  I shall turn it over in my mind
throughout the evening service.  I mean to be there, just to let
them see.  They think that I am crushed, of course.  They will see
their mistake; and, Erema, you may come.  The gale is over, and the
evening bright.  You sit by the fire, Mary, my dear; I shall not
let you out again; keep the silver kettle boiling.  In church I
always think more clearly than where people talk so much.  But when
I come home I require something.  I see, I see.  Instead of an
idle, fashionable lounging-place for nincompoops from London,
instead of flirtation and novel-reading, vulgarity, show, and
indecent attire, and positively immoral bathing, we will now have
industry, commerce, wealth, triumph of mechanism, lofty enterprise,
and international good-will.  A harbor has been the great want of
this coast; see what a thing it is at Newport!  We will now have a
harbor and floating docks, without any muddy, malarious river--all
blue water from the sea; and our fine cliff range shall be studded
with good houses.  And the whole shall be called 'Erema-port.'"

Well, Erema must be getting very near her port, although it was not
at Bruntsea.  Enough for this excellent man and that still more
excellent woman that there they are, as busy and as happy as the
day is long--which imposes some limit upon happiness, perhaps,
inasmuch as to the busy every day is short.  But Mrs. Hockin,
though as full of fowls as ever, gets no White Sultans nor any
other rarity now from Sir Montague Hockin.  That gentleman still is
alive--so far, at least, as we have heard of; but no people owning
any self-respect ever deal with him, to their knowledge.  He
gambled away all his father's estates, and the Major bought the
last of them for his youngest son, a very noble Captain Hockin
(according to his mother's judgment), whom I never had the honor of
seeing.  Sir Montague lives in a sad plight somewhere, and his
cousin still hopes that he may turn honest.

But as to myself and far greater persons, still there are a few
words to be said.  As soon as all necessary things were done at
Bruntsea and at Castlewood, and my father's memory cleared from all
stain, and by simple truth ennobled, in a manner strictly legal and
consistent with heavy expenses, myself having made a long
deposition and received congratulations--as soon as it was
possible, I left them all, and set sail for America.

The rashness of such a plan it is more easy for one to establish
than two to deny.  But what was there in it of peril or of
enterprise compared with what I had been through already?  I could
not keep myself now from going, and reasoned but little about it.

Meanwhile there had been no further tidings of Colonel Gundry or
Firm, or even Martin of the Mill himself.  But one thing I did
which showed some little foresight.  As soon as my mind was made
up, and long before ever I could get away, I wrote to Martin
Clogfast, telling him of my intention, and begging him, if he had
any idea of the armies, or the Sawyer, or even Firm, or any thing
whatever of interest, to write (without losing a day) to me,
directing his letter to a house in New York whose address Major
Hockin gave me.

So many things had to be done, and I listened so foolishly to the
Major (who did his very best to stop me), that it came to be May,
1862 (nearly four years after my father's death), before I could
settle all my plans and start.  For every body said that I was much
too young to take such a journey all by myself, and "what every
body says must be right," whenever there is no exception to prove
the rule.  "Aunt Marys" are not to be found every day, nor even
Major Hockins; and this again helped to throw me back in getting
away from England.  And but for his vast engineering ideas, and
another slight touch of rheumatic gout (brought upon herself by
Mrs. Hockin through setting seven hens in one evening), the Major
himself might have come with me, "to observe the new military
tactics," as well as to look for his cousin Sampson.

In recounting this I seem to be as long as the thing itself was in
accomplishing.  But at last it was done, and most kindly was I
offered the very thing to suit me--permission to join the party of
a well-known British officer, Colonel Cheriton, of the Engineers.
This gentleman, being of the highest repute as a writer upon
military subjects, had leave from the Federal government to observe
the course of this tremendous war.  And perhaps he will publish
some day what seems as yet to be wholly wanting--a calm and
impartial narrative of that unparalleled conflict.  At any rate, he
meant to spare no trouble in a matter so instructive, and he took
his wife and two daughters--very nice girls, who did me a world of
good--to establish them in Washington, or wherever the case might
require.

Lucky as this was for me, I could not leave my dear and faithful
friends without deep sorrow; but we all agreed that it should be
only for a very little time.  We landed first at New York, and
there I found two letters from Martin of the Mill.  In the first he
grumbled much, and told me that nothing was yet known about Uncle
Sam; in the second he grumbled (if possible) more, but gave me some
important news.  To wit, he had received a few lines from the
Sawyer, who had failed as yet to find his grandson, and sadly
lamented the misery he saw, and the shocking destruction of God's
good works.  He said that he could not bring himself to fight (even
if he were young enough) against his own dear countrymen, one of
whom was his own grandson; at the same time he felt that they must
be put down for trying to have things too much their own way.
About slavery, he had seen too much of niggers to take them at all
for his equals, and no white man with any self-respect would desire
to be their brother.  The children of Ham were put down at the
bottom, as their noses and their lips pronounced, according to
Divine revelation; and for sons of Japheth to break up the noblest
nation in the world, on their account, was like rushing in to
inherit their curse.  As sure as his name was Sampson Gundry, those
who had done it would get the worst, though as yet they were doing
wonders.  And there could be no doubt about one thing--which party
it was that began it.  But come what would of it, here he was; and
never would Saw-mills see him again unless he brought Firm Gundry.
But he wanted news of poor Miss 'Rema; and if any came to the
house, they must please to send it to the care of Colonel Baker,
headquarters of the Army of the Potomac.

This was the very thing I wished to know, and I saw now how stupid
I must have been not to have thought of it long ago.  For Colonel
Baker was, to my knowledge, an ancient friend of Uncle Sam, and had
joined the national army at the very outbreak of the war.  Well
known not only in California, but throughout the States, for
gallantry and conduct, this officer had been a great accession to
the Federal cause, when so many wavered, and so he was appointed to
a good command.  But, alas! when I told Colonel Cheriton my news, I
learned from him (who had carefully watched all the incidents of
the struggle) that Uncle Sam's noble friend had fallen in the
battle of Ball's Bluff, while charging at the head of his regiment.

Still, there was hope that some of the officers might know where to
find Uncle Sam, who was not at all a man to be mislaid; and being
allowed to accompany my English friends, I went on to Washington.
We found that city in a highly nervous state, and from time to time
ready to be captured.  General Jackson was almost at the gates, and
the President every day was calling out for men.  The Army of
Virginia had been beaten back to intrenchments before the capital,
and General Lee was invading Maryland.  Battle followed battle,
thick as blows upon a threshing-floor, and though we were always
said to be victorious, the enemy seemed none the more to run away.
In this confusion, what chance had I of discovering even the
Sawyer?

Colonel Cheriton (who must have found me a dreadful thorn in the
flank of his strategy) missed no opportunity of inquiry, as he went
from one valley to another.  For the war seemed to run along the
course of rivers, though it also passed through the forests and
lakes, and went up into the mountains.  Our wonderfully clever and
kind member of the British army was delighted with the movements of
General Lee, who alone showed scientific elegance in slaying his
fellow-countrymen; and the worst of it was that instead of going
after my dear Uncle Sam, Colonel Cheriton was always rushing about
with maps, plans, and telescopes, to follow the tracery of Lee's
campaign.  To treat of such matters is far beyond me, as I am most
thankful to confess.  Neither will I dare to be sorry for a great
man doing what became his duty.  My only complaint against him is
that he kept us in a continual fright.

However, this went by, and so did many other things, though heavily
laden with grief and death; and the one thing we learned was to
disbelieve ninety-nine out of every hundred.  Letters for the
Sawyer were dispatched by me to every likely place for him, and
advertisements put into countless newspapers, but none of them
seemed to go near him.  Old as he was, he avoided feather-beds, and
roamed like a true Californian.  But at last I found him, in a sad,
sad way.

It was after the battle of Chancellorsville, and our army had been
driven back across the Rappahannock.  "Our army," I call it,
because (although we belonged to neither party) fortune had brought
us into contact with these, and knowing more about them, we were
bound to take their side.  And not only that, but to me it appeared
altogether beyond controversy that a man of large mind and long
experience (such as Uncle Sam had) should know much better than his
grandson which cause was the one to fight for.  At the same time
Firm was not at all to be condemned.  And if it was true, as Martin
Clogfast said, that trouble of mind at my absence had driven him
into a prejudiced view, nothing could possibly be more ungracious
than for me to make light of his judgment.

Being twenty years old by this time, I was wiser than I used to be,
and now made a practice of thinking twice before rushing into
peril, as I used to do in California, and to some extent also in
England.  For though my adventures might not have been as strange
as many I myself have heard of (especially from Suan Isco),
nevertheless they had comprised enough of teaching and suffering
also to make me careful about having any more.  And so for a long
time I kept at the furthest distance possible, in such a war, from
the vexing of the air with cannons, till even Colonel Cheriton's
daughters--perfectly soft and peaceful girls--began to despise me
as a coward.  Knowing what I had been through, I indulged their
young opinions.

Therefore they were the more startled when I set forth under a
sudden impulse, or perhaps impatience, for a town very near the
head-quarters of the defeated General Hooker.  As they were so
brave, I asked them whether they would come with me; but although
their father was known to be there, they turned pale at the thought
of it.  This pleased me, and made me more resolute to go; and in
three days' time I was at Falmouth, a town on our side of the
Rappahannock.

Here I saw most miserable sights that made me ashamed of all
trifling fear.  When hundreds and thousands of gallant men were
dying in crippled agony, who or what was I to make any fuss about
my paltry self?  Clumsy as I was, some kind and noble ladies taught
me how to give help among the sufferers.

At first I cried so at every body's pain, while asking why ever
they should have it, that I did some good by putting them up to
bear it rather than distress me so.  And when I began to command
myself (as custom soon enabled me), I did some little good again by
showing them how I cared for them.  Their poor weak eyes, perhaps
never expecting to see a nice thing in the world again, used to
follow me about with a faint, slow roll, and a feeble spark of
jealousy.

That I should have had such a chance of doing good, onefold to
others and a thousandfold to self, at this turn of life, when I was
full of little me, is another of the many most clear indications of
a kind hand over me.  Every day there was better than a year of
ordinary life in breaking the mind from its little selfish turns,
and opening the heart to a larger power.  And all this discipline
was needed.

For one afternoon, when we all were tired, with great heat upon us
suddenly, and the flies beginning to be dreadful, our chief being
rather unwell and fast asleep, the surgeons away, and our beds as
full as they could be, I was called down to reason with an
applicant who would take no denial.  "A rough man, a very rough old
man, and in a most terrible state of mind," said the girl who
brought the message; "and room he would have, or he would know the
reason."

"The reason is not far to seek," I answered, more to myself than
her, as I ran down the stairs to discomfit that old man.  At the
open door, with the hot wind tossing worn white curls and parching
shriveled cheeks, now wearily raising his battered hat, stood my
dear Uncle Sam, the Sawyer.

"Lor' a massy! young lady, be you altogether daft?  In my best of
days, never was I lips for kissing.  And the bootifulest creatur--
Come now, I ain't saved your life, have I now?"

"Yes, fifty times over--fifty thousand times.  Uncle Sam, don't you
know Erema?"

"My eyes be dashed!  And dashed they be, to forget the look of
yours, my dearie.  Seven days have I marched without thanking the
Lord; and hot coals of fire has He poured upon me now, for His
mercy endureth forever.  To think of you--to think of you--as like
my own child as could be--only of more finer breed--here standing
in front of me, like this here!  There!  I never dreamed to do that
again, and would scorn a young man at the sight of it."

The Sawyer was too honest to conceal that he was weeping.  He
simply turned his tanned and weathered face toward the door-post,
not to hide his tears, but reconcile his pride by feigning it.  I
felt that he must be at very low ebb, and all that I had seen of
other people's sorrow had no power to assuage me.  Inside the door,
to keep the hot wind out and hide my eyes from the old man's face,
I had some little quiet sobs, until we could both express
ourselves.

"It is poor Firm, the poor, poor lad!--oh, what hath happened him?
That I should see the day!"

Uncle Sam's deep voice broke into a moan, and he bowed his rough
forehead on his arm, and shook.  Then I took him by the sleeve and
brought him in.

"Not dead--poor Firm, your only one--not dead?" as soon as words
would come, I asked, and trembled for the opening of his lips.

"Not dead--not quite; but ten times worse.  He hath flown into the
face of the Lord, like Saul and his armor-bearer; he hath fallen on
his own sword; and the worst of it is that the darned thing won't
come out again."

"Firm--the last person in the world to do it!  Oh, Uncle Sam,
surely they have told you--"

"No lies--no lie at all, my dear.  And not only that, but he
wanteth now to die--and won't be long first, I reckon.  But no time
to lose, my dear.  The Lord hath sent you to make him happy in his
leaving of the world.  Can 'e raise a bed and a doctor here?  If he
would but groan, I could bear it a bit, instead of bleeding inward.
And for sartin sure, a' would groan nicely, if only by force of
habit, at first sight of a real doctor."

"There are half a dozen here," I said; "or at least close by.  He
shall have my own bed.  But where is he?"

"We have laid 'un in the sand," he answered, simply, "for to dry
his perspiration.  That weak the poor chap is that he streameth
night and day, miss.  Never would you know him for our Firm now,
any more than me for Sampson Gundry.  Ah me! but the Lord is hard
on us!"

Slowly and heavily he went his way to fetch poor Firm to the
hospital; while, with light feet but a heavy heart, I returned to
arouse our managers.  Speedily and well were all things done; and
in half an hour Finn lay upon my bed, with two of the cleverest
surgeons of New York most carefully examining his wasted frame.
These whispered and shook their heads, as in such a case was
indispensable; and listening eagerly, I heard the senior surgeon
say, "No, he could never bear it."  The younger man seemed to think
otherwise, but to give way to the longer experience.  Then dear
Uncle Sam, having bought a new hat at the corner of the street,
came forward.  Knowing too well what excitement is, and how it
changes every one, I lifted my hand for him to go back; but he only
put his great hot web of fingers into mine, and drew me to him
softly, and covered me up with his side.  "He heareth nort, nort,
nort," he whispered to me; and then spoke aloud:

"Gentlemen and ladies--or ladies and gentlemen, is the more correct
form nowadays--have I leave to say a word or two?  Then if I have,
as your manner to me showeth, and heartily thanking you for that
same, my words shall go into an acorn-cup.  This lad, laid out at
your mercy here, was as fine a young fellow as the West hath ever
raised--straight and nimble, and could tell no lie.  Family
reasons, as you will excoose of, drew him to the arms of rebellion.
I may have done, and overdone it myself, in arguing cantrips and
convictions, whereof to my knowledge good never came yet.  At any
rate, off he went anyhow, and the force of nature drew me after
him.  No matter that to you, I dare say; but it would be, if you
was in it.

"Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, and no harm can you make out of
him.  Although he hath fought for the wrong side to our thinking,
bravely hath he fought, and made his way to a colonelship, worth
five thousand dollars, if ever they pay their wages.  Never did I
think that he would earn so much, having never owned gifts of
machinery; and concerning the handling of the dollars, perhaps,
will carry my opinion out.  But where was I wandering of a little
thing like that?

"It hath pleased the Lord, who doeth all things well, when finally
come to look back upon--the Lord hath seen fit to be down on this
young man for going agin his grandfather.  From Californy--a free
State, mind you--he come away to fight for slavery.  And how hath
he magnified his office?  By shooting the biggest man on that side,
the almighty foe of the Union, the foremost captain of Midian--the
general in whom they trusted.  No bullets of ours could touch him;
but by his own weapons he hath fallen.  And soon as Ephraim Gundry
heard it, he did what you see done to him."

Uncle Sam having said his say--which must have cost him dearly--
withdrew from the bed where his grandson's body lay shrunken, lax,
and grimy.  To be sure that it was Firm, I gave one glance--for
Firm had always been straight, tall, and large--and then, in a
miserable mood, I stole to the Sawyer's side to stand with him.
"Am I to blame?  Is this my fault?  For even this am I to blame?"
I whispered; but he did not heed me, and his hands were like hard
stone.

After a long, hot, heavy time, while I was laboring vainly, the
Sawyer also (through exhaustion of excitement) weary, and afraid to
begin again with new bad news, as beaten people expect to do, the
younger surgeon came up to him, and said, "Will you authorize it?"

"To cut 'un up?  To show your museums what a Western lad is?
Never.  By the Blue River he shall have a good grave.  So help me
God, to my own, my man!"

"You misunderstand me.  We have more subjects now than we should
want for fifty years.  War knocks the whole of their value on the
head.  We have fifty bodies as good as this, and are simply obliged
to bury them.  What I mean is, shall we pull the blade out?"

"Can he do any thing with that there blade in him?  I have heard of
a man in Kentucky once--"

"Yes, yes; we know all those stories, Colonel--suit the newspapers,
not the journals.  This fellow has what must kill him inside; he is
worn to a shadow already.  If there it is left, die he must, and
quick stick; inflammation is set up already.  If we extract it, his
chance of surviving is scarcely one in a hundred."

"Let him have the one, then, the one in the hundred, like the
ninety and nine lost sheep.  The Lord can multiply a hundredfold--
some threescore, and some an hundredfold.  I will speak to Him,
gentlemen, while you try the job."



CHAPTER LVII

FEMALE SUFFRAGE


All that could be done by skill and care and love, was done for
Firm.  Our lady manager and head nurse never left him when she
could be spared, and all the other ladies vied in zeal for this
young soldier, so that I could scarcely get near him.  His
grandfather's sad and extraordinary tale was confirmed by a wounded
prisoner.  Poor Ephraim Gundry's rare power of sight had been fatal
perhaps to the cause he fought for, or at least to its greatest
captain.  Returning from desperate victory, the general, wrapped in
the folds of night, and perhaps in the gloom of his own stern
thoughts, while it seemed quite impossible that he should be seen,
encountered the fire of his own troops; and the order to fire was
given by his favorite officer, Colonel Firm Gundry.  When the young
man learned that he had destroyed, by a lingering death, the chief
idol of his heart, he called for a rifle, but all refused him,
knowing too well what his purpose was.  Then under the trees,
without a word or sigh, he set the hilt of his sword upon the
earth, and the point to his heart--as well as he could find it.
The blade passed through him, and then snapped off--But I can not
bear to speak of it.

And now, few people might suppose it, but the substance of which he
was made will be clear, when not only his own knowledge of his case
but also the purest scientific reasoning established a truth more
frankly acknowledged in the New World than in the Old one.  It was
proved that, with a good constitution, it is safer to receive two
wounds than one, even though they may not be at the same time
taken.  Firm had been shot by the captain of Mexican robbers, as
long ago related.  He was dreadfully pulled down at the time, and
few people could have survived it.  But now that stood him in the
very best stead, not only as a lesson of patience, but also in the
question of cartilage.  But not being certain what cartilage is, I
can only refer inquirers to the note-book of the hospital, which
has been printed.

For us it was enough to know that (shattered as he was and must be)
this brave and single-minded warrior struggled for the time
successfully with that great enemy of the human race, to whom the
human race so largely consign one another and themselves.  But some
did say, and emphatically Uncle Sam, that Colonel Firm Gundry--for
a colonel he was now, not by courtesy, but commission--would never
have held up his head to do it, but must have gone on with his
ravings for death, if somebody had not arrived in the nick of time,
and cried over him--a female somebody from old England.

And, even after that, they say that he never would have cared to be
a man again, never would have calmed his conscience with the
reflection, so commonplace and yet so high--that having done our
best according to our lights, we must not dwell always on our
darkness--if once again, and for the residue of life, there had not
been some one to console him--a consolation that need not have, and
is better without, pure reason, coming, as that would come, from a
quarter whence it is never quite welcome.  Enough for me that he
never laid hand to a weapon of war again, and never shall unless
our own home is invaded.

For after many months--each equal to a year of teaching and of
humbling--there seemed to be a good time for me to get away and
attend to my duties in England.  Of these I had been reminded often
by letters, and once by a messenger; but all money matters seemed
dust in the balance where life and death were swinging.  But now
Uncle Sam and his grandson, having their love knit afresh by
disaster, were eager to start for the Saw-mill, and trust all
except their own business to Providence.

I had told them that, when they went westward, my time would be
come for starting eastward; and being unlikely to see them again, I
should hope for good news frequently.  And then I got dear Uncle
Sam by himself, and begged him, for the sake of Firm's happiness,
to keep him as far as he could from Pennsylvania Sylvester.  At the
same time I thought that the very nice young lady who jumped upon
his nose from the window, Miss Annie--I forgot her name, or at any
rate I told him so--would make him a good straightforward wife, so
far as one could tell from having seen her.  And that seemed to
have been settled in their infancy.  And if he would let me know
when it was to be, I had seen a thing in London I should like to
give them.

When I asked the Sawyer to see to this, instead of being sorry, he
seemed quite pleased, and nodded sagaciously, and put his hat on,
as he generally did, to calculate.

"Both of them gals have married long ago," he said, looking at me
with a fine soft gaze; "and bad handfuls their mates have got of
them.  But what made you talk of them, missy--or 'my lady,' as now
you are in old country, I hear--what made you think of them like
that, my dearie?"

"I can't tell what made me think of them.  How can I tell why I
think of every thing?"

"Still, it was an odd thing for your ladyship to say."

"Uncle Sam, I am nobody's ladyship, least of all yours.  What makes
you speak so?  I am your own little wandering child, whose life you
saved, and whose father you loved, and who loses all who love her.
Even from you I am forced to go away.  Oh, why is it always my
fate--my fate?"

"Hush!" said the old man; and I stopped my outburst at his whisper.
"To talk of fate, my dearie, shows either one thing or the other--
that we have no will of our own, or else that we know not how to
guide it.  I never knew a good man talk of fate.  The heathens and
the pagans made it.  The Lord in heaven is enough for me; and He
always hath allowed me my own free-will, though I may not have
handled 'un cleverly.  And He giveth you your own will now, my
missy--to go from us or to stop with us.  And being as you are a
very grand young woman now, owning English land and income paid in
gold instead of greenbacks--the same as our nugget seems likely--to
my ideas it would be wrong if we was so much as to ask you."

"Is that what you are full of, then, and what makes you so
mysterious?  I did think that you knew me better, and I had a right
to hope so."

"Concerning of yourself alone is not what we must think of.  You
might do this, or you might do that, according to what you was
told, or, even more, according to what was denied you.  For poor
honest people, like Firm and me, to deal with such a case is out of
knowledge.  For us it is--go by the will of the Lord, and dead agin
your own desires."

"But, dear Uncle Sam," I cried, feeling that now I had him upon his
own tenterhooks, "you rebuked me as sharply as lies in your nature
for daring to talk about fate just now; but to what else comes your
own conduct, if you are bound to go against your own desire?  If
you have such a lot of freewill, why must you do what you do not
like to do?"

"Well, well, perhaps I was talking rather large.  The will of the
world is upon us as well.  And we must have respect for its
settlements."

"Now let me," I said, with a trembling wish to have every
thing right and maidenly.  "I have seen so much harm from
misunderstandings, and they are so simple when it is too late--
let me ask you one or two questions, Uncle Sam.  You always answer
every body.  And to you a crooked answer is impossible."

"Business is business," the Sawyer said.  "My dear, I contract
accordingly."

"Very well.  Then, in the first place, what do you wish to have
done with me?  Putting aside all the gossip, I mean, of people who
have never even heard of me."

"Why, to take you back to Saw-mill with us, where you always was so
natural."

"In the next place, what does your grandson wish?"

"To take you back to Saw-mill with him, and keep you there till
death do you part, as chanceth to all mortal pairs."

"And now, Uncle Sam, what do I wish?  You say we all have so much
free-will."

"It is natural that you should wish, my dear, to go and be a great
lady, and marry a nobleman of your own rank, and have a lot of
little noblemen."

"Then I fly against nature; and the fault is yours for filling me
so with machinery."

The Sawyer was beaten, and he never said again that a woman can not
argue.



CHAPTER LVIII

BEYOND DESERT, AND DESERTS


From all the carnage, havoc, ruin, hatred, and fury of that wicked
war we set our little convoy forth, with passes procured from
either side.  According to all rules of war, Firm was no doubt a
prisoner; but having saved his life, and taken his word to serve no
more against them, remembering also that he had done them more
service than ten regiments, the Federal authorities were not sorry
to be quit of him.

He, for his part, being of a deep, retentive nature, bore in his
wounded breast a sorrow which would last his lifetime.  To me he
said not a single word about his bitter fortune, and he could not
bring himself to ask me whether I would share it.  Only from his
eyes sometimes I knew what he was thinking; and having passed
through so much grief, I was moved with deep compassion.  Poor Firm
had been trained by his grandfather to a strong, earnest faith in
Providence, and now this compelled him almost to believe that he
had been specially visited.  For flying in the face of his good
grandfather, and selfishly indulging his own stiff neck, his
punishment had been hard, and almost heavier than he could bear.
Whatever might happen to him now, the spring and the flower of his
life were gone; he still might have some calm existence, but never
win another day of cloudless joy.  And if he had only said this, or
thought about it, we might have looked at him with less sadness of
our own.

But he never said any thing about himself, nor gave any opening for
our comfort to come to him.  Only from day to day he behaved gently
and lovingly to both of us, as if his own trouble must be fought
out by himself, and should dim no other happiness.  And this kept
us thinking of his sorrow all the more, so that I could not even
look at him without a flutter of the heart, which was afraid to be
a sigh.

At last, upon the great mountain range, through which we now were
toiling, with the snow little more than a mantle for the peaks, and
a sparkling veil for sunrise, dear Uncle Sam, who had often shown
signs of impatience, drew me apart from the rest.  Straightforward
and blunt as he generally was, he did not seem altogether ready to
begin, but pulled off his hat, and then put it on again, the
weather being now cold and hot by turns.  And while he did this he
was thinking at his utmost, as every full vein of his forehead
declared.  And being at home with his ways, I waited.

"Think you got ahead of me?  No, not you," he exclaimed at last, in
reply to some version of his own of my ideas, which I carefully
made a nonentity under the scrutiny of his keen blue eyes.  "No,
no, missy; you wait a bit.  Uncle Sam was not hatched yesterday,
and it takes fifty young ladies to go round him."

"Is that from your size, Uncle Sam, or your depth?"

"Well, a mixture of both, I do believe.  Now the last thing you
ever would think of, if you lived to be older than Washington's
nurse, is the very thing I mean to put to you.  Only you must
please to take it well, according to my meaning.  You see our Firm
going to a shadow, don't you?  Very well; the fault of that is all
yourn.  Why not up and speak to him?"

"I speak to him every day, Uncle Sam, and I spare no efforts to
fatten him.  I am sure I never dreamed of becoming such a cook.
But soon he will have Suan Isco."

"Old Injun be darned!  It's not the stomach, it's the heart as
wants nourishment with yon poor lad.  He looketh that pitiful at
you sometimes, my faith, I can hardly tell whether to laugh at his
newings or cry at the lean face that does it."

"You are not talking like yourself, Uncle Sam.  And he never does
any thing of the kind.  I am sure there is nothing to laugh at."

"No, no; to be sure not.  I made a mistake.  Heroic is the word, of
course--every thing is heroic."

"It is heroic," I answered, with some vexation at his lightness.
"If you can not see it, I am sorry for you.  I like large things;
and I know of nothing larger than the way poor Firm is going on."

"You to stand up for him!" Colonel Gundry answered, as if he could
scarcely look at me.  "You to talk large of him, my Lady
Castlewood, while you are doing of his heart into small wittles!
Well, I did believe, if no one else, that you were a straightforward
one."

"And what am I doing that is crooked now?"

"Well, not to say crooked, Miss 'Rema; no, no.  Only onconsistent,
when squared up."

"Uncle Sam, you're a puzzle to me to-day.  What is inconsistent?
What is there to square up?"

He fetched a long breath, and looked wondrous wise.  Then, as if
his main object was to irritate me, he made a long stride, and
said, "Soup's a-bilin now."

"Let it boil over, then.  You must say what you mean.  Oh, Uncle
Sam, I only want to do the right!"

"I dessay.  I dessay.  But have you got the pluck, miss?  Our
little missy would 'a done more than that.  But come to be great
lady--why, they take another tune.  With much mind, of course it
might be otherwise.  But none of 'em have any much of that to
spare."

"Your view is a narrow one," I replied, knowing how that would
astonish him.  "You judge by your own experience only; and to do
that shows a sad want of breadth, as the ladies in England express
it."

The Sawyer stared, and then took off his hat, and then felt all
about for his spectacles.  The idea of being regarded by a "female"
from a larger and loftier point of view, made a new sensation in
his system.

"Yes," I continued, with some enjoyment, "let us try to look
largely at all things, Uncle Sam.  And supposing me capable of
that, what is the proper and the lofty course to take?"

He looked at me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, and with three
words discomfited me--"Pop the question."

Much as I had heard of woman's rights, equality of body and mind
with man, and superiority in morals, it did not appear to me that
her privilege could be driven to this extent.  But I shook my head
till all my hair came down; and so if our constitutional right of
voting by color was exercised, on this occasion it claimed the
timid benefit of ballot.

With us a suggestion, for the time discarded, has often double
effect by-and-by; and though it was out of my power to dream of
acting up to such directions, there could be no possible harm in
reviewing such a theory theoretically.

Now nothing beyond this was in my thoughts, nor even so much as
that (safely may I say), when Firm and myself met face to face on
the third day after Uncle Sam's ideas.  Our little caravan, of
which the Sawyer was the captain, being bound for Blue River and
its neighborhood, had quitted the Sacramento track by a fork on the
left not a league from the spot where my father had bidden adieu to
mankind.  And knowing every twist and turn of rock, our drivers
brought us at the camping-time almost to the verge of chaparral.

I knew not exactly how far we were come, but the dust-cloud of
memory was stirring, and though mountains looked smaller than they
used to look, the things done among them seemed larger.  And
wandering forth from the camp to think, when the evening meal was
over, lo! there I stood in that selfsame breach or portal of the
desert in which I stood once by my father's side, with scared and
weary eyes, vainly seeking safety's shattered landmark.  The time
of year was different, being the ripe end of October now; but
though the view was changed in tint, it was even more impressive.
Sombre memories, and deep sense of grandeur, which is always sad,
and solemn lights, and stealing shadows, compassed me with
thoughtfulness.  In the mouth of the gorge was a gray block of
granite, whereupon I sat down to think.

Old thoughts, dull thoughts, thoughts as common as the clouds that
cross the distant plain, and as vague as the wind that moves them--
they please and they pass, and they may have shed kindly influence,
but what are they?  The life that lies before us is, in some way,
too, below us, like yon vast amplitude of plain; but it must be
traversed foot by foot, and laboriously travailed, without the
cloudy vaporing or the high-flown meditation.  And all that must be
done by me, alone, with none to love me, and (which for a woman is
so much worse) nobody ever to have for my own, to cherish, love,
and cling to.

Tier upon tier, and peak over peak, the finest mountains of the
world are soaring into the purple firmament.  Like northern lights,
they flash, or flush, or fade into a reclining gleam; like ladders
of heaven, they bar themselves with cloudy air; and like heaven
itself, they rank their white procession.  Lonely, feeble, puny, I
look up with awe and reverence; the mind pronounces all things
small compared with this magnificence.  Yet what will all such
grandeur do--the self-defensive heart inquires--for puny, feeble,
lonely me?

Before another shadow deepened or another light grew pale, a slow,
uncertain step drew near, and by the merest chance it happened to
be Ephraim Gundry's.  I was quite surprised, and told him so; and
he said that he also was surprised at meeting me in this way.
Remembering how long I had been here, I thought this most
irrational, but checked myself from saying so, because he looked so
poorly.  And more than that, I asked him kindly how he was this
evening, and smoothed my dress to please his eye, and offered him a
chair of rock.  But he took no notice of all these things.

I thought of the time when he would have behaved so very
differently from this, and nothing but downright pride enabled me
to repress vexation.  However, I resolved to behave as kindly as if
he were his own grandfather.

"How grand these mountains are!" I said.  "It must do you good to
see them again.  Even to me it is such a delight.  And what must it
be to you, a native?"

"Yes, I shall wander from them no more.  How I wish that I had
never done so?"

"Have men less courage than women?" I asked, with one glance at his
pale worn face.  "I owe you the debt of life; and this is the place
to think and speak of it.  I used to talk freely of that, you know.
You used to like to hear me speak; but now you are tired of that,
and tired of all the world as well, I fear."

"No, I am tired of nothing, except my own vile degradation.  I am
tired of my want of spirit, that I can not cast my load.  I am
tired of my lack of reason, which should always guide a man.  What
is the use of mind or intellect, reasoning power, or whatever it is
called, if the whole of them can not enable a man to hold out
against a stupid heart?"

"I think you should be proud," I said, while trembling to approach
the subject which never had been touched between us, "at having a
nature so sensitive.  Your evil chance might have been any body's,
and must of course have been somebody's.  But nobody else would
have taken it so--so delightfully as you have done!"

"Delightfully!  Is that the word you use?  May I ask who gets any
delight from it?"

"Why, all who hate the Southern cause," I replied, with a sudden
turn of thought, though I never had meant to use the word.  "Surely
that needs no explanation."

"They are delighted, are they?  Yes, I can very well believe it.
Narrow-minded bigots!  Yes, they are sure to be delighted.  They
call it a just visitation, of course, a righteous retribution.  And
they hope I may never get over it."

"I pray you to take it more gently," I said; "they are very good
men, and wish you no harm.  But they must have their own opinions;
and naturally they think them just."

"Then all their opinions are just wrong.  They hope to see me go
down, to my grave.  They shall not have that pleasure.  I will
outlive every old John Brown of them.  I did not care two cents to
live just now.  Henceforth I will make a point of it.  If I cannot
fight for true freedom any more, having ruined it perhaps already,
the least I can do is to give no more triumph to its bitter
enemies.  I will eat and drink, and begin this very night.  I
suppose you are one of them, as you put their arguments so neatly.
I suppose you consider me a vile slave-driver?"

"You are very ill," I said, with my heart so full of pity that
anger could not enter; "you are very ill, and very weak.  How could
you drive the very best slave now--even such a marvel as Uncle
Tom?"

Firm Gundry smiled; on his lean dry face there shone a little
flicker, which made me think of the time when he bought a jest-
book, published at Cincinnati, to make himself agreeable to my
mind.  And little as I meant it, I smiled also, thinking of the way
he used to come out with his hard-fought jokes, and expect it.

"I wish you were at all as you used to be," he said, looking at me
softly through the courage of his smile, "instead of being such a
grand lady."

"And I wish you were a little more like yourself," I answered,
without thinking; "you used to think always there was nobody like
me."

"Suppose that I am of the same opinion still?  Tenfold, fiftyfold,
a millionfold?"

"To suppose a thing of that sort is a little too absurd, when you
have shown no sign of it."

"For your own dear sake I have shown no sign.  The reason of that
is too clear to explain."

"Then how stupid I must be not to see an atom of it!"

"Why, who would have any thing to say to me--a broken-down man, a
fellow marked out for curses, one who hates even the sight of
himself?  The lowest of the low would shun me."

He turned away from me, and gazed back toward the dismal,
miserable, spectral desert; while I stood facing the fruitful,
delicious, flowery Paradise of all the world.  I thought of the
difference in our lots, and my heart was in misery about him.  Then
I conquered my pride and my littleness and trumpery, and did what
the gentle sweet Eve might have done.  And never have I grieved for
that action since.

With tears on my cheeks quite undissembled, and a breast not
ashamed of fluttering, I ran to Firm Gundry, and took his right
hand, and allowed him no refuge from tender wet eyes.  Then before
he could come to see the meaning of this haste--because of his very
high discipline--I was out of his distance, and sitting on a rock,
and I lifted my eyes, full of eloquence, to his; then I dropped
them, and pulled my hat forward, and said, as calmly as was
possible, "I have done enough.  The rest remains with you, Firm
Gundry."

The rest remained with him.  Enough that I was part of that rest;
and if not the foundation or crown of it, something desirous to be
both, and failing (if fail it ever does) from no want of trial.
Uncle Sam says that I never fail at all, and never did fail in any
thing, unless it was when I found that blamed nugget, for which we
got three wagon-loads of greenbacks; which (when prosperity at last
revives) will pay perhaps for greasing all twelve wheels.

Jowler admits not that failure even.  As soon as he recovered from
canine dementia, approaching very closely to rabies, at seeing me
in the flesh once more (so that the Sierra Nevada rang with
avalanches of barking), he tugged me to the place where his teeth
were set in gold, and proved that he had no hydrophobia.  His teeth
are scanty now, but he still can catch a salmon, and the bright
zeal and loyalty of his soft brown eyes and the sprightly elevation
of his tail are still among dogs as pre-eminent as they are to
mankind inimitable.



Now the war is past, and here we sit by the banks of the soft Blue
River.  The early storm and young conflict of a clouded life are
over.  Still out of sight there may be yet a sea of troubles to
buffet with; but it is not merely a selfish thought that others
will face it with me.  Dark mysteries have been cleared away by
being confronted bravely; and the lesson has been learned that life
(like California flowers) is of infinite variety.  This little
river, ten steps wide, on one side has all lupins, on the other
side all larkspurs.  Can I tell why?  Can any body?  Can even
itself, so full of voice and light, unroll the reason?

Behind us tower the stormy crags, before us spread soft tapestry of
earth and sweep of ocean.  Below us lies my father's grave, whose
sin was not his own, but fell on him, and found him loyal.  To him
was I loyal also, as a daughter should be; and in my lap lies my
reward--for I am no more Erema.



THE END.








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