Datasets:

NicholasSynovic
/

Modified-VEAA

Dataset card Data Studio Files Files and versions Community

Split (2)

train · 42.9k rows

text stringlengths 1.96k 5.76k	author int64 1 50
t it in short the place and all its seemed made for us on purpose he took me to his back door whence as from every point of mount saint could be seen towering in the air there in df with ihe children of i the nick just where the eastern joined the mountain and she herself began to rise above the of forest there was the name had already pleased me the high station pleased me still more i began to inquire with some eagerness it was but a little while ago that was a great place the mine a silver mine of course had promised great things there was quite a lively population with several hotels and boarding houses and himself had opened a branch store and done extremely well ain t it he said appealing to his wife and she said yes extremely well now there was no one living in the town but the hunter and once more i df the heard s praises by the yard and this time sung in chorus i could not help perceiving at the time that there was something underneath ths t no desire to have us comfortably settled had inspired the with this flow of words but i was impatient to be gone to be about my project and when we were offered seats in s wagon i accepted on the spot the plan of their next sunday s took them by good fortune over the border into lake county they would carry us so far drop us at the toll house present us to the and call for us again on monday morning early df the children of first impressions of we were to leave by six precisely that was solemnly pledged on both sides and a messenger came to us the last thing at night to remind us of the hour but it was eight before we got clear of mrs a friend of theirs whom we named her little daughter my wife myself and away behind us a cluster of ship s coffee these last were highly ornamental in the of their bright tin but i could invent no reason for their presence our reckoned up as near as we could df the get at it some three hundred years to the six of us four of the six besides were but i never in all my life was conscious of so strong an atmosphere of holiday no word was spoken but of pleasure and even when we drove in silence and smiles went round the party like the sun shone out of a sky close at the rode the moon still clearly visible and along one margin even bright the wind blew a gale from the north the trees roared the corn and the deep grass in the valley fled in the dust into the air along the road and dispersed like the smoke of battle it was clear in our teeth from the first and for all the of the road it df with the children of managed to keep clear in our teeth until the end for some two miles we rattled through the valley the eastern foot hills then we struck off to the right through land and presently crossing a dry entered the toll road or to be more local entered on the grade the road the near shoulder of mount saint bound northward into lake county in one place it skirts along the edge of a narrow and deep filled with trees and i was glad indeed not to be driven at this point by the dashing with his smile to the motion of the trap drove for all the world like a good plain country clergy df the man at and i profess i blessed him unawares for his timidity and deep meadows and framed with thicket gave place more and more as we ascended to woods of oak and dotted with enormous pines it was these pines as they shot above the lower wood that produced that of single trees i had so often remarked from the valley thence looking up and from however far each fir stands separate against the sky no bigger than an and all together lend a quaint fringed aspect to the hills the oak is no baby even the upon these spurs of mount saint comes to a fine bulk and ranks with forest trees but the pines look down upon the rest for df ike children of as mount saint among her foot hills so these dark giants out top their fellow vegetables alas if they had left the the pines jn turn would have been but the fallen from their high estate are serving as family or yet more humbly as field fences along all valley a rough of was in the air and a crystal mountain purity it came pouring over these green slopes by the the woods sang aloud and gave largely of their breath gladness seemed to these upper and we had left indifference behind us in the valley i to the hills will lift mine eyes i there are days in a life when thus to climb d g l rf the out of the seems like heaven as we continued to ascend the wind fell upon us with increasing strength it was a wonder how the two stout horses managed to pull us up that steep incline and still face the opposition of the wind or how their great eyes were able to endure the dust ten minutes after we went by a tree fell the road and even before us leaves were thickly strewn and boughs had fallen large enough to make the passage difficult but now we were hard by the summit the road crosses the ridge just in the nick that showed me from below and then without pause down a deep thickly wooded on the farther side	38
at the high d i r the children of est point a trail strikes up the main hill to the and that leads to a hundred yards beyond and in a kind of elbow of the stands the toll house hotel we came up the one side were caught upon the summit by the whole weight of the wind as it poured over into valley and a minute after had drawn up in shelter but all and breathless at the toll house door a water and stables and a gray house of two stories with ends and a are hard against the just where a stream has cut for itself a narrow filled with pines the pines go right up overhead a little more and the stream might have played like a fire on df the the toll house roof in front the ground drops as sharply as it rises behind there is just room for the road and a sort of of ground and then you can lean over the edge and look deep below you through the wood i said ground not green for the surface was of brown beaten earth the itself was the only other note of originality a long beam turning on a post and kept slightly by a of stones regularly about this rude barrier was swung like a across the road and made fast i think to a tree upon the farther side on our arrival there followed a gay scene in the bar i was presented to df the children of mr the landlord to mr the engineer who lives there for his health to mr a most pleasant little gentleman once a member of the again the editor of a local paper and now with dignity keeping the toll house bar i had a number of drinks and cigars bestowed on me and enjoyed a famous opportunity of seeing in his glory friendly radiant smiling steadily one of the ship s on the reluctant plainly aghast resisted gallantly and for that bout victory crowned his arms at last we set forth for on foot and his jolly jew girls were full of the sentiment of df the sunday breathed and and suffered a little vile boy from the hotel to lead them here and there about the woods for three people all so old so in body and belonging to a race so venerable they could not but surprise us by their extreme and almost of spirit they were only going to stay ten minutes at the toll house had they not twenty long miles of road before them on the other side stay to dinner not they put up the horses never let us attach them to the by a of straw rope such as would not have held a person s hat on that day and with all these of hurry they proved like df with the children of children himself shrewd old russian jew with a that seemed just to have concluded a bargain tp its satisfaction himself and us devoutly to that boy yet the boy was and for that matter a most raised apparently on he was bent on his own pleasure nothing else and followed him to his ruin with the same shrewd if the boy said there was a hole there in the hill a hole pure and simple neither more nor less and his jew girls would follow him a hundred yards to look complacently down that hole for two hours we looked for houses and for two hours they followed us smelling trees picking df the flowers false on the had we taken five with that vile lad to head them off on idle for five they would have smiled and stumbled through the woods however we came forth at length and as by accident upon a lawn planted like an orchard but with forest instead of fruit trees that was the site of town a piece of ground was up where s store had been and facing that we saw s house still bearing on its front the legend silver hotel not another sign of habitation town had all been from the scene one of the houses was now the school house far df with the children of down the road one was gone here one there but all were gone away it was now a solitude and the silence was unbroken but by the great vague voice of the wind some days before our visit a bear had been sporting round the chicken house mrs was at home alone we found had been out late after a bar had risen late and was now gone it did not clearly appear whither perhaps he had had wind of s coming and was now among the or watching us from the shoulder of the mountain we hearing there were no houses to be had were for immediately giving up all hopes of but this df the somehow was not to s fancy he first proposed that we should camp around ain t it waving his hand cheerily as though to a spell and when that was firmly rejected he decided that we must take up house with the mrs had been from the first subdued and a little pale but from this proposition she with haggard indignation so did we who would have preferred in a manner of speaking death but was not to be put by he edged mrs into a corner where for a long time he threatened her with his forefinger like a character in and the poor woman driven to her at last remembered with a df a the children of shriek that there were still some houses at the thither we went the jews who should already have been miles into lake county still cheerily accompanying us for about a we followed a good road along the through the forest until suddenly that road	38
out and came abruptly to an end a below red rocky and naked overhead was here walled across by a o rolling stones steep and from twenty to thirty feet in height a rusty iron on wooden legs came flying like a monstrous across the it was down this that they poured the precious ore and below here the carts stood to wait d g l rf the their and carry it mill ward down the mountain the whole was so entirely blocked as if by some rude that we could only mount by of wooden ladder fixed in the these led us round the further corner of the and when they were at an end we still over loose and deep in poison oak till we struck a platform up the whole and shut in on either hand by bold of the mountain only in front the place was open like the of a theatre and we looked forth into a great realm of air and down upon tree tops and hill tops and far and near on wild and varied df ike children of country the place still stood as on the day it was deserted a line of iron rails with a a in working order a world o lumber old wood old iron a blacksmith s on one side half buried in the leaves of dwarf and on the other an old brown wooden house and i dashed at the house it consisted of three rooms and was so against the hill that one room was right of another that the upper floor was more than twice as large as the lower and that all three apartments must be entered from a different side and level not a window remained the door of the lower room was smashed and one hung in we d i r loo the entered that found a fair amount of rubbish sand and gravel that had been in there by the mountain winds straw sticks and stones a table a barrel a plate rack on the wall two home made signs of and their boots and a pair of papers pinned on the boarding headed no i and no but with the tails torn away the window of course was choked with the green and sweetly smelling foliage of a bay and through a in the floor a spray of poison oak had shot up and was handsomely in the interior it was my first care to cut away standing by at a respectful distance d i r the children of loi that was our first improvement by which we took possession the room immediately above could only be entered by a plank propped against the threshold along which the intruder must foot it clutching for support to of poison oak the proper product of the country was on either hand a triple tier of beds where had once lain and the other was pierced by a window and a doorway opening on the air of heaven five feet above the ground as for the third room which entered from the ground level but higher up the hill and further up the it contained only rubbish and the for another triple tier of beds d i r the the whole building was by a bold lion like red rock poison oak sweet bay trees brush and grew freely but all about it in front in the strong sunshine the platform lay with busy litter as though the labors of the mine might begin again to morrow in the morning following back into the among the mass of plant and through the bushes we came to a great crazy with a on the top and up we could look into an open shaft leading down into the of the mountain with water and lit by some stray sun whence i know not df the children of in that quiet place the still far away of the water drops was loudly audible close by another shaft led up into the shoulder of the hill it lay partly open and sixty or a hundred feet above our head we could see the propped apart by solid wooden and a pine half nodding on the verge here also a rugged ran straight into the of the rock this secure angle in the mountain s flank was even on this wild day as still as my lady s chamber but in the a cold wet draught blew nor have i ever known that place otherwise than cold and windy such was our first prospect of d g l rf i the i own i had looked for something different a of houses on a village green we shall say all empty to be sure but swept and a stream by great elms or humming with bees and in by song birds and the mountains standing round about as at here mountain and house and the old tools of industry were all alike rusty and the hill was here up and there poured forth its in a of broken man with his and powder and nature with her own great tools of sun and rain laboring together at the ruin of that proud mountain the view up the was a glimpse of dry red df with the children of sliding together here and there a here and there dwarf thicket clinging in the general and over all a broken outline on the blue of heaven downwards indeed from our rock we beheld the side of nature and the bearing of the pines and the sweet smell of and commended gratefully to our senses one way and another now the die was cast be it after we had got back to the toll house the jews were not long of striking forward but i observed that one of the lads came down before their departure and returned with a ship s kettle happy nor was	38
it until after was gone if i remember rightly that put in an df io the appearance to arrange the details of our the latter part of the day and i sat in the of the toll house utterly stunned by the uproar of the wind among the trees on the other side of the valley sometimes we would have it it was like a sea but it was not various enough for that and again we thought it like the roar of a but it was too for the and then we would decide speaking in sleepy voices that it could be compared with nothing but itself my mind was entirely by the noise i to it by the hour and let my go out sometimes the wind would make a sally nearer hand and send a shrill whistling df a the children of crash among the foliage on our side of the and sometimes a back draught would strike into the elbow where we sat and cast the gravel and torn leaves into our faces but for the most part this great streaming gale passed by us into valley not two hundred yards away visible by the tossing boughs audible and yet not moving a hair upon our heads so it blew all night long while i was writing up my journal and after we were in bed under a heaven and so it was blowing still next morning when we rose it was a thought to us what had become of our cheerful wandering we could not suppose they had reached a destination d g l rf io tke the meanest boy could lead them miles out of their way to see a hole boys we felt to be their special danger none others were of that exact pitch of cheerful to exercise a kindred sway upon their minds but before the attractions of a boy their most settled resolutions would be as wax we thought we could follow in fancy these three aged hebrew wandering in and out on hill top and in thicket a demon boy trotting far ahead their the conductor and at last about midnight the wind still roaring in the darkness we had a vision of all three on their knees upon a mountain top around a glow worm df wi a the children of the return next morning we were up by half past five according to agreement and it was ten by the clock before our jew boys returned to pick us up mrs and all smiling from ear to ear and full of tales of the hospitality they had found on the other side it had not gone for i observed with interest that the ship s all but one had been placed three lake county families at least endowed for life with a ship s kettle come this was no sunday the absence d g l rf no the of the told its own story our jews said nothing about them but on the other hand they said many kind and comely things about they had met the two women in particular had been charmed out of themselves by the sight of a young girl surrounded by her admirers all evening it appeared they had been together in the girl s innocent and to this natural and unselfish joy they gave expression in language that was beautiful by its simplicity and truth take them for all in all few people have done my heart more good they seemed so thoroughly entitled to happiness and to enjoy it in so large a measure and so free from after thought df la the children of almost they persuaded me to be a jew there was indeed a of money in their talk they particularly commended people who were well to do don t care ain t it was their highest word of to an individual fate and here i seem to grasp the root of their philosophy it was to be free from care to be free to make these sunday wanderings that they so eagerly pursued after wealth and all this was to be careless the fine good humor of all three seemed to declare they had attained their end yet there was the other side to it and the of perhaps cared greatly no sooner had they returned than the scene of yesterday began again df the the horses were not even tied with a straw rope this time it was not worth while and disappeared into the bar leaving them under a tree on the other side of the road i had to devote myself i stood under the shadow of that tree for i suppose hard upon an hour and had not the heart to be angry once some one remembered me and brought me out half a of the playful american i drank it and lo veins of living fire ran down my leg and then a of remained seated in my stomach not for quarter of an hour i love these sweet fiery pangs but i will not court them the bulk of the time i spent in repeating as df the children of r much french poetry as i could remember to the horses who seemed to enjoy it and now it went o ma oil les and again to a more measure et tremble sit t oa le des de the and the of europe in that dry and land brave old names and wars strong cities and bright in that nook of the mountain sacred only to the indian and the bear i this is still the strangest thing in all man s travelling that he should carry about with him memories there d i r the is no foreign land it is the traveller only that is foreign and now and again by a flash of recollection lights up the of the earth but while	38
i was thus wandering in my fancy great had been in the bar the bold had fallen was again crowned with and the last of the ship s had changed hands if i had ever doubted the purity of s motives if i had ever suspected him of a single eye to business in his eternal now at least when the last kettle was disposed of my suspicions must have been i dare not guess how much more time was wasted nor how often we drove off merely to drive back again and re df a the children of new interrupted conversations about nothing before the toll house was fairly left behind alas and not a mile down the grade there stands a in a sunny and here we must all again and enter only the old lady was at home mrs a brown old dame the picture of honesty and with her we drank a bottle of wine and had an age long conversation which would have been highly delightful if and i had not been faint with hunger the ladies each the story of her marriage our two with the prettiest combination of sentiment and financial specially herself with every word she was as simple natural and df ii the ing as a kid that should have been brought up to the business of a one touch was so that i cannot pass it over when her old man wrote home for her from america her old man s family would not her with the money for the passage till she had bound herself by an oath on her knees i think she said not to employ it otherwise this had but i think it me fully more mrs told of her home sickness up here in the long of her honest country woman troubles and upon the journey how in the bank at she had feared lest the banker after having taken her df with ike children of should deny all knowledge of it a fear i have myself every time i go to a bank and how crossing the heath an old lady witnessing her trouble and finding whither she was bound had given her the blessing of a person eighty years old which would be sure to bring her safely to the states and the first thing i did added mrs was to fall downstairs at length we got out of the house and some of us into the trap when judgment of heaven here came mr from his so another quarter of an hour went by till at length at our earnest pleading we set forth again in earnest and i and silent but the jews still smiling the heart fails me e ii the there was yet another and we drove at last into past two in the afternoon and i having at six in the morning eight mortal hours before we were a pallid couple but still the jews were smiling so ended our excursion with the village and now that it was done we had no more idea of the nature of the business nor of the part we had been playing in it than the child that all the people we had met were the slaves of though in various degrees of that we ourselves had been sent up the mountain in the interests of none but that the money we laid out dollar by dollar cent by cent and df a tlie children of through the hands of various should all hop ultimately into s till these were facts that we only grew to recognize in the course of time and by the of evidence at length all doubt was when one of the kettle confessed stopping his trap in the moonlight a little way out of he told me in so many words that he dare not show face there with an empty pocket you see i don t mind if it was only five dollars mr he said but i give mr something even now when the whole tyranny is plain to me i cannot find it in my heart to be as angry as perhaps i should be with the hebrew tyrant the whole l j ii i the game of business is beggar my neighbor and though perhaps that game looks when played at such close quarters and on so small a scale it is none the more for that the village is not so sad a feature of humanity and human progress as the on the toil and loss of thousands and yet from the platform against the and of if it were fair for to buy up land from owners whom he thought unconscious of its proper value it was fair enough for my russian jew to give credit to his farmers if he was unconscious of the beam in his own eye was at least silent in the matter of his brother s df the act of d g l rf df the act of there were four of us myself and my wife the king queen of sam the crown prince and the grand duke a crossed with was the most for a rough life he had been tenderly in the society of ladies his heart was large and soft he regarded the sofa cushion as a bed rock necessary of existence though about the size of a sheep he loved to sit in ladies he never said a bad word in df all his days and if he had seen a i am sure he could have played upon it by nature it may seem hard to say it of a dog but was a tame cat the king and queen the grand duke and a basket of cold for immediate use set forth from in a double the crown prince on horseback led the way like an bags and boxes and a	38
pair of boots a dog and these bills of mr s were the only speaking relics that we from all that vast rubbish df the act of heap but what would i not have given to a letter a pocket book a only a or a roll of names to take me back in a more personal manner to the past it pleases me besides to fancy that or or one of their companions may light upon this chronicle and be struck by the name and read some news of their home coming as it were out of a subsequent epoch of history in that quarter of the world as we were tumbling the mingled rubbish on the floor kicking it with our feet and groping for these written evidences of the past sam with a somewhat face produced a paper bag what s this said he e jl it contained a powder something the color of s mixture but and as there were several of the bags and each more or less broken the powder was spread widely on the floor had any of us ever seen giant powder no nobody had and instantly there grew up in my mind a shadowy belief with every moment nearer to that i had somewhere heard somebody describe it as just such a powder as the one around us i have learnt since that it is a substance not unlike and is made up in rolls for all the world hke candles to add to our happiness told us a story of a gentleman who had one night like ourselves df the act of by a deserted mine he was a handy fellow and looked right and left for plunder but all he could lay his hands on was a can of oil after dark he had to see to the horses with a lantern and not to miss an opportunity filled up his lamp from the oil can thus equipped he set forth into the forest a little while after his friends heard a loud explosion the mountain echoes and then all was still on examination the can proved to contain oil with the trifling addition of but no disclosed a trace of either man or lantern it was a pretty sight after this anecdote to see us sweeping out the giant powder it seemed never to be far df the enough away and after all it was some rock for so much for the lower room we scraped some of the dirt off the floor and left it that was our and kitchen though there was nothing to sit upon but the table and no provision for a fire except a hole in the roof of the room above which had once contained the chimney of a stove to that upper room we now proceeded there were the eighteen in a double tier nine on either hand where from eighteen to thirty six had once together all night long john perhaps there was the roof with a hole in it through which the sun now shot an arrow there was the floor in much the df the act of same state as the one below though perhaps there was more hay and certainly there was the added of broken glass the man who stole the window frames having apparently made a with this one without a without hay or we could but look about us with a beginning of despair the one bright arrow of day in that gaunt and shattered made the rest look and darker and the sight drove us at last into the open here also the of man lay ruined but the plants were all alive and the view below was fresh with the colors ol nature and we had exchanged a dim human garret for a corner even although it were of the d g l rf the blue hall of heaven not a bird not a beast not a there was no noise in that part of the world save when we passed beside the and heard the water falling in the shaft we wandered to and fro we searched among that drift of lumber wood and iron nails and rails and and the wheels of we gazed up the into the bosom of the mountain we sat by the margin of the and saw far below us the green tree tops standing still in the clear air beautiful of bay and came to us more often land grew sweeter and as the afternoon declined but still there was no word of l the act of i set to with pick and and deepened the pool behind the shaft till we were sure of sufficient water for the morning and by the time i had finished the sun had begun to go down behind the mountain shoulder the platform was plunged in quiet shadow and a chill descended from the sky night began early in our before us over the margin of the we could see the sun still striking into the wooded nick below and on the pine on the further side there was no stove of course and no hearth in our lodging so we ourselves to the blacksmith s across the platform if the platform be taken as a stage and the out margin k i the of the to represent the line of the foot lights then our house would be the first wing on the actor s left and this blacksmith s although no match for it in size the foremost on the right it was a low brown cottage planted close against the hill and by the foliage and boughs of a thicket within it was full of dead leaves and mountain dust and rubbish from the mine but we soon had a good fire brightly blazing and sat close about it on seats the slave of for a softer bed but the rest	38
of us were greatly revived and comforted by that good creature fire which gives us warmth and light and sounds and colors up df the act of the building with better than for a while it was even pleasant in the with the blaze in the midst and a look over our on the woods and mountains where the day was dying like a it was between seven and eight before arrived with a of our effects and two of his wife s relatives to lend him a hand the elder showed surprising strength he would pick up a huge packing case full of books of all things swing it on his shoulder and away up the two crazy and the break neck of rolling familiarly termed a path that led from the to our house even for a man the ascent was e and precarious but it with a light foot carrying box after box as the hero the stage child up the practicable beside the of the fifth act with so strong a the business was speedily soon the s office was thronged with our piled and down about the floor there were our boxes indeed but my wife had her keys in there was the stove but alas our had forgot the chimney and lost one of the plates along the road the problem was scarce solved himself was grave and over his share of blame he even if i remember right expressed df tke act of regret but his crew to my astonishment and anger grinned from ear to ear and laughed aloud at our distress they thought it real funny about the stove pipe they had forgotten real funny that they should have lost a plate as for hay the whole party refused to bring us any till they should have see how late they were never had there been such a job as coming up that grade i nor often i suspect such a game of as that before they started but about nine as a particular favor we should have some hay so they took their departure leaving me still staring and we resigned ourselves to wait for their return the fire in the had been suffered df to go out and we were one and all too weary to another we dined or not to take that word in vain we ate after a fashion in the nightmare disorder of the s office perched among boxes a single candle lighted us it could scarce be called a house warming for there was of course no fire and with the two open doors and the open window gaping on the night like in a fortress it began to grow rapidly chill talk ceased nobody moved but the unhappy still in quest of sofa cushions who tumbled among the trunks it required a certain happiness of disposition to look forward from so dismal a beginning across the brief hours df the act of of night to the warm shining of to morrow s sun but the hay arrived at last and we turned with our last spark of courage to the bedroom we had improved the entrance but it was still a kind of rope walking and it would have been droll to see us mounting one after another by candle light under the open stars the western door that which looked up tlie and through which we entered by our bridge of flying plank was still entire a handsome door the most finished piece of in and the two lowest next to this we roughly filled with hay for that night s use through the opposite or df the looking with its open door and window a faint diffused came into the room like mist and when we were once in bed we lay awaiting sleep in a haunted obscurity at first the silence of the night was utter then a high wind began in the distance among the tree tops and for hours continued to grow higher it seemed to me much such a wind as we had found on our visit yet here in our open chamber we were only by gentle and refreshing draughts so deep was the so close our house was planted under the overhanging rock d g l rf the hunter s family d g l rf d i r the hunter s family there is quite a large race or class of people in america for whom we scarcely seem to have a parallel in england of pure white blood they are unknown or in towns the fringe of and the deep quiet places of the country rebellious to all labor and like the english ignorant but with a touch of wood lore and the dexterity of the savage where they came from is a d g l rf the point at the time of the war they poured north in crowds to escape the lived during summer on fruits wild animals and petty and at the approach of winter when these supplies failed built great fires in the forest and there died by starvation they are widely scattered however and easily recognized but not ill looking they will sit all day swinging their legs on a field fence the mind seemingly as devoid of all reflection as a peasant s careless of politics for the most part incapable of reading but with a rebellious vanity and a strong sense of independence hunting is their most congenial business or if the occasion offers a little amateur detection in df the family a criminal following a horse along a beaten highway and drawing from a hair or a one of those grinning will suddenly display activity of body and of mind by their names ye may know them the women as the men answering to or pronounced with the accent on the first whether they are indeed a race or whether this	38
is the form of common to all they are at least known by a as poor or low i will not say that the family was poor white because the name d g l rf the of offence but i may go as far as this they were in many points not to the people usually so called himself combined two of the for he was both a hunter and an amateur it was he who pursued and dollar the robbers of the lake port stage and captured them the very morning after the while they were still sleeping in a hay field a drunken scotch carpenter was even an acquaintance of his own and he expressed much grave for his fate in all that he said and did was grave i never saw him hurried when he spoke he took out his pipe with deliberation looked east and west and then in quiet tones i the hunter s family and few words stated his business or told his story his gait was to match it would never have surprised you if at any step he had turned round and walked away again so and slowly and with so much seeming hesitation did he go about he lay long in bed in the morning rarely indeed rose before noon he loved all games from to and in the toll house ground i have seen him toiling at the latter with the devotion of a he took an interest in education was an active member of the local school board and when i was there he had recently lost the school house key his wagon was broken but it never seemed to occur to him to mend it like all truly idle df people he had an artistic eye he chose the print stuff for his wife s dresses and her in the making of a always as she thought but to the more educated eye always with and admirable taste the taste of an indian with all this he was a perfect gentleman in word and act take his clay pipe from him and he was fit for any society but that of fools quiet as he was there burned a deep permanent excitement in his dark blue eyes and when this grave man smiled it was like sunshine in a shady place mrs me if you please was more commonplace than her lord she was a comely woman too df the s family plump fair colored with wonderful white teeth and in her print dresses chosen by and with a large sun bonnet her valued complexion made i assure you a very agreeable figure but she was on the surface what there was of her out spoken and loud spoken her noisy laughter had none of the charm of one of s rare smiles there was no no mystery no manner about the woman she was a first class but her husband was an unknown quantity between the savage and the nobleman she was often in and out with us merry and healthy and fair he came far only indeed when there was business or now and again to pay a visit of ceremony up d i r the for the occasion with his wife on his arm and a clean clay pipe in his teeth these visits in our forest state had quite the air of an event and turned our red into a such was the pair who ruled in the old hotel among the windy trees on the mountain shoulder overlooking the whole length of valley as the man aloft looks down on the ship s deck there they kept house with sundry horses and fowls and a family of sons daniel and i think george washington among the number nor did they want visitors an old gentleman of singular and called i think he had crossed the plains in the same with with them for df the hunter s family awhile during our stay and they had besides a permanent in the form of mrs s brother i spell by guess for i could get no information on the subject just as i could never find out in spite of many inquiries whether or not was a for they were all cheerfully at sea about their names in that generation and this is surely the more notable where the names are all so strange and even the family names appear to be made up at one time at least the ancestors of all these and and must have taken serious council and found a certain poetry in these that must have been then their form of literature but df the still times change and their next descendants the george and daniel will at least be clear upon the point and anyway and however his name should be this was the most i ever knew our very first morning at when we were full of business up doors and windows making beds and seats and getting our rough lodging into shape and his sister made their appearance together she for and general curiosity he because he was working for me to my sorrow cutting at i forget how much a day the way that he set about cutting wood was characteristic we were at that moment up and df the s family in the kitchen down he sat on one side and down sat his sister on the other both were and he to my annoyance accompanied that simple pleasure with she rattled away talking up hill and down laughing tossing her head showing her brilliant teeth he looked on in silence now heavily on the floor now put ting his head back and uttering a loud laugh he had a of shock hair the color of wool his mouth was a grin although as strong as a horse he looked neither heavy nor yet only and in the road	38
but it was plain he was in high spirits thoroughly enjoying his visit and he laughed frankly when df i o the ever we failed to accomplish what we were about this was scarcely it was even to amateur embarrassing but it lasted until we knocked off work and began to get dinner then mrs remembered she should have been gone an hour ago and the pair retired and the lady s laughter died away among the down the path that was s first day s work in my employment the devil take him i the next morning he returned and as he was this time alone he bestowed his conversation upon us with great liberality he himself on his intelligence asked us if we knew the school ma am he did n t think much of her anyway he had tried her he had df the hunter s family i r he had put a question to her if a tree a hundred feet high were to fall a foot a day how long would it take to fall right down she had not been able to solve the problem she don t know nothing he he told us how a friend of his kept a school with a revolver and chuckled over that his friend could teach school he could all the time he kept and he would stand a while looking down and then he would toss back his shock of hair and laugh hoarsely and spit and bring forward a new subject a man he told us who bore a grudge against him had poisoned his dog that was a low thing for a man to do now wasn t it it was n t like a man that but i got even with n df i the him i his dog his clumsy utterance his rude embarrassed manner set a fresh value on the stupidity of his remarks i do not think i ever appreciated the meaning of two words until i knew the loaf and the between them they complete his portrait he could and and rub himself against the wall and grin and be more in everybody s way than any other two people that i ever set my eyes on nothing that he did became him and yet you were conscious that he was one of your own race that his mind was at work revolving the problem of existence like a of and in his own cloudy manner enjoying life and passing judgment on his fellows above all df the hunter s family things he was delighted with himself you would not have thought it from his uneasy manners and troubled struggling utterance but he loved himself to the and was happy and proud like a on a rail his self esteem was indeed the one joint in his harness he could be got to work and even kept at work by flattery as long as my wife stood over him crying out how strong he was so long exactly he would stick to the matter in hand and the moment she turned her back or ceased to praise him he would stop his physical strength was wonderful and to have a woman stand by and admire his achievements warmed his heart like sunshine yet he was as cowardly d g l rf r tlie as he was powerful and felt no shame in to the weakness something was once wanted from the crazy platform over the shaft and he at once refused to venture there did not like as he said round them kind o places and let my wife go instead of him looking on with a grin vanity where it rules is usually more heroic but steadily approved himself and expected others to approve him rather looked down upon my wife and decidedly expected her to look up to him on the strength of his superior prudence yet the strangest part of the whole matter was perhaps this that was as beautiful as a statue his features were in themselves perfect df the hunters family it was only his cloudy uncouth and coarse expression that them so much strength in so spare a frame was proof sufficient of the accuracy of his shape he must have been built somewhat after the pattern of jack but the famous we may be certain was no it was by the extraordinary powers of his mind no less than by the vigor of his body that he broke his strong prison with such imperfect implements turning the very obstacles to service in the same case would have sat down and and grumbled curses he had the soul of a fat sheep but regarded as an artist s model the exterior of a greek god it was a cruel thought to per e l the sons less favored in their birth that this creature endowed to use the language of theatres with extraordinary means should so manage to them that he looked ugly and almost it was only by an effort of abstraction and after many days that you discovered what he was by playing on the s conceit and standing closely over him we got a path made round the comer of the to our door so that we could come and go with decent ease and he even enjoyed the work for in that there were to be plucked up bodily bushes to be and other occasions for display but cutting wood was a different mat d g l rf the s family ter anybody could cut wood and besides my wife was tired of him and had other things to attend to and in short days went by and came daily and talked and and but the remained as on the platform or growing trees upon the mountain side as a we could but as a friend of the family at so much a day	38
was too bald an and at length in the afternoon of the fourth or fifth day of our connection i explained to him as clearly as i could the light in which i had grown to regard his presence i pointed out to him that i could not continue to give him a salary for on the df the floor and this expression which came after a good many others at last penetrated his wits he rose at once and said if that was the way he was going to be spoken to he reckoned he would quit and no one he departed so far so good but we had no the next afternoon i strolled down to s and consulted him on the subject it was a very droll interview in the large bare north room of the hotel mrs s on a frame and and his wife and i and the himself all more or less em announced there was nobody in the neighborhood but who could do a day s work for any d i r tke hunter s family body thereupon refused to have any more to do with my service he would n t work no more for a man as had spoke to him s i had done i found myself on the point of the last humiliation n to the creature whom i had just dismissed with insult but i took the high hand in despair said there must be no talk of coming back unless matters were to be differently managed that i would rather chop for myself than be and in short the being eager for the lad s hire i so imposed upon them with merely affected resolution that they ended by begging me to re employ him on a solemn promise that he should be more industrious the promise i df the am bound to say was kept we soon had a fine pile of at our door and if gave me the cold shoulder and spared me his tion i thought none the worse of him for that nor did i find my days much longer for the the leading spirit of the family was i am inclined to fancy mrs her social brilliancy somewhat dazzled the others and she had more o the small change of sense it was she who faced for instance and perhaps if she had been alone would have had no rule within her doors to be sure had a fine sober open air attitude of mind seeing the world without exaggeration perhaps we may even say without enough df the s family for he lacked along with the others that commercial which puts so high a value on time and money itself is a kind of perhaps was wrong but looking on life plainly he was unable to perceive that or were in any way less important than for instance mending his wagon even his own profession hunting was dear to him mainly as a sort of play even that he would have neglected had it not appealed to his imagination his hunting suit for instance had cost i should be afraid to say how many the in which he paid his way it was all after the indian fashion and it was dear to his heart the side l j ii the of his daily business was never forgotten he was even anxious to stand for his picture in those hunting clothes and i remember how he once warmed almost into enthusiasm his dark blue eyes growing larger as he planned the composition in which he should appear with the horns of some real big and dogs and a camp on a creek stream there was no trace in of this poetry he did not care for hunting nor yet for suits he had never observed scenery the world as it appeared to him was almost by his own great grinning figure in the and it seems to me as if in the persons of these brothers in law we had df the s family the two sides of fairly well represented the hunter really in nature the living merely out of society the one bent up in every agent to capacity in one pursuit doing at least one thing keenly and thoughtfully and thoroughly alive to all that touches it the other in the and state walking in a faint dream and taking so dim an impression of the sides of life that he is truly conscious of nothing but himself it is only in the of nature forests mountains and the back of man s beyond that a creature endowed with five senses can grow up into the perfection of this and vanity in towns or the country sides he is roughly reminded d i r of other men s existence and if he no more he at least to fear contempt but had come through life conscious only of himself of his great strength and intelligence and in the silence of the universe to which he did not listen dwelling with delight on the sound of his own thoughts df the sea df df the sea a change in the color of the light usually called me in the morning by a certain hour the long in our western where the boards had shrunk and separated flashed suddenly into my eyes as of dazzling blue at once so dark and splendid that i used to marvel how the qualities could be combined at an earlier hour the heavens in that quarter were still quietly colored but the shoulder of the mountain which in the already d i r the glowed with sunlight in a wonderful compound of gold and rose and green and this too would although more mildly and with rainbow tints the of our crazy if i were sleeping heavily it was the bold blue that struck me awake if more lightly	38
then i would come to myself in that earlier and fairer light one sunday morning about five the first brightness called me i rose and turned to the east not for my but for air the night had been very still the little private gale that blew every evening in our for ten minutes or perhaps a quarter of an hour had swiftly blown itself out in the hours that followed not a sign of wind had shaken the tree tops and our bar df the sea rack for all its was less fresh that morning than of wont but i had no sooner reached the window than i forgot all else in the sight that met my eyes and i made but two bounds into my clothes and down the crazy plank to the platform the sun was still concealed below the opposite hill tops though it was shining already not twenty feet above my head on our own mountain slope but the scene beyond a few near features was entirely changed valley was gone gone were all the lower slopes and foot hills of the range and in their place not a thousand feet below me rolled a great level ocean it was as though i had gone to bed the night before safe in a nook of inland d i r l o the and had awakened in a bay upon the coast i had seen these from below at i had risen and gone abroad in the early morning and under on of gray sea like a cloudy sky a dull sight for the artist and a painful experience for the invalid but to sit aloft one s self in the pure air and under the dome of heaven and thus look down on the of the valley was strangely different and even delightful to the eyes far away were hill tops like little islands nearer a smoky surf beat about the foot of and poured into all the of these rough mountains the color of that fog ocean was a thing never to be forgotten for an instant df the sea i i among the and just about i have seen something like it on the sea itself but the white was not so nor was there what increased the effect that breathless crystal stillness over all even in its moods the salt sea moaning among the weeds or on the sand but that vast fog ocean lay in a trance of silence nor did the sweet air of the morning tremble with a sound as i continued to sit upon the i began to observe that this sea was not so level as at first sight it appeared to be away in the extreme south a little hill of fog arose against the sky above the general surface and as it had already caught the sun it shone on the df the horizon like the of some giant ship there were huge waves stationary as it seemed like waves in a frozen sea and yet as i looked again i was not sure but they were moving after all with a slow and august advance and while i was yet doubting a of the hills some four or five miles away conspicuous by a of tall pines was in a single instant overtaken and swallowed up it reappeared in a little with its pines but this time as an and only to be swallowed up once more and then for good this set me looking nearer and i saw that in every along the line of mountains the fog was being piled in higher and higher as though by some wind that was to me i could trace its progress one df tke sea pine tree first growing and then disappearing after another although sometimes there was none of this haze but the whole white ocean gave a start and swallowed a piece of mountain at a it was to flee these poisonous that i had left the and climbed so high among the mountains and now behold here came the fog to me in my chosen and yet came so beautifully that my first thought was of welcome the sun had now gotten much higher and through all the of the hills it cast long bars of gold across that white ocean an eagle or some other very great bird of the mountain came over the nearer pine d g l rf the tops and hung poised and something sideways as if to look abroad on that unwonted desolation perhaps with terror for the of her comrades then with a long cry she disappeared again towards lake county and the clearer air at length it seemed to me as if the flood were beginning to the old by whose disappearance i had measured its advance here a there a brave pine tree now began in the order to make their into daylight i judged all danger of the fog was over this was not s flood it was but a morning spring and would now drift out whence it came so relieved and a good deal by the sight df the sea i went into the house to light the fire i suppose it was nearly seven when i once more mounted the platform to look abroad the fog ocean had swelled up since last i saw it and a few hundred feet below me in the deep gap where the toll house stands and the road runs through into lake county it had already the slope and was pouring over and down the other side like driving smoke the wind had climbed along with it and though i was still in calm air i could see the trees tossing below me and their long sighing mounted to me where i stood half an hour later the fog had surmounted all the ridge on the opposite df i the side of the	38
gap though a shoulder of the mountain still it out of our valley and its bounding hills were now utterly blotted out the fog sunny white in the sunshine was pouring over into lake county in a huge ragged tossing appearing and disappearing in the spray the air struck with a little chill and set me it smelt strong of the fog like the smell of a washing house but with a shrewd of the sea salt had it not been for two things the spur which answered as a and the great valley on the other side which rapidly whatever mounted our own little platform in the must have been df the sea already buried a hundred feet in salt and poisonous air as it was the interest of the scene entirely occupied our minds we were set just out of the wind and but just above the fog we could listen to the voice of the one as to music on the stage we could plunge our eyes down into the other as into some flowing stream from over the of a bridge thus we looked on upon a strange impetuous silent shifting exhibition of the powers of nature and saw the familiar landscape changing from moment to moment like figures in a dream the imagination loves to trifle with what is not had this been indeed the i should have felt more strongly but the emotion would have e the been similar in kind i played with the idea as the child in delighted terror from the of his fancy the look of the thing helped me and when at last i began to flee up the mountain it was indeed partly to escape from the raw air that kept me but it was also part in play as i ascended the mountain side i came once more to overlook the upper surface of the fog but it wore a different appearance from what i had beheld at daybreak for first the sun now fell on it from high overhead and its surface shone and like a great country with morning snow and next the new level must have been a thousand or fifteen hundred feet higher than the old df the sea so that only five or six points of all the broken country below me still stood out valley was now one with on the west on the hither side only a thin scattered fringe of was and through all the the fog was pouring over like an ocean into the blue clear sunny country on the east there it was soon lost for it fell instantly into the bottom of the valleys following the water shed and the hill tops in that quarter were still clear cut upon the eastern sky through the toll house gap and over the near on the other side the was immense a spray of thin was thrown high above it rising and falling and blown into fantastic shapes the speed of its course was df the like a mountain torrent here and there a few tree tops were discovered and then again and for one second the bough of a dead pine beckoned out of the spray like the arm of a drowning man but still the imagination was dissatisfied still the ear waited for something more had this indeed been water as it seemed so to the eye with what a plunge of thunder would it have rolled upon its course mountains and pines and yet water it was and sea water at that true pacific only somewhat rolling in mid air among the hill tops i climbed still higher among the red rattling gravel and dwarf of mount until i could look i g the sea right down upon and admire the favored nook in which it lay the sunny plain of fog was several hundred feet higher behind the protecting spur a gigantic of threatened with every second to blow over and our but the setting past the toll house was too strong and there lay our little platform in the arms of the but still enjoying its un broken sunshine about eleven however thin spray came flying over the friendly and i began to think the fog had hunted out its after all but it was the last effort the wind while we were at dinner and began to blow from the mountain summit and by half past one all that world of d g l rf sea was utterly and flying here and there into the south in little rags of cloud and instead of a lone sea beach we found ourselves once more a high mountain side with the clear green country far below us and the light smoke of blowing in the air this was the great russian campaign for that season now and then in the early morning a little white of fog would be seen far down in valley but the heights were not again assailed nor was the surrounding world again shut off from df the toll house df df the toll house the house standing alone by the under nodding pines with its and water its tool bar and well trodden ground the standing by the stable door a straw a glimpse of the chinese cook in the back parts and mr in the bar gravely alert and serviceable and equally anxious to lend or borrow books all day in the dusty sunshine more than half asleep there e ig the were no neighbors except the up the hill the traffic on the road was only at rare intervals a couple in a wagon or a dusty farmer on a spring board toiling over the grade to that hamlet and at the fixed hours the passage of the stages the nearest building was the down the road and the school ma am at the toll house walking thence in the morning to the	38
little brown where she taught the young ones of the district and returning thither pretty weary in the afternoon she had chosen this situation i understood for her health mr was so was so was mr df the toll house the engineer in short the place was a kind of small folk on a hill top in the most unbroken idleness never did anything that i could see except now and then to fish and generally to sit about in the bar and the waiting for something to happen and did as little as possible and if the school ma am poor lady had to work pretty hard all morning she subsided when it was over into much the same dazed as all the rest her special comer was the parlor a very genteel room with bible prints a portrait of mrs in the height of fashion a few years ago another of her son mr was d i r the not represented a mirror and a selection of dried a large book was laid on the table from palace to i believe its name full of the experiences in england the author had mingled freely with all classes the nobility particularly meeting him with open arms and i must say that traveller had ill his reception his book in short was a capital instance of the penny school of literature and there arose from it in cool parlor in that silent mountain inn a rank atmosphere of gold and blood and and the mysteries of london and sickening fit to knock you down the mention of this book df the toll house reminds me of another and far picture of our island life the latter parts of are surely too consulted in the country which they no man s education can be said to be complete nor is the world yet emptied of enjoyment till he has made the knowledge of that desperate fellow the reverend of tlie society to follow the of that reverend gentleman who goes through scenes in which even mr would hesitate to place a bishop is to rise to new ideas but there was no about the toll house only alongside of from palace to a figured so literature you see was not d i r the the school ma am had friends to stay with her other school ma enjoying their holidays quite a of they seemed never to go out or not beyond the but sat close in the little parlor quietly talking or listening to the wind among the trees sleep dwelt in the toll house like a summer sleep shallow soft and a clock a great in such a place at intervals about the echoing house and mr would open his s for a moment in the bar and turn the leaf of a newspaper and the resting in the parlor would be recalled to the consciousness of their busy mrs and her busy might be heard indeed in the pen l j ii the toll house or or rattling dishes or perhaps had called up some of the for a game of and the hollow strokes of the sounded far away among the woods but with these exceptions it was sleep and sunshine and dust and the wind in the pine trees all day long a little before stage time that castle of awoke the threw his straw away and set to his preparations mr rubbed his eyes happy mr the something he had been waiting for all day about to happen at last the gathered in the silently giving ear and gazing down the road with shaded eyes and as yet there was no sign for the senses not a sound not a tremor of the df the mountain road the birds to whom the secret of the is unknown must have set down to instinct this bustle and then the first of the two stages upon the toll house with a roar and in a cloud of dust and the shock had not yet time to before the second was abreast of it huge concerns they were well and loaded the men in their the women in the long whip like a pistol and as they charged upon that each a dust storm the dead place into life and talk and clatter this the toll house with its city throng its shoulders its of instant business in df the toll house the bar the mind would not receive it the bustle of that hour is hardly the thrill of the great shower of letters from the post bag the childish hope and interest with which one gazed in all these strangers eyes they paused there but to pass the blue clad china boy the san the mystery in the dust coat the secret in the well shod lady with her troop of girls they did but flash and go they were down for us behind life s ocean and we but hailed their on the line yet out of our great solitude of four and twenty mountain hours we thrilled to their momentary presence and divined them loved and hated and stood light headed in d g l rf the that storm of human yes like this is also one of life s crossing places here i beheld one man already famous as infamous a centre of pistol shots and another who if not yet known to will fill a column of the sunday paper when he comes to hang a thick set powerful chinese six long upon either lip of playing cards and pistols in the bar with the lowest assumption of the lowest european manners out english oaths in his oriental voice and in one person the of two races and two for all his lust and vigor he seemed to look cold upon me from the df the toll house valley of the shadow of the gallows he imagined a	38
vain thing and while he drained his s death was at his elbow once too i fell in talk with another of these flitting strangers like the rest in his shirt sleeves and all with dust and the next minute we were discussing paris and london theatres and to him from one human place to another this was a trifle but to me no mr i have not forgotten it and presently the city tide was at its flood and began to ebb life runs in say from nine to one and then there also into the small hours of the echoing policeman and the lamps and stars but the toll house is far up stream and near its rural df o the springs the of the tide but touches it before you had yet grasped your pleasure the horses were put to the loud and the tide was gone north and south had the two stages vanished the towering dust subsided in the woods but there was still an interval before the flush had fallen on your cheeks before the ear became once more contented with the silence as the seven of the toll house back to their accustomed corners yet a little and the would swing round the great barrier across the road and in the golden evening that dreamy inn begin to trim its lamps and spread the board for supper as i recall the place the green df the toll house below the of pine the scented air that gray inn with its faint of life amid the slumber of the mountains i slowly awake to a sense of admiration gratitude and almost love a fine place after all for a wasted life to away in the clock of its far home country the eloquent of english the stages daily bringing news of the turbulent world away below there and perhaps once in the summer a salt fog pouring overhead with its tale of the pacific d g l rf df a drive d g l rf d g l rf a drive in our rule at there was a melancholy the queen and the crown prince with one accord fell sick and as i was sick to begin with our lone position on mount saint was no longer and we had to hurry back to and a cottage on the green by that time we had begun to realize the difficulties of our position we had found what an amount of labor it cost to support life in our red and it was the d i r the dearest desire of our hearts to get a china boy to go with us when we returned we could have given him a whole house to himself as they say in the and on the money question we were prepared to go far sam the was with the affair and from day to day it on with on our part and excuses on the part of sam at length about half past eight of our last evening with the wagon ready to convey us up the grade the with a somewhat air produced the boy he was a handsome gentlemanly lad at l j ii a drive tired in rich dark blue and shod with snowy white but alas i he had heard of he knew it for a lone place on the mountain side with no friendly wash house near by where he might smoke a pipe of o nights with other china boys and lose his little at the game of tan and he first backed out for more money and then when that demand was satisfied refused to come he was wedded to his he had no taste for the rural life and we must go to our mountain it must have been near half an hour before we reached that conclusion standing in the midst of high street under the stars and the china boy and sam d g l rf singing their pigeon english in the sweetest voices and with the most musical we were not however to return alone for we brought with us joe strong the painter a most comrade and a capital hand at an i do not know in which capacity he was most valued as a cook or a companion and he did well in both the sam had delayed us it must have been half past nine before we left and night came fully ere we struck the bottom of the grade i have never seen such a night it seemed to throw in the teeth of all the painters that ever df a drive in the sky itself was of a ruddy powerful nameless changing i color dark and glossy like a serpent s back the stars by innumerable millions stuck boldly forth like lamps the way was bright like a cloud half heaven seemed way the greater shone each more clearly than a winter s moon their light was in every sort of color red like fire blue like steel green like the tracks of sunset and so sharply did each stand forth in its own lustre that there was no appearance of that flat arch we know so well in pictures but all the hollow of heaven was one chaos of a of stars against this df i the the hills and rugged tree tops stood out dark as we continued to advance the lesser lights and ways first grew pale and then vanished the countless hosts of heaven in number by successive millions those that still shone had tempered their exceeding brightness and fallen back into their customary wistful distance and the sky declined from its first bewildering splendor into the appearance of a common night slowly this change proceeded and still there was no sign of any cause then a whiteness like mist was thrown over the spurs of the mountain yet	38
mount saint there was at the same date a second large its name if it ever had one lost for me both of these have perished leaving not a stick and scarce a memory behind them tide after tide of hopeful have thus flowed and about the mountain coming and going now by solitary d g l rf in the story of a mine now with a rush last in order of time came reared the big mill in the valley founded the town which is now represented by s pierced all these and shafts and and in turn declined and died away our noisy years seem moments in the wake of the eternal silence as to the success of in its time of being two reports were current according to the first six hundred thousand dollars were taken out of that great upright that still hung open above us on crazy then the ledge pinched out and there followed in quest of the remainder a great drifting and in all directions and a great consequent of dollars jt the until all parties being sick of the expense the mine was deserted and the town according to the second version told me with much secrecy of manner the whole affair mine mill and town were parts of one majestic there had never come any silver out of any portion of the mine there was no silver to come at midnight trains of pack horses might have been observed winding by tracks about the shoulder of the mountain they came from far away from or laden with silver in old cigar boxes they discharged their load at in the hour of sleep and before the morning they were gone again with their mysterious drivers to their unknown source df in the story of a mine in this way twenty thousand pounds worth of silver was in under cover of night in these old cigar boxes mixed with down to the mill crushed and refined and despatched to the city as the proper product of the mine stock if it can cover such expenses must be a profitable business in san i give these two as i got them but i place little reliance on either my belief in history having been greatly shaken for it chanced that i had come to dwell in at a critical hour great events in its history were about to happen did happen as i am led to believe nay and it will be seen that i played a part in that d i r tke tion myself and yet from first to last i never had a glimmer of an idea what was going on and even now after full reflection profess myself at sea that there was some obscure of the cigar box order and that i in the character of a wooden set pen to paper in the interest of somebody so much and no more is certain then under my immediate sway belonged to one whom i will call a mr i only knew him through the medium of local gossip now as a momentous now as a to point an and again and much more probably as an ordinary christian gentleman like you or me who had opened a mine and worked it for a while t in the story of a mine with better and worse fortune so through a window pane you may see the by shoot up into a backed giant or into a pot dwarf to at least the mine belonged but the notice by which he held it would run out upon the th of june or rather as i suppose it had run out already and the month of grace would upon that day after which any american citizen might post a notice of his own and make his this with a sort of quiet told me at an early period of our acquaintance there was no silver of course the mine was n t worth nothing mr but there was a deal of old iron and wood around and to gain d i r of this old wood and iron and get a right to the water proposed if i had no objections to jump the claim of course i had no objection but i was filled with wonder if all he wanted was the wood and iron what in the name of fortune was to prevent him taking them his right there was none to dispute he might lay hands on all to morrow as the had laid hands upon our knives and besides was this mass of heavy plant worth if it was why had not the owners it away if it was would they not preserve their title to these even after they had lost their title to the mine and if df in the of a mine it were not what the better was nothing would grow at there was even no wood to cut beyond a sense o property there was nothing to be gained lastly was it at all that would forget what remembered the days of grace were not yet over any fine morning he might appear paper in hand and enter for another year on his inheritance however it was none of my business all seemed legal or all was one to me on the morning of the th mrs appeared with the milk as usual in her sun bonnet the time would be out on tuesday she reminded us and bade me be in readiness to play my part though i had no idea what it ic the was to be and suppose came we asked she received the idea with derision laughing aloud with all her fine teeth he could not find the mine to save his life it appeared without to guide him last year when he came they heard him up and down the road a and a	38
and at last he had to come to the in despair and bid jump into your and shoes and show me where this old mine is anyway seeing that had laid out so much money in the spot and that a beaten road led right up to the bottom of the i thought this a remarkable example the sense of locality must be singularly in in case o df in the story of a mine that same evening supper comfortably over joe strong busy at work on a drawing of the and the opposite hills we were all out on the platform together sitting there under the heavens with the same sense of privacy as if we had been in a parlor when the sound of brisk footsteps came mounting up the path we pricked our ears at this for the tread seemed lighter and firmer than was usual with our country neighbors and presently sure enough two town gentlemen with cigars and kid gloves came past the house they looked in that place like a good evening they said for none of us had stirred we all sat stiff with wonder d i r the good evening i returned and then to put them at their ease a stiff climb i added yes replied the leader but we have to thank you for this path i did not like the man s tone none of us liked it he did not seem embarrassed by the meeting but threw us his remarks like and strode by us towards the shaft and presently we heard his voice raised to his companion we drifted every sort of way but could n t strike the ledge then again it pinched out here and once more every that ever worked upon it says there s bound to be a ledge somewhere df in the story of a mine these were the of his talk that reached us and they had a significance we the lords of had come face to face with our superior it is the worst of all quaint and of all cheap ways of life that they bring us at last to the pinch of some humiliation i liked well enough to be a when there was none but by before i will own i somewhat i hastened to do him said i gathered he was the and he threatened me with in a manner grimly pleasant more pleasant to him i fancy than to me and then he passed into praises of the former state of it was the little df the town you ever saw a population of between a thousand and fifteen hundred souls the engine in full blast the mill newly erected nothing going but champagne and hope the order of the day ninety thousand dollars came out a hundred and forty thousand were put in making a net loss of fifty thousand the last days i gathered the days of john were not so bright the champagne had ceased to flow the population was already moving elsewhere and had begun to in the branch before it was cut at the root the last shot that was fired knocked over the stone chimney and made that hole in the roof of our through which the sun was wont to visit a beds towards after df in the story of a mine noon a noisy last shot to the days of silence throughout this interview my conscience was a good deal exercised and i was moved to throw myself on my knees and own the intended treachery but then i had to consider i was in much the same position as old that royal whom the rogue had taken into his confidence and again here was on the spot he must know the day of the month as well as and i if a broad hint were necessary he had the in the world for a large board had been nailed by the crown prince on the very front of our house between the door and window painted in the of d g l rf the the country with and pictures and announcing in terms that the trick was already played the claim already jumped and master sam the legitimate successor of mr but no nothing could save that man as he came so he went and left his rights depending late at night by reckoning and after we were all mrs returned to give us the of her news it was like a scene in a ship s all of us in our different the single candle struggling with the darkness and this plump handsome woman seated on ap beside the talking df in the story of a mine and showing her fine teeth and laughing till the rang any ship to be sure with a part as many holes in it as our must long ago have gone to her last port up to that time i had always imagined mrs s to be mere that she said what was uppermost for the pleasure of speaking and laughed and laughed again as a kind of musical accompaniment but i now found there was an art in it i found it less than silence itself i wished to know why had come how he had found his way without and why being on the spot he had not refreshed his title she talked on but her replies were never answers she fled d g l rf under a cloud o words and when i had made sure that she was purposely me i dropped the subject in my turn and let her rattle where she would she had come to tell us that instead of waiting for tuesday the claim was to be jumped on the morrow how if the time were not out it was impossible why if had come and gone and done nothing there was the less cause for hurry but	38
again i could reach no satisfaction the claim was to be jumped next morning that was all that she would condescend upon and yet it was not jumped the next morning nor yet the next and a whole week had come and gone before we df in the story of a mine heard more of this that day week however a day of great heat with a httle roll of paper in his hand and the eternal pipe alight his large dull friend to act i suppose as witness mrs in her sunday best and all the children from the oldest to the youngest arrived in a procession one behind another up the path was absent but he had been of his friendly visits since the row and with that exception the whole family was gathered together as for a marriage or a strong was sitting at work in the shade of the dwarf near the and they planted themselves about him in a circle one on a stone another on the wagon rails df the a third on a piece of plank gradually the children stole away up the to where there was another somewhat smaller than the one across the and down this for the rest o the afternoon they poured one of stones after another waking the echoes of the meantime we elders sat together on the platform and his friend smoking in silence like indian mrs rattling on as usual with an saying nothing but keeping the party at their ease like a hostess not a word occurred about the business of the day once twice and thrice i tried to slide the subject in but was discouraged by the df in the of a mine of and beaten down before the pouring of his wife there is nothing of the indian brave about me and i began to with impatience at last like a highway robber i and bade him stand and deliver his business thereupon he gravely rose as though to hint that this was not a proper place nor the subject one suitable for and i following his example led him up the plank into our there he bestowed himself on a box and his papers with fastidious deliberation there were two sheets of note paper and an old notice dated may th part print part manuscript and the latter much by the rains it was by this identical d i r tke piece of paper that the mine had been held last year for thirteen months it had endured the weather and the change of seasons on a behind the shoulder of the and it was now my business spreading it before me on the table and sitting on a to copy its terms with some necessary changes twice over on the two sheets of note paper one was then to be placed on the same a mound of rocks the notice put it and the other to be lodged for watched me silently smoking till i came to the place for the s name at the end of the first copy and when i proposed that he should sign i thought i saw a scare in his eye i df in ike story of a mine don t think that ll be necessary he said slowly just you write it down perhaps this mighty hunter who was the most active member of the local school board could not write there would be nothing strange in that the of is and has been for years a bed ridden man and if i remember rightly blind he had more need of the than another it was explained and it was easy for him to with a strong accent on the last so friendly and so free are popular institutions when i had done my strolled out and addressed will you step up here a bit and after they had disappeared a little while into the and d g l rf the thicket they came back again a notice and the deed was done the claim was jumped a tract of mountain side fifteen hundred feet long by six hundred wide with all the earth s precious had passed from to and in the passage changed its name from the to the i had tried to get to call it after his wife after himself and after the republican candidate of the hour since then elected and alas dead but all was in vain the had once been called the before and he seemed to feel safety in returning to that and so the history of that mine became once more plunged in dark df in the story of a mine ness lit only by some monster of gossip and perhaps the most curious feature of the whole matter is this that we should have dwelt in this quiet corner of the mountains with not a dozen neighbors and yet struggled all the while like desperate in this sea of and wherever a man is there will be a lie d i r df toils and pleasures df df toils and pleasures i must try to convey some notion of our life of how the days passed and what pleasure we took in them of what there was to do and how we set about doing it in our mountain the house after we had repaired the worst of the and filled in some of the doors and windows with white cotton cloth became a healthy and a pleasant dwelling place always airy and dry and haunted by the of the within it had the look of df the tion the human look you had only to go into the third room which we did not use and see its stones its earth its tumbled litter and then return to our lodging with the beds made the plates on the rack the of bright water behind the door the stove	38
in a corner and perhaps the table roughly laid against a meal and man s order the little clean spots that he to dwell in were at once contrasted with the rich of nature and yet our house was everywhere so wrecked and shattered the air came and went so freely the sun found so many the golden out door glow shone in so many open that we enjoyed at the same time some of the comforts of a roof and much of the gay df toils and pleasures and brightness of al life a single shower of rain to be sure and we should have been drowned out like but ours was a summer and an earthquake was a far accident than a shower of rain in this fine weather we kept the house for kitchen and bedroom and used the platform as our summer parlor the sense of privacy as i have said already was complete we could look over the on miles of forest and rough our eyes commanded some of valley where the train ran and the little country sat so close together along the line of the rail but here there was no man to intrude none but the were our visitors even they came but at long d g l rf the intervals or twice daily at a stated hour with milk so our days as they were never interrupted drew out to the greater length hour melted into hour the household duties though they were many and some of them laborious into mere of business in a sea of sunny day time and it appears to me looking back as though the far greater part of our life at had been passed propped upon an elbow or seated on a plank listening to the silence that there is among the hills my work it is true was over early in the morning i rose before any one else lit the stove put on the water to boil and strolled forth upon the platform to wait till it was ready df toils and pleasures would then be still in shadow the sun shining on the mountain higher up a clean smell of trees a smell of the earth at morning hung in the air regularly every day there was a single bird not singing but awkwardly among the green and the sound was cheerful natural and stirring it did not hold the attention nor interrupt the thread of meditation like a or a it was mere of which the mind was conscious like a perfume the freshness of these morning seasons remained with me far on into the day as soon as the kettle boiled i made and coffee and that beyond the literal drawing of water and the preparation of which df o the it would be to call the of wood ended my domestic duties for the day my wife labored single handed in the palace and i lay or wandered on the platform at my own sweet will the little corner near the where we found a refuge under the from the early sun is indeed connected in my mind with some nightmare over and the latin grammar these were known as sam s lessons he was supposed to be the victim and the sufferer but here there must have been some for whereas i generally retired to bed after one of these engagements he was no sooner set free than he dashed up to the s house where he had df toils and pleasures a press that great element of civilization and the sound of his labors would be faintly audible about the half the day to walk at all was a laborious business the foot sank and slid the boots were cut to pieces among sharp rolling stones when we crossed the platform in any direction it was usual to lay a course following as much as possible the line of wagon rails thus if water were to be drawn the water left the house along some that we had laid down and not laid down very well these carried him to that great the railway and the railway served him as far as to the head of the shaft but from thence to the spring and back df the again he made the best of his way staggering among the stones and in low growth of the where the lay hissing at his passage yet i liked to draw water it was pleasant to dip the gray metal into the clean cool water pleasant to carry it back with the water at the edge and a broken quivering in the midst but the extreme of the walking confined us in common practice to the platform and indeed to those parts of it that were most easily accessible along the line of rails the rails came straight forward from the shaft here and there overgrown i i little green bushes but still entire and still carrying a which it was sam s df tails and pleasures delight to to and fro by the hour with various about down the platform the railroad to the right leaving our house and along the far side within a few yards of the and the and not far off the latter ended in a sort of platform on the edge of the there in old days the were tipped and their load sent thundering down the there besides was the only spot where we could approach the margin of the anywhere else you took your life in your right hand when you came within a yard and a half to peer over for at any moment the might begin to slide and carry you down and bury you below its ruins indeed the neighbor df the hood of an old mine is a place beset with dangers for as still as was at any moment the report of rotten wood might	38
tell us that the platform had fallen into the shaft the might begin to pour into the road below or a slip in the great upright and hundreds of tons of mountain bury the scene of our i have already compared the to a built certainly by some rude people and for wars it was likewise a frontier all below was green and the tall pines soaring one above another each with a firm outline and full spread of bough all above was arid rocky and bald the great of broken that d g l rf toils and pleasures had the up was a creature of man s its material dug out with a pick and powder and spread by the service of the but nature herself in that upper district seemed to have an eye to nothing besides and even the natural hill side was all sliding gravel and precarious close at the margin of the well leaves would decay to and which at length some stronger gust would carry clear of the arid scatter in the woods even moisture and vegetable matter could not with all nature s enough soil to a few poor it is the same they say in the neighborhood of all silver mines the nature of d i r the that precious rock being stubborn with and poisonous with both were plenty in our the stones sparkled white in the sunshine with they were all stained red with here doubtless came the indians of to paint their faces for the war path and if i remember i was one of the few articles of indian commerce now sam had it in his undisturbed possession to pound down and and paint his rude designs with but to me it had always a fine flavor of poetry out of indian story and s allusion desire alas i desire a new from indies gold from eastern most bright t toils and pleasures yet this is but half the picture our platform has another side to it though there was no soil and scarce a blade of grass yet out of these tumbled gravel heaps and broken a flower garden as at home in a crept like a hardy weed all over our rough parlor choking the railway and pushing forth its rusty from between two blocks of shattered made a big just above the well the shoulder of the hill waved white with heath in the of the ledge and about the spurs of the tall pine a red stone plant hung in clusters even the low was thick with like df the close at the foot of our path delightful to the sight and smell at sunrise and again late at night the scent of the sweet bay trees filled the and the night wind must have borne it hundreds of feet into the outer air all this vegetation to be sure was the was here no bigger than the the bay was but a the very pines with four or five exceptions in all our upper were not so tall as myself or but a little taller and the most of them came lower than my waist for a prosperous forest tree we must look below where the was crowded with green but for flowers and perfume we had none to df toils and pleasures envy our heap of road metal was thick with bloom like a in the front of june our red angle in the mountain a of it was an endless wonder to my mind as i dreamed about the platform following the progress of the shadows where the with its leaves the and with their blossoms could find moisture to support such thick wet or the bay tree collect the of its perfume but there they all grew together healthy happy and as though rooted in a of black soil nor was it only vegetable life that we had indeed few birds and none that had much of a voice or d g l rf anything worthy to be called a song my morning comrade had a thin and monotonous but friendly and pleasant to hear he had but one rival a fellow with an cry of near an descending not one note of which properly followed another this is the only bird i ever knew with a wrong ear but there was something about his you listened and listened thinking each time he must surely get it right but no it was always wrong and always wrong the same way yet he seemed proud of his song delivered it with execution and a manner of his own and was charming to his mate a very incessant human had thus a chance of knowing how his own df toils and pleasures music pleased the world two great birds we thought dwelt at the top of the among the that were printed on the sky now and again but very rarely they wheeled high over our heads in silence or with a distant dying scream and then with a fresh impulse winged forward dipped over a hill top and were gone they seemed solemn and ancient things sailing the blue air perhaps with the mountain where they haunted perhaps from rome where the glad may have shouted to behold them on the of battle but if birds were rare the place with s the s nest it might have been d g l rf the named wherever we brushed among the bushes our passage woke their angry one dwelt habitually in the wood pile and sometimes when we came for thrust up his small head between two logs and at the intrusion the rattle has a credit it is said to be awe inspiring and once heard to stamp itself for ever in the memory but the sound is not at all alarming the hum of many insects and the of the convince the ear of danger quite as	38
readily as a matter of fact we lived for weeks in coming and going with sprung on every side and it never occurred to to be afraid i to take sun and do in a certain pleasant df toils and pleasures nook among and the on every side like spinning wheels and the combined hiss or rising louder and at any sudden movement but i was never in the least impressed nor ever attacked it was only towards the end of our stay that a man down at who was on the nature of the sound gave me at last a very good imitation and it burst on me at once that we dwelt in the very metropolis of deadly and that the rattle was simply the commonest noise in immediately on our return we attacked the on the subject they had formerly assured us that our was favored like ireland with an entire is df from poisonous but with the perfect of the natural man they were no sooner found out than they went off at score in th contrary direction and we were told that in no part of the world did attain to such a monstrous as among the warm flower dotted rocks of this is a contribution rather to the natural history of the than to that of one person however better served by his instinct had known the rattle from the first and that was the dog no rational creature has ever led an existence more poisoned by terror than that dog s at every of the rattle made him bound his eyes rolled he d toils and pleasures he would be often wet with sweat one of our great mysteries was his terror of the mountain a little away above our nook the and almost all the vegetation ceased dwarf pines not big enough to be christmas trees grew among loose stone and gravel here and there a big sat on a having paused there till the next rain in his long slide down the mountain there was here no for the you could see clearly where you trod and yet the higher i went the more abject and appealing became s terror he was an excellent master of that language in which dogs communicate with men and he would d g l rf the assure me on his honor that there was some peril on the mountain appeal to me by all that i held holy to turn back and at length finding all was in vain and that i still persisted he would suddenly whip round and make a down the slope for the gravel after him what was he afraid of there were brown bears and lions on the mountains and a visited s poultry yard not long before to the unspeakable alarm of who dashed out to the intruder and found himself by moonlight face to face with such a something at least there must have been some hairy dangerous brute df toils and pleasures lodged permanently among the rocks a little to the north west of spending his summer with wife and family and there was or there had been another animal once under the broad daylight on that open stony where the baby pines were growing scarcely tall enough to be a for a s bonnet i came suddenly upon his innocent body lying by the dry air and sun a i am ignorant of these subjects had never heard of such a beast thought myself face to face with some sport of nature and began to cherish hopes of immortality in science rarely have i been conscious of a stranger thrill than df the when i raised that singular creature from the stones dry as a board his innocent heart long quiet and all warm with sunshine his long hind legs were stiff his tiny clutched upon his breast ds if to leap his poor life cut short upon that mountain by some unknown accident but the rat it proved was no such unknown animal and my discovery was nothing were not wanting i thought i could make out exactly four of them each with a corner of his own who used to make night musical at in the matter of voice they far the birds and their ringing whistle sounded from rock to rock calling and replying the same thing as in a opera thus children in full df tints and pleasure health and spirits shout together to the dismay of neighbors and their idle happy rise and fall like the song of the i used to sit at night on the platform and wonder why these creatures were so happy and what was wrong with man that he also did not wind up his days with an hour or two of shouting but i suspect that all long lived animals are solemn the dogs alone are hardly used by nature and it seems a manifest injustice for poor to die in his after a life so and troubled continually shaken with alarm and the tear of elegant sentiment permanently in his eye there was another neighbor of ours at small but very active a d g l rf a o the destructive fellow this was a black ugly fly a bore the called him who lived by hundreds in the boarding of our house he entered by a round hole more neatly pierced than a man could do it with a and he seems to have spent his life in cutting out the interior of the plank but whether as a dwelling or a store house i could never find when i used to lie in bed in the morning for a rest we had no easy chairs in i would hear hour after hour the sharp cutting sound of his labors and from time to time a dainty shower of would fall upon the blankets there lives no more industrious	38
us more new nights the leisure hour series m i s more new nights the by robert louis van de new york henry and company j i a authors edition w l a co and n j to messrs and police in he volume now in your the touched upon the ugly of crime u is your glory to home it were a waste of ink to do so in a serious spirit let us our horror to acts of a mingled where crime preserves some features of and where reason and humanity can relish the temptation in this case is due to mr he sits before posterity silent mr foster s appeal echoing down the ages horror is due to ourselves in that we have so long with political crime not seriously not following it from to consequence hut with heat of sentiment the the penny tale what was when u touched ourselves truly in a shape we proved false to these discovered in a that crime was no less cruel and no less ugly under sounding names and from our false but seriousness comes most in place when we are to speak of our whoever be in the right in this great and confused war of whatever of greedy whatever treats of the both parties in this contest your side your part is at least pure of yours is the side of the of the breeding woman of individual pity trust if our society were the mere kingdom of the as indeed it wears some of its colors it yet many precious and many innocent persons whom it i authors edition w l a co and ers n j to messrs and police in he volume now in your have touched upon the ugly of it ia your glory to have it were a of ink to do so in a serious spirit let us our horror to acts of a more strain where crime preserves some features of and where reason and relish he temptation horror in this case is due to mr he sits before posterity silent mr foster s appeal echoing down the ages horror is to in that we have so long with political crime not seriously weighing not following it from cause to consequence but a generous heat of sentiment he the penny tale was when u truly in a vile shape we proved false to these discovered in a that crime was no less and no less ugly under sounding names and from our false but seriousness comes most in when we are to speak of our whoever be in he right in his great and confused war of whatever elements of whatever traits of the both in his contest your side your part is at least pure of is side of of he breeding woman of individual pity and public trust if our society were as indeed it wears some of us colors it yet precious and many innocent persons whom u vi tion to defend courage common in he ranks of so recognized so at length found heir in an historical act history represent mr sitting silent under the appeal of mr foster and setting forth upon his tragic enterprise forget mr carrying the in ms hands nor mr coming to his aid robert louis van de a note for the reader it is within the bounds of possibility that you may take up this volume and yet be with its the first series of nights the loss is yours and mine or to be more exact my s but if you are thus unlucky the least i can do is to pass you a hint when you shall find a reference in the following pages to one of the cigar in street you must be prepared to recognize under his features no less a person than prince of formerly one of the of europe now and embarked in the tobacco trade r s contents the of the s the of of the angel the of s the mansion of the old the mansion s of the the mansion s the box of the the box the mansion of the new nights a second series the of the cigar in the city of the of the west and to be more precise on the broad northern pavement of square two young men of five or six and twenty met after years of separation the first who was of a very smooth address and clothed in the best fashion hesitated to recognize the pinched and shabby air of his companion what he cried paul i am indeed paul returned the other or what remains of him after a experience of poverty and law but in you i can perceive no change and time may be said without to write no on your brow au replied is not gold that but we are here in an ill posture for j confidences and interrupt the movement of these ladies let us if you please find a more private comer if you will me to guide you i will offer you the best cigar in london and taking the arm of his companion he led him in silence and at a brisk pace to the door of a quiet establishment in street the entrance was adorned with one of those gigantic of wood which have almost risen to the standing of and across the window glass which sheltered the usual display of pipes tobacco and cigars there ran the gilded legend cigar by t the interior of the shop was small but and the grave smiling and and the two young men each puffing a select had soon taken their places on a sofa of and proceeded to exchange their stories i am now said a but providence and the have hitherto denied me the opportunity to shine a select society at	38
the cheese engaged my evenings my as mr could testify have been generally passed in this and my mornings i have taken the precaution to by not rising before twelve at this rate my little was very rapidly and i am proud to remember most agreeably expended since then a gentleman who has really nothing else to recommend him beyond the fact of being my maternal uncle me the small sum of ten shillings a week and if you behold me once more the glimpses of the street lamps in my favorite quarter you will readily divine that i have come into a fortune i should not have supposed so replied but doubtless i met you on the way to your tailor s it is a visit i purpose to delay returned with a smile my fortune has definite limits it consists or rather this morning it consisted of one hundred pounds that is certainly odd said yes certainly the coincidence is strange i am myself reduced to the same margin you cried and yet solomon in au his glory such is the fact i am dear boy on my last legs said besides the clothes in which you see me i have scarcely a decent in my wardrobe and if i knew how i would this instant set about some sort of work or commerce with a hundred pounds for capital a man should push his way it maybe returned but what to do with mine is more than i can fancy mr he added addressing the you are a man who knows the world what can a young fellow of reasonable education do with a hundred pounds it depends replied the withdrawing his the power of money is an article of faith in which i profess myself a a hundred pounds wiu with difficulty support you for a year with somewhat more difficulty you may spend it in a night and without any difficulty at all you may lose it in five minutes on the stock exchange if you are of that stamp of man that rises a penny would be as useful if you belong to those that fall a penny would be no more useless when i was myself thrown unexpectedly upon the world it was my fortune to possess an art i knew a good cigar do you know nothing mr not even law was the reply the answer is worthy of a sage returned mr and you sir he continued turning to as the friend of mr may i be allowed to address you the same question weu replied i play a fair hand at how many persons are there in london returned the who have two and s thirty teeth believe me young gentleman there are more still who play a fair hand at sir is wide as the world tis an accomplishment like breathing i once knew a youth who announced that he was studying to be of england the design was certainly ambitious but i find it less excessive than that of the man who to make a by dear me said afraid i shall have to fall to be a working man fall to be a working man echoed mr suppose a rural dean to be does he fall to be a major suppose a captain were would he fall to be a judge the ignorance of your middle class surprises me outside itself it thinks the world to lie quite ignorant and equal sunk in a common degradation but to the eye of the observer all ranks are seen to stand in ordered and each adorned with its particular and knowledge by the defects of your education you are more to be a working man than to be the ruler of an empire the gulf sir is below and the true learned arts those which alone are safe from the competition of are those which give his title to the this is a very fellow said in the ear of his companion he is immense said just then the door of the opened and a third fellow made his appearance and rather requested some tobacco he was younger than the others and in a somewhat and altogether english way he was a handsome lad when he had been served and had lighted his pipe and taken his place upon the sofa he recalled himself to by the name of to be sure cried well and what do you do the fact is said that i am doing nothing a private fortune possibly inquired the other well no replied rather the fact is that i am waiting for something to turn up all in the same boat cried and have you too one hundred pounds worse luck said mr this is a very pathetic sight mr said three f a character of this crowded age returned the sir said i deny that the age is crowded i will admit one fact and that one fact only that i am futile that he is futile and that we are all three as futile as the devil what am i i have law letters geography i have even a working knowledge of and here i stand all london roaring by at the street s end as impotent as any baby i have a prodigious contempt for my maternal uncle but without him it is idle to deny it i should simply resolve into my elements like an mixture i begin to perceive that it is necessary to know some one thing to the bottom were it only literature and yet sir the man of the world is a great feature of this age he is possessed of an extraordinary mass and variety of knowledge he is everywhere at home he has seen life in all its phases and it is impossible but that this great habit of existence should bear fruit i count myself a man of the world	38
to observe the fear with which she him pity and alarm in nearly equal forces the possession of his mind and yet in spite of both he saw himself condemned to follow in the lady s wake he did so the op t as fearing to increase her terrors but tread as lightly as lie might his echoed in the empty street their sound ap i to strike in her some strong emotion for scarce had he begun to follow ere she paused a second time she addressed herself to flight and a second time she paused then she turned about and with doubtful steps and the most attractive appearance of timidity drew near to the young man he on his side continued to advance with similar of distress and at length when they were but some steps apart he saw her eyes brim over and she reached out both her hands in eloquent appeal are you an english gentleman she cried the unhappy regarded her with consternation he was the spirit of fine courtesy and would have blushed to fail in his to any lady but in the other scale he was a man averse from adventures he looked east and west but the houses that looked down upon this interview remained shut and he saw himself though in the full glare of the day s eye cut off from any human his looks returned at last upon the he remarked with irritation that she was charming both in face and figure dressed and a lady the picture of distress and the squire oe weeping and lost in the city of sleep madam lie said i protest you have no cause to fear intrusion and if i have appeared to follow you the fault is in this street which has deceived us both an unmistakable relief appeared upon the lady s face i might have guessed it she exclaimed thank you a thousand times but at this hour in this appalling silence and among all these staring windows i am lost in terrors oh lost in them she cried her face at the words i beg you to lend me your arm she added with the loveliest i dare not go alone my nerve is gone i had a shock oh what a shock i beg of you to be my escort my dear madam responded heavily my arm is at your service she took it and clung to it for a moment struggling with her sobs and the next with feverish hurry began to lead him in the direction of the city one thing was plain among so much that was obscure it was plain her fears were genuine still as she went she around as if for dangers and now she would shiver like a person in a chill and now clutch his arm in hers to her terror was at once and it gained and mastered while it stiu offended the squire of him and he in spirit and longed for release madam he said at last i am of course charmed to be of use to any lady but i confess i was bound in a direction opposite to that you follow and a word of explanation hush i she sobbed not here not here the blood of ran cold he might have thought the lady mad but his memory was charged with more perilous stuff and in view of the the smoke and the flight of the m his mind was lost among mysteries so they continued to thread the of streets in silence with the speed of a guilty flight and both thrilling with terrors in time however and above all by their quick pace of walking the pair began to rise to firmer spirits the lady ceased to peer about the comers and by the tread and distant figure of a returned to the charge with more of spirit and i thought said he in the tone of conversation that i had perceived you leaving a villa in the company of two gentlemen she said you need not fear to wound me by the truth you saw me flee from a common lodging house and my companions were not gentlemen in such a case the best of compliments is to be frank ao the squire of c i thought resumed encouraged as much as he was surprised by the spirit of her reply to have perceived besides a certain a noise too i do not know to what i should compare it silence she cried you do not know the danger you wait only wait and as soon as we have left those streets and got beyond the reach of listeners all shall be explained meanwhile avoid the topic what a sight is this sleeping city she exclaimed and then with a most thrilling voice dear god she quoted the very houses seem asleep and all that mighty heart is lying still i perceive madam said he you are a reader i am more than that she answered with a sigh girl condemned to thoughts beyond her age and so is my fate that this walk upon the arm of a stranger is like an of peace they had come by this time to the neighborhood of the victoria station and here at a street comer the young lady paused withdrew her arm from s and looked up and down as though in pain or then with a lovely change of countenance and laying her hand upon his arm what you already think of me she said i tremble to conceive yet i must here con the squire of myself still further here i must leave you and here i you to wait for my return do not attempt to follow me or spy upon my actions yet awhile your judgment of a girl as innocent as your own sister and do not above all desert me	38
stranger as you are i have none else to look to you see me in sorrow and great fear you are a gentleman courteous and kind and when i beg for a few minutes patience i make sure beforehand you will not deny me promised and the young lady with a grateful eye shot vanished round the comer but the force of her appeal had been a little for the young man was not only destitute of sisters but of any female relative nearer than a great aunt in wales now he was alone besides the spell that he had hitherto obeyed began to he considered his behavior with a sneer and up the spirit of revolt he started in pursuit the reader if he has ever plied the fascinating trade of the will not be unaware that in the neighborhood of the great railway certain early in rate the of the day it was into one of these that coming round the comer of the block beheld his charming companion disappear to say he was surprised were for he had long since left that the squire of behind him acute disgust and disappointment seized upon his soul and with silent oaths he damned this commonplace she had scarce been gone a second ere the swing doors and she appeared again in company with a young man of mean and attire for some five or six they conversed together with an animated air then the fellow shouldered again into the tap and the young lady with something than a walk her steps towards he saw her coming a miracle of grace her ankle as she hurried flashing from her dress her movements eloquent of speed and youth and though he still entertained some thoughts of flight they grew miserably fainter as the distance lessened against mere beauty he was proof it was her unmistakable that now robbed him of the courage of his cowardice with a proved he had acted strictly on his right with one who in spite of all he could not quite deny to be a lady he found himself at the very comer from whence he had upon her enter she came upon him still and ah she cried with a bright flush of color ah the of the attack somewhat restored the squire of to the possession of himself the squire of madam he returned with a fair show of i do not think that hitherto you can complain of any lack of generosity i have myself to be led over a considerable portion of the metropolis and if i now request you to discharge me of my office of protector you have friends at hand who will be glad of the succession she stood a moment dumb it is well she said go go and may god help me you have seen me me an innocent girl from a dire catastrophe and haunted by sinister men and neither pity curiosity nor honor move you to await my explanation or to help me in my distress go she repeated i am lost indeed and with a passionate gesture she turned and fled along the street observed her retreat and disappear an almost intolerable sense of guilt with the profound sense that he was being she was no sooner gone than the first of these feelings took the upper hand he felt if he had done her less than justice that his conduct was a perfect model of the the tone of her voice her choice of language and the elegant decorum of her movements cried out aloud against a harsh construction and between and curiosity he began slowly to follow in her wake at the tbe squire of comer he had her once more full in view her speed was failing like a stricken bird s even as he looked she threw her arm out and fell and leaned against the wall at the spectacle s fortitude gave way in a few strides he overtook her and for the first time removing his hat assured her in the most moving terms of his entire respect and firm desire to help her he spoke at first but gradually it appeared that she began to comprehend his words she moved a little and drew herself upright and finally as with a sudden movement of forgiveness turned on the young man a countenance in which reproach and gratitude were mingled ah madam he cried use me as you will and once more but now with a great air of deference he offered her the conduct of his arm she took it with a sigh that struck him to the heart and they began once more to trace the deserted streets but now her steps as though exhausted by emotion began to linger on the way she leaned the more heavily upon his arm and he like the parent bird stooped fondly above his drooping her physical distress was not accompanied by any failing of her spirits and hearing her strike so soon into a playful and charming vein of talk could not sufficiently admire the of his companion s nature let me forget she had the squire of said for one half hour let me forget and sure enough with the very word her sorrows appeared to be forgotten before every house she paused invented a name for the proprietor and his character here lived the old general whom she was to marry on the fifth of the next month there was the mansion of the rich widow who had set her heart on and though she still hung wearily on the young man s arm her laughter sounded low and pleasant in his ears ah she sighed by way of in such a life as mine i must seize tight hold of any happiness that i can find when they arrived in this leisurely manner at the head of place the gates of the park	38
were opening and the company of night were being at last admitted into that paradise of and his companion followed the movement and walked for awhile in silence in that crowd but as one after another weary with the night s of the city pavement sank upon the benches or wandered into separate paths the vast extent of the park had soon utterly swallowed up the last of these and the pair proceeded on their way alone in the grateful quiet of the morning presently they came in sight of a bench standing very open on a mound of turf the young lady looked about her with relief the destroying angel here she said here at last we are secure from listeners here then you shall learn and judge my history i could not bear that we should part and that you should still suppose your kindness upon one who was unworthy thereupon she eat down upon the bench and to take a place immediately beside her began in the following words and with the greatest appearance of enjoyment to the story of her life y of the angel my father was a native of england son of a of a great ancient but family and by some event fault or misfortune he was driven to flee from the land of his birth and to lay aside the name of his ancestors he sought the states and instead of lingering in cities pushed at once into the far west with an exploring party of he was no ordinary for he was not only brave and impetuous by character but learned in many and above all in which he particularly loved thus it fell that before many months himself the leader of the troop and bowed to his opinion the angel they had pushed as i have said into the still unknown regions of the west for some time they followed the track of guiding themselves in that vast and melancholy desert by the of men and animals then they inclined their route a little to the north and losing even these dire came into a country of forbidding stillness i have often heard my father dwell upon the features of that ride rock cliff and barren the streams were very far between and neither beast nor bird disturbed the solitude on the day they had already run so short of food that it was judged advisable to call a halt and scatter upon all sides to hunt a great fire was built that its smoke might serve to rally them and each man of the party mounted and struck off at a venture into the surrounding desert my father rode for many hours with a steep range of cliffs upon the one hand very black and horrible and upon the other an dotted with like the site of some city at length he found the of a great animal and from the marks and the hair among the brush judged that he was on the track of a bear of most unusual size he quickened the pace of his and still following the came at last to the division of two on the far side the the destroying angel country was exceedingly intricate and difficult heaped with and dotted here and there with a few pines which seemed to indicate the neighborhood of water here then he his horse and on his rifle advanced alone into that wilderness presently in the great silence that reigned he was aware of the sound of running water to his right and leaning in that direction was rewarded by a scene of natural wonder and human pathos strangely the stream ran at the bottom of a narrow and winding passage whose wall like sides of rock were sometimes for miles together by man the water when the stream was swelled with rains must have filled it from side to side the sun s rays only it in the hour of noon the wind in that narrow and damp blew and yet in the bottom of this den immediately below my father s eyes as he leaned over the margin of the a party of some half a hundred men women and children lay scattered uneasily among the rocks they lay some upon their backs some prone and not one stirring their faces seemed all of an extraordinary and and from time to time above the washing of the stream a faint sound of moaning mounted to my father s ears while he thus looked an old man got the angel to his feet his blanket and laid it with great gentleness on a young girl who sat hard by propped against a rock the girl did not seem to be conscious of the act and the old man after having looked upon her with the most engaging pity returned to his former bed and lay down again uncovered on the turf but the scene had not passed without observation even in that starving camp from the very outskirts of the party a man with a white beard and seemingly of venerable years his knees and came crawling stealthily among the toward the girl and judge of my father s indignation when he beheld this cowardly strip from her both the and return with them to his original position here he lay down for a while below his spoils and as my father imagined feigned to be asleep but presently he had raised himself again upon one elbow looked with sharp scrutiny at his companions and then swiftly carried his hand into his bosom and thence to his mouth by the movement of his jaws he must be eating in that camp of famine he had reserved a store of nourishment and while his companions lay in the stupor of approaching death secretly restored his powers my father was so at what he saw that he raised his rifle and but for an accident the	38
angel he has often declared he would have shot the fellow dead upon the spot how different would then have been my history but it was not to be even as he raised the barrel his eye lighted on the bear as it crawled along a ledge some way below him and to the hunter s instinct it was at the brute not at the man that he discharged his piece the bear leaped and fell into a pool of the river the re echoed the report and in a moment the camp was with cries that were scarce human stumbling falling and throwing each other down these starving people rushed upon the and before my father climbing down by the ledge had time to reach the level of the stream many were already satisfying their hunger on the raw flesh and a fire was being built by the more dainty his arrival was for some time he stood in the midst of these tottering and clay faced he was surrounded by their cries but their whole soul was fixed on the dead even those who were too weak to move lay half turned over with their eyes upon the bear and my father seeing himself stand as though invisible in the thick of this dreary was seized with a desire to weep a touch upon the arm restrained him turning about he found himself face to face with the old man he had so the angel nearly killed and yet at the second glance recognized him for no old man at all but one in the full strength of his years and of a strong speaking and intellectual countenance by weariness and famine he beckoned my father near the and there in the most private whisper begged for brandy my father looked at him with scorn you remind me he said of a neglected duty here is my it contains enough i trust to revive the women of your party and i will begin with her whom i saw you of her blankets and with that not his appeals my father turned his back upon the the girl still lay against the rock she lay too far sunk in the first stage of death to have observed the bustle round her couch but when my father had raised her head put the to her lips and forced or aided her to swallow some drops of the she opened her languid eyes and smiled upon him faintly never was there a smile of more touching sweetness never were eyes more deeply violet more honestly eloquent of the soul i speak with knowledge for these were the same eyes that smiled upon me in the cradle from her who was to be his wife my father still watched and followed by tlie man with the gray beard carried his be tions to all the women of the party and gave the last of his to those among the men who seemed in the most need is there none left not a drop for me said the man with the beard not one drop replied my father and if you find yourself in want let me counsel you to put your hand into the pocket of your coat ah cried the other you me you think me one who to life for selfish and commonplace considerations but let me tell you that were all this to perish the world would but be lightened of a weight these are but human insects thick as may in the of european cities whom i myself have plucked from degradation and misery from the heap and gin palace door and you compare their lives with mine you are then a missionary asked my father oh cried the man with a strange smile a missionary if you will i value not the title were i no more than that i could have died without a murmur but with my life as a physician is bound up the knowledge of great secrets and the future of man this it was when we missed the tried for a short cut and wandered to this desolate the angel that ate into my soul and in five days has changed my beard from to silver and yon are a physician mused my father looking on his face bound by oath to man in his sir returned the my name is you will hear that name again and you will then understand that my duty was not to this of but to mankind at large my father turned to the remainder of the party who were now sufficiently revived to hear told them that he would set off at once to bring help from his own party and he added if you be again reduced to such look round you and you will see the earth strewn with assistance here for instance growing on the under side of in this cliff you will perceive a yellow moss trust me it is both and excellent ha said doctor you know not i alone returned my father lowering his voice for see where these have been scraped away am i right was that your secret store my father s comrades he found when he returned to the signal fire had made a good day s hunting they were thus the more easily persuaded to extend assistance to the the des ro angel and the next day beheld both parties on the march for the of the distance to be traversed was not great but the nature of the country and the difficulty of food extended the time to nearly three weeks and my father had thus ample leisure to know and appreciate the girl whom he had i will call my mother her family name i am not at liberty to mention it is you would know well by what series of this innocent flower of lovely refined by education by the finest	38
taste was thus cast among the horrors of a i must not stay to tell you let it suffice that even in these circumstances she found a heart worthy of her own the of attachment which united my father and mother was perhaps partly due to the strange manner of their meeting it knew at least no bounds either divine or human my father for her sake determined to his and his faith and a week had not yet passed upon the march before he had resigned from his party accepted the doctrine and received the promise of my mother s hand on the arrival of the party at salt lake the marriage took place and i was its only my father exceedingly in his affairs remained faithful to my mother the destroying angel and though you may wonder to hear it i believe there were few happier homes in any country than that in which i saw the light and grew to we were indeed and in spite of all our wealth avoided as and half by the more precise and pious of the faithful young himself that formidable tyrant was known to look upon my father s riches but of this i had no guess i dwelt indeed under the system with perfect innocence and faith some of our friends had many wives but such was the custom and why should it surprise me more than marriage itself from time to time one of our rich would disappear ms family be broken up his wives and houses shared among the elders of the church and his memory only recalled with breath and dreadful when i had been very still and my presence perhaps was forgotten some such topic would arise among my elders by the evening fire i would see them draw the closer together and look behind them with scared eyes and i might gather from their how some one rich honored healthy and in the prime of his days some one perhaps who had taken me on his knees a week before had in one hour been spirited from home and family and vanished like an image from a mirror leaving not a print behind it ter the angel indeed but so was death the universal law and even if the talk should wax still bolder full of ominous and and i should hear named in a whisper the destroying angels how was a child to understand these mysteries i heard of a destroying angel as some more happy child might hear in england of a bishop or a rural dean with vague respect and without the wish for further information life here in society as in nature rests upon dread foundations i beheld safe roads a garden blooming in the desert pious people crowding to worship i was aware of my parents tenderness and all the harmless luxuries of my existence and why should i beneath this honest seeming surface for the mysteries on which it stood we dwelt originally in the city but at an early date we moved to a beautiful house in a green musical with water and surrounded on almost every side by twenty miles of poisonous and rocky desert the city was thirty miles away there was but one road which went no further than my father s door the rest were bridle tracks in winter and we thus dwelt in a solitude inconceivable to the european our only neighbor was dr to my young eyes after the chin bearded elders of the city and the ill favored and mentally women of the angel their there was something agreeable in the correct manner the fine bearing the thin whit hair and beard and the piercing looks of the old doctor yet though he was almost our only visitor i never wholly overcame a sense of fear in his presence and this was rather fed by the awful solitude in which he lived and the obscurity that hung about his occupations his house was but a mile or two from ours but very differently placed it stood overlooking the road on the summit of a steep slope and planted close against a range of overhanging nature you would say had here desired to imitate the works of man for the slope was even like the of a fort and the cliffs of a constant height like the of a city not even spring could change one feature of that desolate scene and the windows looked down across a plain snowy with to of cold stone on the north twice or thrice i remember passing within view of this forbidding residence and seeing it always and deserted i remarked to my parents that some day it would certainly be robbed ah no said my father never robbed and i observed a strange conviction in his tone at last and not long before the blow fell on my unhappy family i chanced to see the the a tor s house in a new light my father was ill my mother confined to his bedside and i was suffered to go under the charge of our driver to the lonely house some twenty miles away where our were left for us the horse cast a shoe night overtook us home and it was well on for three in the morning when the driver and i alone in a light wagon came to that part of the road which ran below the doctor s house the moon swam clear the and mountains in this strong light lay utterly deserted but the house from its station on the top of the long slope and close under the not only shone abroad from every window like a place of festival but from the great chimney at the west end poured forth a of smoke so thick and so that it hung for miles along the night air and its shadow lay far abroad in the moonlight upon	38
the glittering as we continued to draw near besides a regular and panting throb began to divide the silence first it seemed to me like the beating of a heart and next it put into my mind the thought of some giant smothered under mountains and still with effort breath i had heard of the railway though i had not seen it and i turned to ask the driver if this resembled it but some look in his eye some whether of fear or moonlight on his the angel face caused the words to die upon my lips we continued therefore to advance in silence till we were close below the lighted house when suddenly without one rustle there burst forth a report of such a that it shook the earth and set the echoes of the mountains thundering from to cliff a pillar of flame leaped from the chimney top and fell in multitudes of sparks and at the same time the lights in the windows turned for one instant red and then expired the driver had checked his horse instinctively and the echoes were still further off among the mountains when there broke from the now darkened interior a series of whether of man or woman it was impossible to guess the door flew open and there ran forth into the moonlight at the top of the long slope a figure clad in white which began to dance and leap and throw itself down and roll as if in agony before the house i could no more restrain my cries the driver laid his lash about the horse s flank and we fled up the rough track at the peril of our lives and did not draw rein till turning the comer of the mountain we beheld my father s and deep green groves and gardens sleeping in the tranquil light this was the one adventure of my life until ray father had climbed to the very the angel point of material prosperity and i myself had reached the age of seventeen i was still innocent and merry like a child tended my garden or ran upon the hills in glad simplicity gave not a thought to or to material cares and if my eye rested on my own image in a mirror or some spring it was to seek and recognize the features of my parents but the fears which had long pressed on others were now to be laid on my youth i had thrown myself one cloudy afternoon on a the windows stood open on the where my mother sat with her and when my father joined her from the garden their conversation clearly audible to me was of so startling a nature that it held me where i lay the blow has come my father said after a long pause i could hear my mother start and turn but in words she made no reply yes continued my father i have received to day a list of all that i possess of all i say of what i have lent privately to men whose lips are sealed with terror of what i have buried with my own hand on the bare when there was not a bird in heaven does the air then carry secrets are the hills of glass do the stones we tread upon preserve the to betray us oh the a that we should have come to such a country but this returned my mother is no very new or very threatening event you are accused of some concealment you will pay more taxes in the future and be in a fine it is indeed to find our acts so upon and the most private known but is this new have we not long feared and suspected every blade of grass ay and our shadows cried my father but all this is nothing here is the letter that accompanied the list i heard my mother turn the pages and she was some time silent i see she said at last and then with the tone of one reading from a so largely blessed by providence with this world s goods she continued the church in confidence some signal mark of piety there lies the sting am i not right these are the words you fear these are the words replied my father you remember two days before he disappeared he carried me to the summit of an isolated we could see around us for ten sure if in any quarter of this land a man were safe from it were in such a station but it was in the very fit of terror that he told me and that i the angel heard his story he had received a letter such as this and he submitted to my approval an answer in which he to resign a third of his possessions i him as he valued his life to raise his offering and before we parted he had doubled the amount well two days later he was gone gone from the chief street of the city in the hour of noon and gone forever god cried my father by what art do they thus spirit out of life the solid body what death do they command that leaves no traces that this material structure these strong arms this skeleton that can resist the grave for centuries should be thus in a moment from the world of sense a horror dwells in that thought more awful than mere death is there no hope in asked my mother dismiss the thought replied my father he now knows all that i can teach and will do naught to save me his power besides is small his own danger not more imminent than mine for he too lives apart he leaves his wives neglected and un watched he is openly for an and unless he security at a more awful price	38
but no i will not believe it i have no love for him but i will not believe it believe what asks my mother and then th destroying angel with a change of note but oh what matters it she cried there is but one way open we must fly it is in vain returned my father i should but involve you in my fate to leave this land is hopeless we are closed in it as men are closed in life and there is no issue but the grave we can but die then replied my mother let us at least die together let not and myself survive you think to what a fate we should be doomed my father was unable to resist her tender violence and though i could see he nourished not one spark of hope he consented to desert his whole estate beyond some hundreds of dollars that he had by him at the moment and to flee that night which promised to be dark and cloudy as soon as the servants were asleep he was to load two with provisions two others were to carry my mother and myself and striking through the mountains by an trail we were to make a fair stroke for liberty and life as soon as they had thus decided i showed myself at the window and that i had heard all assured them that they could rely on my prudence and devotion i had no fear indeed but to show myself un in this name the accent falls upon the e the is the de worthy of my birth i held my life in my hand without alarm and when my father weeping upon my neck had blessed heaven for the courage of his child it was with a sentiment of pride and some of the joy that warriors take in war that i began to look forward to the perils of our flight before midnight under an obscure and heaven we had left far behind us the of the valley and were mounting a certain in the hills narrow with great rocks and echoing with the roar of a tumultuous torrent after thundered and hung up its flag of whiteness in the night or our faces with the wet wind of its descent the trail was and led to famine guarded deserts it had been long since deserted for more practicable and it was now a part of the world from year to year by human footing judge of our dismay when turning suddenly an angle of the we found a bright blazing by itself under an impending rock and on the face of the rock drawn very rudely with wood the great open eye which is the emblem of the faith we looked upon each other in the my mother broke into a passion of tears but not a word was said the were turned about and leaving that great eye to guard the lonely we our the angel steps in silence day had not yet broken ere we were once more at home condemned beyond what answer my father sent i was not told but two days later a little before i saw a plain honest looking man ride slowly up the road in a great of dust he was clad in with a broad straw hat wore a beard and had an air of a simple rustic farmer that was in my eyes very he was indeed a very honest man and pious with no liking for his errand though neither he nor any one in dared to and it was with every mark of that he had himself announced as mr and entered the room where our unhappy family was gathered my mother and me he awkwardly enough dismissed and as soon as he was alone with my father laid before him a blank signature of president young s and offered him a choice of services either to set out as a missionary to the tribes about the white sea or to join the next day with a party of destroying angels in the of sixty german the last of course my father could not entertain and the first he regarded as a pretext even if he could consent to leave his wife and to collect fresh victims for the tyranny under which he was himself oppressed he felt sure the destroying angel he would never be to return he refused and be said betrayed sincere emotion part religious at the spectacle of such but part human in pity for my father and his family he him to his decision and at length finding he could not prevail gave him till the moon rose to settle his affairs and say farewell to wife and daughter for said he then at the latest you must ride with me i dare not dwell upon the hours that followed they fled all too fast and presently the moon out the eastern range and my father and mr set forth side by side on their journey my mother though still bearing a heroic countenance had hastened to shut herself in her apartment solitary and i alone in the dark house and consumed by grief and apprehension made haste to saddle my indian pony to ride up to the corner of the mountain and to enjoy one farewell sight of my departing father the two men had set forth at a deliberate pace nor was i long behind them when i reached the point of view i was the more amazed to see no moving creature in the landscape the moon as the saying is shone bright as day and nowhere under the whole arch of night was there a growing tree a bush a farm a patch of or any evidence of man but the angel one from the corner where i stood a rugged of the line of concealed the doctor s house and across	38
the top of that the soft night wind carried and about the hills a of smoke what fuel could produce a so to in that dry air or what furnace pour it forth so i was unable to conceive but i knew well enough that it came from the doctor s chimney i saw well enough that my father had already disappeared and in despite of reason i connected in my mind the loss of that dear protector with the ribbon of foul smoke that along the mountains days passed and still my mother and i waited in vain for news a week went by a second followed but we heard no word of the father and husband as smoke as the image from the mirror so in the ten or twenty minutes that i had spent in getting my horse and following upon his trail had that strong and brave man vanished out of life hope if any hope we had fled with every hour the worst was now certain for my father the worst was to be dreaded for his family without weakness with a desperate calm at which i marvel when i look back upon it the widow and the orphan awaited the event on the last day of the third week we rose in the morning to find ourselves alone in the angel the house alone so far as we searched on the estate all our attendants with one accord had fled and as we knew them to be we drew the darkest from their flight the day passed indeed without event but in the fall of the evening we were last into the by the approaching of horse s hoofs the doctor mounted on an indian pony rode into the garden dismounted and saluted us he seemed much more bent and his hair more silvery than ever but his was composed serious and not unkind madam said he i am come upon a errand and i would have you recognize it as an effect of kindness in the president that he should send as his your only neighbor and your husband s oldest friend in sir said my mother i have but one concern one thought you know well what it is speak my husband madam returned the doctor taking a chair on the if you were a silly child my position would now be painfully embarrassing you are on the other hand a woman of great intelligence and fortitude you have by my been allowed three weeks to draw your own conclusions and to accept the inevitable further words from me are i conceive superfluous the angel my mother was as pale as death and trembled like a reed i gave her my hand and she kept it in the folds of her dress and wrung it till i could have cried aloud then sir said she at last you speak to deaf ears if this be indeed so what have i to do with errands what do i ask of heaven but to die come said the doctor command yourself i bid you dismiss all thoughts of your late husband and bring a clear mind to bear upon your own future and the fate of that young girl you bid me dismiss began my mother then you know she cried i know replied the doctor you know broke out the poor woman then it was you who did the deed i tear off the mask and with dread and see you as you are you whom the poor fugitive in and you the destroying angel well madam and what then returned the doctor have not my fate and yours been similar are we not both in this strong prison of have you not tried to flee and did not the open eye you in the who can escape the watch of that eye of not i at least horrible tasks have indeed been laid upon me and the most ungrateful was the so the angel last but had i refused my offices would that have spared your husband you know well it would not i too had perished along with him nor would i have been able to his last moments nor could i to day have stood between his family and the hand of young ah cried i and could you purchase life by such young lady answered the doctor i both could and did and you will live to thank me for that you had a spirit that it pleases me to recognize but we waste time mr s estate as you doubtless imagine to the church but some part of it has been reserved for him who is to marry the family and that person i should perhaps tell you without delay is no other than myself at this odious proposal my mother and i cried out aloud and clung together like lost souls it is as i supposed resumed the doctor with the same measured utterance you from this arrangement do you expect me to convince you you know very well that i have never held the view of women absorbed in the most studies i have left the whom they call my wives to scratch and quarrel among themselves of me the angel s i they have had nothing but my purse such was not the union i desired even if i had the leisure to pursue it no you need not madam and my old friend and here the doctor rose and bowed with something of gallantry you need not apprehend my on the contrary i am rejoiced to read in you a roman spirit and if i am obliged to bid you follow me at once and that in the name not of my wish but of my orders i hope it will be found that we are of a common mind so bidding us dress for the road he took a	38
lamp for the night had now fallen and set off to the stable to prepare our horses what does it mean what will become of us i cried not that at least replied my mother shuddering so far we can trust him i seem to read among his words a certain tragic promise if i leave you if i die you will not forget your miserable parents thereupon we fell to cross purposes i her to explain her words she putting me by and continuing to recommend the doctor for a friend the doctor i cried at last the man who killed my father nay said she let us be just i do believe before heaven he played the part and he alone can protect you in this land of death a the angel at this the doctor returned leading our two horses and when we were all in the saddle he bade me ride on before as he had matter to discuss with mrs they came at a foot s pace eagerly conversing in a whisper and presently after the moon rose and showed them looking eagerly into each other s faces as they went my mother laying her hand upon the doctor s arm and the doctor himself against his usual custom making vigorous gestures of protest or at the foot of the track which ascended the of the mountain to his door the doctor overtook me at a trot here he said we shall and as your mother prefers to be alone you and i shall walk together to my house shall i see her again i asked i give you my word he said and helped me to alight we leave the horses here he added there are no thieves in this stone wilderness the track mounted gradually keeping the house in view the windows were once more bright the chimney once more smoke but the most absolute silence reigned and but for the figure of my mother very slowly following in our wake i felt convinced that there was no human soul within a range of miles at the thought i upon the doctor gravely the angel s walking by my side with bowed shoulders and then once more at his house lit up and pouring smoke like some industrious factory and then my curiosity broke forth in heaven s name i cried what do you make in this desert he looked at me with a peculiar smile and answered with an this is not the first time said he that you have seen my alight one morning in the small hours i saw you driving past a delicate experiment and i can not myself of having startled either your driver or the horse that drew you what cried i beholding again in fancy the of the figure could that be you it was i her but do not fancy that i was mad i was in agony i had been cruelly we were now near the house which unlike the ordinary houses of the country was built of stone and very solid stone too was its foundation stone its background not a blade of grass among the broken about the walls not a flower adorned the windows over the door by way of sole the eye was rudely i had been brought up to view that emblem from my childhood but since the night of our escape it had acquired a new the destroying angel and set me shrinking the smoke rolled from the chimney top its edges ruddy with the fire and from the far corner of the building near the ground angry of steam shone snow white in the moon and vanished the doctor opened the door and paused upon the threshold you ask me what i make here he observed two things life and death and he me to enter i shall await my mother said i child he replied look at me am i not old and broken of us two which is the stronger the young maiden or the withered man i bowed and passing by him entered a or kitchen lighted by a good fire and a shaded reading lamp it was furnished only with a a rude table and some wooden benches and on one of these the doctor me to take a seat and passing by another door into the interior of the house he left me to myself presently i heard the jar of iron from the far end of the building and this was followed by the same throbbing noise that had startled me in the valley but now so near at hand as to be menacing by and even to shake the house with every of the stroke i had scarce time to master my alarm when the doctor returned and almost in the destroying angel the same moment my mother appeared upon the threshold but how am i to describe to you the peace and of that face years seemed to have passed over her head during that brief ride and left her younger and fairer her eyes shone her smile went to my heart she seemed no more a woman but the angel of tenderness i ran to her in a kind of terror but she shrank a little back and laid her finger on her lips with something arch and yet to the doctor on the contrary she reached out her hand as to a friend and and so strange was the scene that i forgot to be offended said the doctor all is prepared will you go alone or shall your daughter follow us let come she answered dear at this hour when i am of fear and sorrow and already survive myself and my affections it is for your sake and not for mine that i desire her presence were she shut out dear friend it is to be feared she might your kindness mother i cried	38
wildly mother what is this but my mother with her radiant smile said only hush as though i were a child again and tossing in some fever fit and the doctor bade me be silent and trouble her no more s the destroying angel you have made a choice he continued addressing my mother hat has often strangely tempted me the two extremes all or else nothing never or this very hour ui on the these have been my desires but to accept the middle term to be content with a half gift to awhile and to bum out never for an hour never since i was bom has satisfied the appetite of my ambition he looked upon my mother much of admiration and some touch of envy in his eyes then with a profound sigh he led the way into the inner room it was very long from end to end it was lit up by many lamps which by the color of their light and by the incessant snapping sounds with which they burned i have since divined to be electric at the extreme end an open door gave us a glimpse into what must have been a lean to shed beside the chimney and this in strong contrast to the room was painted with a red as from furnace doors the walls were lined with books and glazed cases the tables crowded with the implements of great glass glittered in the light and through a hole in the near the shed door a heavy driving belt entered the apartment and ran overhead upon steel with clumsy activity and many ghostly and flutter the angel s sounds in one comer i perceived a chair resting upon crystal feet and curiously with wire to this my mother advanced with a decisive swiftness is this it she asked the doctor bowed in silence said my mother in this sad end of my life i have found one look upon him it is doctor be not o my daughter be not ungrateful to that friend she sat upon the chair and took in her hands the that terminated the arms am i right she asked and looked upon the doctor with such a of face that i trembled for her reason once more the doctor bowed but this time leaning hard against the wall he must have touched a spring the least shock agitated my mother where she sat the least passing jar appeared to cross her features and she sank back in the chair like one resigned to weariness i was at her knees that moment but her hands fell loosely in my grasp her face still with the same touching smile sank forward on her bosom her spirit had forever fled i do not know how long may have elapsed before raising for a moment my tearful face i met the doctor s eyes they rested upon mine with such a depth of scrutiny pity and inter s the angel est that even from the freshness of my sorrow i was startled into attention enough he said to tour mother went to death as to a dying where her husband died it is time to think of the follow me to the next room i followed him like a person in a dream he made me sit by the fire he gave me wine to drink and then pacing the stone floor he thus began to address me you are now my child alone in the world and under the immediate watch of young it would be your lot in ordinary circumstances to become the bride of some elder or by particular fortune as fortune is counted in this land to find favor in the eyes of the president himself such a fate for a girl like you were worse than death better to die as your mother died than to sink daily deeper in the mire of this pit of woman s degradation but is escape conceivable your father tried and you beheld yourself with what security his acted and how a dumb drawing on a rock was counted a sufficient over the avenues of freedom where your father failed will you be wiser or more fortunate or are you too helpless in the toils i had followed his words with changing emotion but now i believed i understood the angel i see i cried you judge me rightly i mast follow where my parents led and oh i am not only willing i am eager no replied the doctor not death for yon the vessel we may break but not the i no your mother cherished a different hope and so do l i see he cried the girl develop to the completed woman the plan reach f the promise ay i not bear to arrest so lively so comely a process it was your mother s thought he added with a change of tone that i should marry you myself i fear i must have shown a perfect horror of aversion from this fate for he made haste to quiet me yourself he resumed old as i am i have not forgotten the tumultuous fancies of youth i have passed my days indeed in but in all my i have not forgotten the tune of a young pulse age asks with timidity to be spared intolerable pain youth taking fortune by the beard demands joy like a right these things i have not forgotten none rather has more keenly felt none more considered them i have but postponed them to their day see then you stand without support the only friend left to you this old old in cunning young in sympathy answer me but one question are you free from the of o the angel what the world calls love do you still command your heart and purposes or are you fallen in some bond slavery of the eye and ear i answered	38
him in broken words my heart i think i must have told him lay with my dead parents it is enough he said it has been my fate to be called on often often for those services of which we spoke to night none in could carry them so well to a conclusion hence there has fallen into my hands a certain share of influence which i now lay at your service partly for the sake of my dead friends your parents partly for the interest i bear you in your own right i shall send you to england to the great city of london there to await the bridegroom i have selected he shall be a son of mine a young man suitable in age and not deficient in that quality of beauty that your years demand since your heart is free you may well pledge me the sole promise that i ask in return for much expense and still more danger to await the arrival of that bridegroom with the delicacy of a wife i sat awhile stunned the doctor s marriages i remembered to have heard had been and this added perplexity to my distress but i was alone as he had said alone in that dark land the thought of escape of any equal t e angel i marriage was already enough to revive in me some dawn of hope and in what words i know not i accepted the proposal he seemed more moved by my consent than i could reasonably have looked f or you shall see he cried you shall judge for yourself and hurrying to the next room he returned with a small portrait somewhat done in it showed a man in the dress of nearly forty years before young indeed but still to be the doctor do you like it he asked that is myself when i was young my boy will be like that like but nobler with such health as angels might condescend to envy and a man of mind of commanding mind that should be a man i think that should be one among ten thousand a man like that one to combine the passions of youth with the restraint the force the dignity of age one to fill all the parts and faculties one to be man s say will that not satisfy the needs of an ambitious girl say is not that enough and as he held the picture close before my eyes his hands shook i told him briefly i would ask no better for i was with this display of emotion but even as i said the words the most insolent revolt through my i held him in horror him his x and his son and had there been any choice but death the angel or a marriage i declare before heaven i had embraced it it is well he replied and i had rightly counted on your spirit eat then for you have far to go so saying he set meat before me and while i was to obey he left the room and returned with an of coarse there said he is your disguise i leave you to your toilet the clothes had probably belonged to a somewhat boy of fifteen and they hung about me like a sack and cruelly my movements but what filled me with was the problem of their origin and the fate of the lad to whom they had belonged i had scarcely effected the exchange when the doctor returned opened a back window helped me out into the narrow space between the house and the overhanging and showed me a ladder of iron in the rock mount he said swiftly when you are at the summit walk so far as you are able in the shadow of the smoke the smoke will bring you sooner or later to a follow that down and you will find a man with two horses him you will obey and remember silence that machinery which i now put in motion for your service may by one word be turned against you go heaven prosper you i the the ascent was easy arrived at the top of the i saw before me on the other side a vast and gradual of stone lying bare to the moon and the surrounding mountains nowhere was any or concealment and knowing how these deserts were beset with i made haste to veil my movements under the blowing trail of smoke sometimes it swam high rising on the night wind and i had no more substantial curtain than its moon thrown shadow sometimes again it crawled upon the and i would walk in it no higher than to my shoulders like some mountain fog but one way or another the smoke of that furnace protected the first step of my escape and led me unobserved to the there sure enough i found a and man beside a pair of saddle horses and all night long we wandered in silence by the most and dangerous paths among the mountains a little before the we took refuge in a wet and at the bottom of a lay there all day concealed and the next night before the glow had faded out of the west resumed our wanderings about noon we stopped again in a lawn on a little river where was a screen of bushes and here my guide handing me a bundle from his pack bade me change my dress once more the bundle contained clothing of my own taken the angel from our house with such necessaries as a comb and soap i made my toilet by the mirror of a quiet pool and as i was so doing and smiling with some complacency to see myself restored to my own image the mountains rang with a scream of far more than human and while i still stood astonished there sprang up	38
and swiftly increased a storm of the most awful and earth sounds shall i own to you that i fell upon my face and shrieked and yet this was but the train winding among the near mountains the very means of my salvation the strong wings that were to carry me from when i was dressed the guide gave me a bag which contained he said both money and papers and telling me that i was already over the borders in the territory of bade me follow the stream until i reached the railway station half a mile below here he added is your ticket as far as council the east express will pass in a few hours with that he took both horses and without further words or any salutation rode oflf by the way that we had come three hours afterwards i was seated on the end platform of the train as it swept eastward through the and thundered in of the mountain the change of scene the sense of escape the still throbbing terror of pursuit thb above all the magic of my new conveyance kept me from any logical or melancholy thought i had gone to the doctor s house two nights before prepared to die for worse than death what had passed terrible although it was looked almost bright compared to my and it was not till i had slept a full night in the flying palace car that i awoke to the sense of my loss and to some reasonable alarm about the future in this mood i examined the contents of the bag it was well supplied with gold it tickets and complete directions for my journey as far as liverpool and a long letter from the doctor supplying me with a name and story the most guarded silence and bidding me to await faithfully the coming of his son all then had been arranged beforehand he had counted upon my consent and what was worse upon my mother s voluntary death my horror of my only friend my aversion for this son who was to marry me my revolt against the whole current and conditions of my life were now complete i was sitting by my distress and helplessness when to my joy a very pleasant lady offered me her conversation i clutched at the relief and i was soon telling her the story in the doctor s letter how i was a miss of city going to the angel england to an uncle what money i had what family my age and so forth i had exhausted my instructions and as the lady still continued to me with questions began to on my own account this soon carried one of my beyond her depth and i had already remarked a shadow on the lady s face when a gentleman drew near and very addressed me miss i believe said he and then himself to the lady by the authority of my guardian drew me to the fore platform of the car miss he said in my ear is it possible that you suppose yourself in safety let me completely you one more such and you return to and in the meanwhile if this woman should again address you you are to reply with these words madam i do not like you and i will be obliged if you will suffer me to choose my own associates alas i had to do as i was bid this lady to whom i already felt myself drawn with the strongest of sympathy i dismissed with insult and through all that day i sat in silence gazing on the bare plains and my tears let that suffice it was the pattern of my journey whether on the train at the hotels or on board the ocean steamer i never exchanged a friendly word the angel with any fellow but i was certain to be interrupted in every place on every side the most unlikely persons man or woman rich or poor became to forward me upon my journey or to observe and my conduct thus i crossed the states thus passed the ocean the eye still following my movements and when at length a cab had set me down before that london lodging house from which you saw me this morning i had already ceased to struggle and ceased to hope the landlady like every one else through all that journey was expecting my arrival a fire was lighted in my room which looked upon the garden there were books on the table clothes in the drawers and there i had almost said with contentment and certainly with resignation i saw month follow month over my head at times my landlady took me for a walk or an excursion but she would never suffer me to leave the house alone and i seeing that she also lived under the shadow of that terror felt too much pity to resist to the child bom on soil as to the man who the engagements of a secret order no e is possible so i had clearly read and i was thankful even for this meanwhile i tried honestly to prepare my mind for my approaching the day drew the angel near when my bridegroom was to visit me and gratitude and fear alike obliged me to consent a son of doctor s be he what he pleased must still be young and it was even probable he should be handsome on more than that i felt i dared not reckon and in my mind toward consent i dwelt the more carefully on these physical attractions which i felt i might expect and averted my eyes from moral or intellectual considerations we have a great power upon our spirits and as time passed i worked myself into a frame of acquiescence nay and i began to grow impatient for the hour at night sleep me i sat	38
all day by the fire absorbed in dreams up the features of my husband and in fancy the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice in the dead level and solitude of my existence this was the one eastern window and the one door of hope at last i had so cultivated and prepared my will that i began to be with fears upon the other side how if it was i that did not please how if this unseen lover should turn from me with and now i spent hours before the glass studying and judging my attractions and was never weary of changing my dress or ordering my hair when the day came i was long about my toilet but at last with a sort of hopeful des the angel i had to own that i could do no more and must now stand or fall by nature my occupation ended i fell a prey to the most sickening impatience mingled with giving ear to the swelling of the streets and at each change of sound or silence starting shrinking and to the brow love is not to be prepared i know without some knowledge of the object and yet when the cab at last rattled to the door and i heard my visitor mount the stairs such was the tumult of hopes in my poor bosom that love itself might have been proud to own their the door opened and it was doctor that appeared i believe i must have screamed aloud and i know at least that i fell fainting to the floor when i came to myself he was standing over me counting my pulse i have startled you he said a difficulty the impossibility of obtaining a certain in its full purity has forced me to resort to london unprepared i regret that i should have shown myself once more without those poor attractions which are much perhaps to you but to me are no more considerable than rain that falls into the sea youth is but a state as passing as that from which you are but just awakened and if there be truth in science as easy to recall for i find that i must the angel now take you for my since my first years i have devoted every hour and act of life to one ambitious task and the time of my success is at hand in these new countries where i was so long content to stay i collected indispensable i have fortified myself on every side from the possibility of error what was a dream now takes the substance of reality and when i offered you a son of mine i did so in a figure that son that husband is myself not as you now behold me but restored to the first energy of youth you think me mad it is the customary attitude of ignorance i will not argue i will leave facts to speak when you behold me renewed in the original image when you recognize in me what i shall be the first perfect expression of the powers of mankind i shall be able to laugh with a better grace at your passing and natural incredulity to what can you f riches power the charm of youth the dear bought wisdom of age that i shall not be able to afford you in perfection do not deceive yourself i already you in every human gift but one when that gift also has been restored to me you wiu recognize your master consulting his watch he told me he must now leave me to myself and bidding the angel me consult reason and not girlish fancies he withdrew i had not the courage to move the night fell and found me still where he had laid me during my faint my face buried in my hands my soul drowned in the darkest apprehensions late in the evening he returned carrying a candle and with a certain irritable tremor bade me rise and sup is it possible he added that i have been deceived in your courage a cowardly girl is no fit mate for me i flung myself before him on my knees and with floods of tears him to release me from this engagement assuring him that my cowardice was abject and that in every point of intellect and character i was his hopeless and inferior why certainly he replied i know you better than yourself and i am well enough acquainted with human nature to understand this scene it is addressed to me he added with a smile in my character of the still but do not alarm yourself about the future let me but attain my end and not you only but every woman on the face of the earth becomes my willing slave n he obliged me to rise and eat sat down with me to table helped and entertained me with the attentions of a fashionable host the angel and it was not till a late hour that bidding me courteously good night he once more left me alone to my misery in all this talk of an and the restoration of his youth i scarce knew from which i should the more eagerly if his hopes on any base of fact if indeed by some miracle he should his age death were my only refuge from that most unnatural that most union if on the other hand these dreams were merely lunatic the madness of a life suddenly acute my pity would become a load almost as heavy to bear as my revolt against the marriage so passed the night in of rebellion and despair of hate and pity and with the next morning i was only to comprehend more fully my position for though he appeared with a very tranquil countenance he had no sooner observed	38
the marks of grief upon my brow than an answering darkness gathered on his own he said you owe me much already with one finger i still hold you suspended over death my life is full of labor and anxiety and i choose said he with a remarkable accent of command that you shall greet me with a pleasant face he never needed to repeat the recommendation from that day forward i was always ready to receive him with apparent the angel cheerfulness and he rewarded me with a good deal of his company and almost more than i could bear of his confidence he had set up a in the back part of the house where he toiled day and night at his and he would come thence to visit me in my parlor now with passing of now and far more often radiant with hope it was impossible to see so much of him and not to recognize that the sands of his life were running low and yet all the time he would be laying out vast fields of future and planning with all the confidence of youth the most unbounded schemes of pleasure and ambition how i replied i know not but i found a voice and words to answer even while i wept and raged to hear him a week ago the doctor entered my room with the marks of great with pitiful bodily weakness said he i have now obtained the last in one week from now the perilous moment of the last will draw nigh you have once before assisted although unconsciously at the failure of a similar experiment it was the which so terribly exploded one night when you were passing my house and it is idle to deny that the conduct of so delicate a process among the million and of so great a city presents a certain element of the angel danger from this point of view i can not but regret the perfect stillness of my house among the deserts but on the other hand i have succeeded in proving that the singularly of the at the moment of is due rather to the than to the nature of the and as all are now of an equal and exquisite i have little fear for the result in a week then from to day my dear this period of trial will be ended and he smiled upon me in a manner unusually paternal i smiled back with my lips but at my heart there raged the and most terror what if he failed and oh worse what if he succeeded what detested and unnatural would appear to claim my hand and could there i asked myself with a dreadful sinking be any truth in his of an assured victory over my reluctance i knew him indeed to be to lead my life at a sign suppose then this experiment to succeed suppose him to return to me restored like a in a legend and suppose that by some devilish fascination my head turned all former fears deserted me and i felt i could embrace the worst in preference to this my mind was instantly made up the doctor s presence in london was justified by the the angel affairs of the often in onr conversation he would over the details of that great organization which he feared even while yet he it and would remind me that even in the humming of london we were still visible to that eye in his visitors indeed who were of every sort from the missionary to the destroying angel and seemed to belong to every rank of life had up to that moment filled me with and alarm i knew that if my secret were to reach the ear of any leader my fate were sealed beyond and yet in my present pass of horror and despair it was to these very men that i turned for help i upon the stair one of the a man of a low class but not inaccessible to pity told him i scarce remember what elaborate fable to explain my application and by his entered into correspondence with my father s family they recognized my claim for help and on this very day i was to begin my escape last night i sat up fully dressed awaiting the result of the doctor s labors and prepared against the worst the nights at this season and in this northern latitude are short and i had soon the company of the returning daylight the silence in and around the house was only broken by the movements of the doctor in the the to these i listened watch in hand awaiting the hour of my escape and yet consumed by anxiety about the strange experiment that was going forward overhead indeed now that i was conscious of some protection for myself my sympathies had turned more directly to the doctor s side i caught myself even praying for his success and when some hours ago a low peculiar cry reached my ears from the i could no longer control my impatience but mounted the stairs and opened the door the doctor was standing in the middle of the room in his hand a large round crystal some three parts full of a bright colored liquid on his face a rapture of gratitude and joy unspeakable as he saw me he raised the at arm s length victory he cried victory and then whether the escaped his trembling fingers or whether the explosion was spontaneous i can not tell enough that we were thrown i against the door post the doctor into the corner of the room enough that we were shaken to the soul by the same explosion that must have startled you upon the street and that in the brief space of an instant there remained nothing of the labors of the doctor s lifetime	38
that was not and the bright eyes and the high spirits of his companion had already made a breach in the of s caution the whole thing he reasoned might be a mere which it were the height of solemn folly to resent on the other hand the explosion the interview at the public house and the very money in his hands seemed to prove beyond denial the existence of some serious danger and if that were so could he desert her there was a choice of risks the risk of with extraordinary and to a lady and the risk of going on a fool s errand the story seemed false but then the money was the whole circumstances were questionable and obscure but the lady was charming and had the speech and manners of society while he still hung in the wind a recollection returned upon his mind with some of the dig the squire op of prophecy had he not promised to break with the traditions of the commonplace and to accept the first adventure offered well here was the adventure he thrust the money into his pocket my name is said he mr she replied you have come very generously to my aid when all was against me though i am myself a very humble person my family commands great interest and i do not think you will repent this handsome action flushed with pleasure i imagine that perhaps a she added her eyes dwelling on him with a admiration a in some great town or capital or else but we waste time let us set about the work of my delivery she took his arm with a frank confidence that went to his heart and once more laying by all serious thoughts she entertained him as they crossed the park with her agreeable of mind near the marble arch they found a which rapidly conveyed them to the at square and here in the hotel they sat down to an excellent breakfast the young lady s first step was to call for writing materials and write upon one comer of the table a hasty note still as she did so glancing with smiles at her companion the squire of here said she here is the letter which will introduce you to my cousin she began to fold the paper my cousin although i have never seen her has the character of a very charming woman and a recognized beauty of that i know nothing but at least she has been very kind to me so has my lord her father so have you kinder than all kinder than i can bear to think of she said this with unusual emotion and at the same time sealed the envelope ah she cried i have shut my letter it is not quite courteous and yet as between friends it is perhaps better so i introduce you after all into a family secret and though you and i are already old comrades you are still unknown to my uncle you go then to this address richard street go please as soon as you arrive and give this letter with your own hands into those of miss for that is the name by which she is to pass when we next meet you will tell me what you think of her she added with a touch of the ah said almost tenderly she can be nothing to me you do not know replied the young lady with a sigh by the by i had forgotten it is very childish and i am almost ashamed to mention it but when you see miss you will have to make yourself a little the squire of ridiculous and i am sure the part in no you we had agreed upon a you will have to address an earl s daughter in these words never die but yourself she added laughing for the fair will at once finish the quotation come now say your lesson never die repeated with reluctance miss went into fits of laughter excellent said she it will be the most humorous scene and she laughed again and what will be the asked stiffly i will not tell you till the last moment said she for i perceive you are growing too imperious breakfast over she accompanied the young man to the platform bought him the the and a paper and stood on the step conversing till the whistle sounded then she put her head into the carriage black face and shining eye she whispered and instantly leaped down upon the platform with a of gay and musical laughter as the train out of the great arch of glass the sound of that laughter still rang in the young man s ears s position was too unusual to be long welcome to his mind he found himself the squire of projected the whole length of england on a mission beset with obscure and ridiculous circumstances and yet by the trust he had accepted bound to how easy it appeared in the to have refused the whole proposal returned the money and gone forth again upon his own affairs a free and happy man and it was now impossible the who had held him with her eye had now disappeared taking his honor in pledge and as she had failed to leave him an address he was denied even the safety of retreat to use the or even to read the with which she had presented him was to renew the bitterness of his remorse and as he was alone in the he passed the day staring at the landscape in impotent repentance and long before he was landed on the platform of st s had fallen to the lowest and of self contempt as he was hungry and elegant in his habits he would have preferred to dine and to remove the of travel but	38
either you immediately summon miss or i leave this house and put myself under the direction of the police this is horrible exclaimed the man i declare before heaven i am the person meant but how shall i convince you it must have been i perceive that sent you on this errand a mad woman who with the most deadly interests and here we are incapable perhaps of an agreement and heaven knows what may depend on our delay he spoke with a really startling earnestness and at the same time there flashed upon the mind of the ridiculous which was to serve as a pass word this may perhaps assist you he said and then with some embarrassment never die a light of relief broke upon the troubled countenance of the man with the chin beard black face and shining eye give me the letter he panted in one gasp the squire of well said though still with some reluctance i suppose i must regard you as the proper and though i may justly complain of the spirit in which i have been treated i am only too glad to be done with all responsibility here it is and he produced the envelope the man leaped upon it like a beast and with hands that trembled in a manner painful to behold tore it open and unfolded the letter as he read terror seemed to mount upon him to the pitch of nightmare he struck one hand upon his brow while with the other as if unconsciously he the paper to a ball my gracious powers he cried and then dashing to the window which stood open on the garden he clapped forth his head and shoulders and whistled long and shrill fell back into a comer and resolutely grasping his prepared for the most desperate events but the thoughts of the man with the chin beard were far removed from violence turning again into the room and once more beholding his visitor whom he appeared to have forgotten he fairly danced with impossible he cried oh quite impossible o lord i have lost my head and then once more striking his hand upon his brow the money he exclaimed give me the money the squire of my good friend replied this is a very painful exhibition and i see you reasonably master of yourself i decline to proceed with any business you are quite right said the man i am of a very nervous habit a long course of the dumb has my constitution but i know you have money it maybe still the saving of me and oh dear young gentleman in pity s name be sincerely uneasy as he was could scarce refrain from laughter but he was himself in a hurry to be gone and without more delay produced the money you will find the sum i trust correct he observed and let me ask you to give me a receipt but the man him not he seized the money and the sovereigns that rolled loose upon the floor thrust the bundle of notes into his pocket a receipt repeated with some i insist on a receipt receipt repeated the man a little wildly a receipt immediately i await me here r in reply begged the gentleman to lose no unnecessary time as he was himself desirous of catching a particular train ah by god and so am i exclaimed the man with the chin beard and with that he was gone out of the room and had rattled up r op stairs four at a time to the upper story of the villa this is certainly a most amazing business thought certainly a most affair and i can not conceal from myself that i have become mixed up with either or i may truly thank my stars that i am so nearly and so done with it thus thinking and perhaps remembering the episode of the whistle he turned to the open window the garden was still faintly clear he could distinguish the stairs and with which the small domain had been adorned by former owners and the blackened bushes and dead trees that had once afforded shelter to the country birds beyond these he saw the strong retaining wall some thirty feet in height which the garden to the back and again above that the pile of dingy buildings its high into the night a peculiar object lying stretched upon the lawn for some time baffled his but at length he made it out to be a long ladder or series of bound into one he was stiu wondering of service so great an instrument could be in such a scant when he was recalled to himself by the noise of some one running violently down the stairs this was followed by the sudden of the house door and that th squire of again by rapid and retreating footsteps in the street sprang into the passage he ran from room to room up stairs and down stairs and in that old dingy and worm eaten house he found himself alone only in one apartment looking to the front were there any traces of the late a bed that had been recently slept in and not made a chest of drawers disordered by a hasty search and on the floor a roll of paper this he picked up the light in this upper story looking to the front was considerably brighter than in the parlor and he was able to make out that the paper bore the mark of the hotel at and even by peering closely to the following lines in a very elegant and careful female hand dear m it is certain your retreat is known we have just had another failure thirty hours too soon with the usual humiliating result is quite we are all scattered and i could find no one but the solemn ass who brings	38
you this and the money i would love to see your meeting ever yours shining eye was stricken to the heart he perceived by what facility by what tub squire op fear of ridicule he had been brought down to be the of this and his wrath flowed forth in almost equal measure against himself against the woman and against whose idle counsels had impelled him to on that adventure at the same time a great and troubled curiosity and a certain chill of fear possessed his spirit the conduct of the man with the chin beard the terms of the letter and the explosion of the early morning fitted together like parts in some obscure and mischievous evil was certainly evil secrecy terror and falsehood were the conditions and the passions of the people among whom he had begun to move like a blind and he who began as a his experience told him was often doomed to perish as a victim the stupor of deep thought into which he had glided with the letter in his hand he was awakened by the clatter of the bell he glanced from the window and conceive his horror and surprise when he beheld clustered on the steps in the front garden and on the pavement of the street a formidable of police he started to the full possession of his powers and courage escape and escape at any cost was the one idea that possessed him swiftly and silently he the creaking stairs he was already in the the of passage when a second and more imperious summons from the door awoke the echoes of the empty house nor had the bell ceased to before he had the window sill of the parlor and was lowering himself into the garden his coat was upon the iron flower basket for a moment he hung dependent heels and head below and then with the noise of cloth and followed by several pots he dropped upon the sod once more the bell was rung and now with furious and repeated the desperate turned his eyes on every side they fell ui on the ladder and he ran to it and with but sought to raise it from the ground suddenly the weight which was thus resisting his whole strength began to in his hands the ladder like a thing of life reared its bulk from oflf the sod and leaping back with a cry of almost superstitious terror beheld the whole structure mount foot by foot against the face of the retaining wall at the same time two heads were dimly visible above the and he was hailed by a guarded whistle something in its recalled like an echo the whistle of the man with the chin beard had he chanced upon a means of escape prepared beforehand by those very whose messenger and he had become the squire of was this indeed a means of safety or but the starting point of further and disaster he paused not to reflect scarce was the ladder reared to its full length than he had sprung already on the rounds hand over hand swift as an he the tottering strong arms received embraced and helped him he was lifted and set once more upon the earth and with the of his alarm yet found himself in the company of two rough looking men in the paved back yard of one of the tall houses that crowned the summit of the hill meanwhile from below the note of the bell had been succeeded by the sound of vigorous and blows are you all out asked one of his companions and as soon as he had an answer in the affirmative the rope was cut from the top round and the ladder thrust roughly back into the garden where it fell and broke with its fall was hailed with many broken cries for the whole of richard street was now in high emotion the people crowding to the windows or on the garden walls the same man who had already addressed seized him by the arm him through the of the house and across the street ai on the other side and before the the ihe of adventurer had time to realize his a door was opened and he was thrust into a low and dark observed his guide there was no time to lose is m gone or was it you that whistled m is gone said the guide now struck a light ah said he this will never do you dare not go upon the streets in such a figure wait quietly here and i will bring you something decent with that the man was gone and his attention thus rudely awakened began to consider the that had been worked in his attire his hat was gone his were cruelly and the best part of one tail of his very elegant frock coat had been left hanging from the iron of the window he had scarce had time to measure these when his host re entered the apartment and proceeded without a word to e the refined and in a long of the material and of a pattern so gross and vulgar that his spirit at the sight this disguise was crowned and completed by a soft felt hat of the design and several sizes too small at another moment would simply have refused to issue forth upon the world thus but the desire to the squire of escape from was now too strongly and too exclusively impressed npon his mind with one haggard glance at the spotted tails of his new coat he inquired what was to pay for this the man assured him that the whole expense was easily met from funds in his possession and begged him instead of wasting time to make his best speed out of the neighborhood the young man was not loth to take the hint true to	38
his usual courtesy he thanked the speaker and him upon his taste in and leaving the man somewhat abashed by these remarks and the manner of their delivery he hurried forth into the city the last train was gone ere after many he had reached the attired as he was he dared not present himself at any inn and he felt keenly that the dignity of his would serve to attract attention perhaps mirth and possibly suspicion in any he was thus condemned to pass the solemn and hours of a whole night in pacing the streets of a figure of fun for all waiting the dawn with hope indeed but with and above all things filled with a profound sense of the folly and weakness of his conduct it may be conceived with what curses i e of be assailed the memory of the fair of park her parting laughter rang in his ears all night with mockery and and when he could spare a thought from this chief of his confusion it was to his wrath on and the career of the amateur with the coming of day he found in a shy milk shop the means to his hunger there were still many hours to wait before the departure of the south express these he passed wandering with indescribable fatigue in the by streets of the city and at length slipped quietly into the station and took his place in the darkest comer of a third class carriage here all day long he on the bare boards distressed by heat and continually re awakened from uneasy by the half return ticket in his purse he was entitled to make the journey on the easy cushions and with the ample space of the first class but alas in his absurd attire he not for decency co mingle with his equals and this small annoyance coming last in such a series of cut him to the heart that night when in his lodging he the expense anxiety and weariness of his adventure when he beheld the ruins of his last good and his last coat and above all when his eye by any the us ma o i chance alighted on the hat or the degrading his heart would with bitterness and it was only by a serious call on his philosophy that he maintained the dignity of his adventure the d mansion mr paul was a young gentleman of a lively and fiery imagination with very small capacity for action he was one who lived exclusively in dreams and in the future the creature of his own theories and an actor in his own the cigar he proceeded to parade the streets still heated with the fire of his eloquence and upon every side for the offer of some fortunate adventure in the continual stream of by on the sealed fronts of houses on the that covered the and in every and throb of the great city he saw a mysterious and hopeful but although the elements of adventure were streaming by him as thick as drops of water in the thames it was in vain that now with a now with something of a air he and provoked the notice of the passengers in vain that putting fortune the superfluous mansion to the touch he even thrust himself into the way and came into direct collision with those of the more promising persons of secrets persons for affection persons for lack of help or counsel he was sure he could perceive on every side but by some of fortune each passed upon his way without remarking the young gentleman and went further surely to fare worse in quest of the the friend or the adviser to thousands he must have turned an appealing countenance and yet not one regarded him a light dinner eaten to the accompaniment of his impetuous aspirations broke in upon the series of his attempts on fortune and when he returned to the task the lamps were already lighted and the crowd was dense upon the pavement before a certain whose name will readily occur to any student of our people were already packed so closely that passage had grown and standing in the watched with a hope that was beginning to grow somewhat weary the faces and the manners of the crowd suddenly he was startled by a gentle touch upon the shoulder and facing about he was aware of a very plain and elegant drawn by a pair of powerful horses and driven by a man in sober livery there the us mansion were no arms upon the the window was open but the interior was obscure the driver yawned behind his palm and the young man was already beginning to suppose himself the of his own fancy when a hand no larger than a child s and smoothly in white appeared in a comer of the window and beckoned him to approach he did so and looked in the carriage was occupied by a single small and dainty figure head and shoulders in impenetrable folds of white lace and a voice speaking low and silvery addressed him in these words open the door and get in it must be thought the young man with an almost thrill t must be that at last yet although the moment was one to which he had long looked forward it was with a certain share of alarm that he opened the door and mounting into the took his seat beside the lady of the lace whether or no she had touched a spring or given some other signal the young man had hardly closed the door before the carriage with considerable swiftness and with a very luxurious and easy movement on its springs turned and began to drive toward the west as have written was not unprepared it had long been his particular pleasure to his conduct in the most unlikely i	38
the superfluous mansion situations and this among others of the was one he had strange as it may seem however he could find no remark and as the lady on her side vouchsafed no further sign they continued to drive in silence through the streets except for alternate flashes from the passing lamps the carriage was plunged in obscurity and beyond the fact that the were luxurious and that the lady was singularly small and slender in person and all but one hand still in her costly veil the young man could no detail of an inspiring nature the suspense began to grow twice he cleared his throat and twice the whole resources of the language failed him in similar scenes when he had them on the of fancy his presence of mind had always been complete his eloquence remarkable and at this between the and the performance he began to be seized with a panic of apprehension here on the very threshold of adventure suppose him to fail suppose that after ten twenty or sixty seconds of still silence the lady should touch the check string and re deposit him weighed and found wanting on the common street thousands of persons of no mind at all he reasoned would be found more equal to the part could that very the us mansion instant by some decisive step prove the lady s choice to have been well inspired and put a stop to this intolerable silence his eye at this point lighted on the hand it was better to fall by desperate than to continue as he was and with one tremulous he on the fingers and drew them to himself one step it had appeared to him would the spell of his embarrassment in act he found it otherwise he found himself no less incapable of speech or further progress and with the lady s hand in his sat helpless but worse was in store a peculiar quivering began to the form of his companion the hand that lay in s trembled as with and presently there broke forth in the shadow of the carriage the and musical sound of laughter resisted but triumphant the young man dropped his prize had it been possible he would have bounded from the carriage the lady meanwhile lying back upon the cushions passed on from to of the most high pitched clear and fairy sounding merriment you must not be offended she said at last catching an between two have been mistaken in the warmth of your attentions the fault is solely mine it does not flow from your the us mansion but from my eccentric manner of friends and believe me i am the last person in the world to think the worse of a young man for showing spirit as for to night it is my intention to entertain you to a little supper and if i shall continue to be as much pleased with your manners as i was taken with your face i may perhaps end by making you an advantageous offer sought in vain to find some form of answer but his discomfiture had been too recent and complete come returned the lady we must have no display of temper that is for me the one fault and as i perceive we are drawing near our destination i shall ask you to descend and offer me your arm indeed at that very moment the carriage drew up before a stately and severe mansion in a spacious square and who was possessed of an excellent temper with the best grace in the world assisted the lady to alight the door was opened by an old woman of a grim appearance who ushered the pair into a dining room somewhat dimly lighted but already laid for supper and occupied by a prodigious company of large and valuable cats here as soon as they were alone the lady herself of the lace in which she was and was relieved to find the superfluous that although still bearing the traces of great beauty and still distinguished by the fire and color of her eye her hair was of a silvery whiteness and her face lined with years and now mon said the old lady nodding at him with a quaint you perceive that i am no longer in my first youth you will soon find that i am all the better company for that as she spoke the maid re entered the apartment with a light but supper they sat down accordingly to table the cats with savage surrounding the old lady s chair and what with the excellence of the meal and the of his was soon completely at his ease when they had well eaten and drunk the old lady leaned back in her chair and taking a cat upon her lap subjected her guest to a prolonged but evidently scrutiny i fear madam said that my manners have not risen to the height of your opinion my dear young man she replied you were never more mistaken in your life i find you charming and you may very weu have lighted on a fairy i am not one of those who are given to change their opinions and short of substantial those who have once gained my favor continue to enjoy it io the but i have a singular swiftness of decision read my fellow men and women with a glance and have acted throughout life on first impressions yours as i tell you has been favorable and if as i suppose you are a young fellow of somewhat idle habits i think it not improbable that we may strike a bargain ah madam returned you have divined my situation i am a man of birth parts and breeding excellent company or at least so i find myself but by a peculiar of fate destitute alike of trade or money i was indeed this evening upon the quest	38
of an adventure resolved to close with any of interest or pleasure and your summons which i profess i am still at some loss to understand jumped naturally with the inclination of my mind call it if you will impudence i am here at least prepared for any proposition you can find it in your heart to make and resolutely determined to accept you express yourself very well replied the old lady and are certainly a droll and curious young man i should not care to affirm that you were sane for i have never found any one entirely so besides myself but at least the nature of your madness me and i will reward you with some description of my character and life thereupon the old lady still the cat the spirited old lady upon her lap proceeded to the following particulars narrative of the spirited old i was the eldest daughter of the reverend who held a valuable living in the of bath and wells our family a very large one was noted for a and wit and came of a good old stock where beauty was an in christian grace of character we were unhappily deficient from my earliest years i saw and the defects of those relatives whose age and position should have enabled them to conquer my esteem and while i was yet a child my father married a second wife in whom strange to say the were exaggerated to a monstrous and almost degree whatever may be said against me it can not be denied i was a pattern daughter but it was in vain that with the most touching patience i submitted to my s demands and from the hour she entered my father s house i may say that i met with nothing but injustice and ingratitude i stood not alone however in the sweetness of my disposition for one other of the family besides myself was free from any violence of the spirited old lady before i had reached the age of sixteen this cousin john by name had conceived for me a sincere but silent passion and although the poor lad was too timid to hint at the nature of his feelings i had soon divined and begun to share them for some days i pondered on the odd situation created for me by the of my admirer and at length perceiving that he began in his distress rather to avoid than seek my company i determined to take the matter into my own hands finding him alone in a retired part of the garden i told him that i had divined his amiable secret that i knew with what our union was sure to be regarded and that under the circumstances i was prepared to flee with him at once poor john was literally with joy such was the force of his emotions that he could find no words in which to thank me and that i seeing him thus helpless was obliged to arrange myself the details of our flight and of the stolen marriage which was immediately to crown it john had been at that time projecting a visit to the metropolis in this i bade him and promised on the following day to join him at the ta hotel true on my side to every detail of our arrangement i arose on the day in question before the servants packed a few necessaries in the spirited old lad k a bag took with me the little money i possessed and bade farewell forever to the i walked with good spirits to a town some thirty miles from home and was set down the next morning in this great city of london as i walked from the coach office to the hotel i could not in the pleasant change that had befallen me beholding meanwhile with innocent delight the traffic of the streets and in all the colors of fancy the reception that awaited me from john but alas when i inquired for mr the porter assured me there was no such gentleman among the guests by what channel our secret had out or what pressure had been brought to bear on the too john i could never enough that my family had that i found myself alone in london tender in years under the most sensible mortification and by every sentiment of pride and self respect forever from my father s house i rose under the blow and found lodgings in the neighborhood of road where for the first time in my life i tasted the joys of index three days afterwards an advertisement in the times directed me to the office of a whom i knew to be in my father s confidence there i was given the promise of a very moderate allowance and a dis the spirited old lady intimation that i must never look to be received at home i could not but resent so cruel a desertion and i told the lawyer it was a meeting i desired as little as themselves he smiled at my courageous spirit paid me the first quarter of my income and gave me the remainder of my personal effects which had been sent to me under his care in a couple of rather ponderous boxes with these i returned in triumph to my lodgings more content with my position than i should have thought possible a week before and fully determined to make the best of the future all went well for several months and indeed it was my own fault alone that ended this pleasant and secluded episode of life i have i must confess the fatal trick of my my landlady to whom i had as usual been called me in fault for some particular too small to mention and i annoyed that i had allowed her the freedom upon which she thus presumed ordered her to leave my presence she stood a	38
moment dumb and then recalling her self possession your bill said she shall be ready this evening and to morrow madam you shall leave my house see she added that you are able to pay what you owe me for if i do not receive the no box of yours shall pass my threshold the spirited old lady i i was confounded at her audacity but as a whole quarter s income was due to me not otherwise affected by the threat that afternoon as i left the s door carrying in one hand and done up in a paper parcel the whole amount of my fortune there me one of those decisive incidents that sometimes shape a life the lawyer s office was in a street that opened at the upper end upon the strand and was closed at the lower at the time of which i speak by a row of iron looking on the thames down this street then i beheld my advancing to meet me and doubtless bound to the very house i had just left she was attended by a maid whose face was new to me but her own was too clearly printed on my memory and the sight of it even from a distance filled me with generous indignation flight was impossible there was nothing left but to retreat against the railing and with my back turned to the street pretend to be admiring the on the river or the chimneys of london i was still standing and had not yet fully mastered the of my emotions when a voice at my elbow addressed me with a trivial question it was the maid whom my with characteristic hardness had left to await her on the street while she her business with the family the girl it the spirited old lady did not know who i was the opportunity too golden to be lost and i was soon hearing the latest news of my father s and parish it did not surprise me to find that she detested her and yet the terms in which she spoke of them were hard to bear hard to let pass i heard them however without for my self command is wonderful and we might have parted as we met had she not proceeded in an evil hour to the s missing daughter and with the most shocking to the story of her flight my nature is so essentially generous that i can never pause to reason i flung up my hand sharply by way as well as i remember of indignant protest and in the act the packet slipped from my fingers glanced between the and fell and sunk in the river i stood for a moment and then struck by the of the incident gave way to of laughter i was still laughing when my reappeared and the maid who doubtless considered me insane ran to join her nor had i yet recovered my gravity when i presented myself before the lawyer to a fresh advance his answer made me serious enough for it was a flat refusal and it was not until i had him even with tears that he consented to lend me ten pounds from his own pocket i am a poor man said he the spirited old lady and you must look for nothing further at my hands the landlady met me at the door here madam said she with a courtesy low here is my bill would it inconvenience you to settle it at once you shall be paid madam said i in the morning in the proper course and i took the paper with a very high air but inwardly i had no sooner looked at it than i perceived myself to be lost i had been short of money and had allowed my debt to mount and it had now reached the sum which i shall never forget of twelve pounds thirteen shillings and all evening i sat by the fire considering my situation i could not pay the bill my landlady would not suffer me to remove my boxes and without either baggage or money how was i to find another lodging for three months unless i could invent some remedy i was condemned to be without a roof and without a penny it can surprise no one that i decided on immediate flight but even here i was confronted by a for i had no sooner packed my boxes than i found i was not strong enough to move far less to carry them in this strait i did not hesitate a moment but throwing on a shawl and bonnet and cover it the spirited old lady ing my face with a thick veil i myself to that great of dangerous and smiling chances the pavement of the city it was already late at night and the weather being wet and windy there were few abroad besides these on my present mission i had wit enough to know for enemies and wherever i perceived their moving i made haste to turn aside and choose another a few miserable women still walked the pavement here and there were young fellows returning drunk or of the lowest class lurking in the mouths of but of any one to whom i might appeal in my distress i began almost to despair at last at the comer of a street i ran into the arms of one who was evidently a gentleman and who in all his from his great coat to the fine cigar which he was smoking comfortably breathed of wealth much as my face has changed from its original beauty i still retain or so i tell myself some traces of the youthful lightness of my figure even veiled as i then was i could perceive the gentleman was struck by my appearance and this me for my adventure sir said i with a quickly beating	38
mr s property i have found them seven white the of tenants the of and the that sits upon the bench have combined together to make these houses the burden of my life i had no sooner indeed begun to look into these matters for myself than i discovered so many and met with so much studied that i was plunged into a long series of law suits some of which are to this day you must have heard my name already i am the mrs of the law reports a strange destiny indeed for one born with an almost cowardly desire for peace i but i am of the stamp of the spirited old lady those who when they have once begun a task wiu rather die than leave their duty i have met with every obstacle insolence and ingratitude from my own lawyers in my that fault of obstinacy which is to me perhaps the most distasteful in the from the bench civility indeed always i must allow civility but never a spark of independence never that knowledge of the law and love of justice which we have a right to look for in a judge the most august of human officers and still against all these odds i have it was after the loss of one of my innumerable cases a subject on which i will not dwell that it occurred to me to make a melancholy pilgrimage to my various houses four were at that time and closed like pillars of salt the corruption of the age and the decline of private virtue three were occupied by persons who had wearied me by every conceivable unjust demand and legal persons whom at that very hour i was moving heaven and earth to turn into the street this was perhaps the spectacle of the two and my heart grew hot within me to behold them occupying in my very teeth and with an insolent these handsome which were as much mine as the flesh upon my body the spirited old one more house remained for me to visit that in which we now are i had let it for at that period i lodged in a hotel the life that i have always preferred to a colonel a gentleman attached to prince of whom you must certainly have heard of and i had supposed from the character and position of my tenant that here at least i was safe against annoyance what was my surprise to find this house also and apparently deserted i will not deny that i was offended i conceived that a house like a was better to be kept in commission and i promised myself to bring the matter before my the following morning meanwhile the sight recalled my fancy naturally to the past and yielding to the tender influence of sentiment i sat down opposite the door upon the garden it was august and a afternoon but that spot is sheltered as you may observe by daylight under the branches of a spreading chestnut the square too was deserted there was a sound of distant music in the air and all combined to plunge me into that most agreeable of states which is neither happiness nor sorrow but shares the of both from this i was recalled by the arrival of a large van very handsomely appointed drawn by valuable horses mounted by several men of the spirited old an appearance more than decent and bearing on its instead of a s name a arms too modest to be from where i sat it drew up before my house the door of which was immediately opened by one of the men his companions i counted seven of them in all proceeded with activity to take from the van and carry into the house a variety of bottle baskets and boxes such as are designed for plate and the windows of the dining room were thrown widely open as though to air it and i saw some of those within laying the table for a meal plainly i concluded my tenant was about to return and while still determined to submit to no on my rights i was gratified by the number and discipline of his attendants and the quiet profusion that appeared to reign in his establishment i was still so thinking when to my extreme surprise the windows and shutters of the dining room were once more closed the men began to from the interior and resume their stations on the van the last closed the door behind his exit the van drove away and the house was once more left to itself looking blindly on the square with windows as though the whole had been a vision it was no vision however for as i rose to my feet and thus brought my eyes a little the spirited old lad v nearer to the level of the over the door i saw that though the day had still some to run the hall lamps had been lighted and left burning plainly then guests were expected and not expected before night for whom i asked myself with indignation were such secret preparations likely to be made although no i am a woman of decided views upon morality if my house to which my husband had brought me was to serve in the character of a i saw myself forced however unwillingly into a new course of and determined to return and know the worst i hastened to my hotel for dinner i was at my post by ten the night was clear and quiet the moon rode very high and put the lamps to shame and the shadow below the chestnut was black as ink here then i myself on the low with my back against the face to face with the front of my old home and gently on the past time fled eleven struck	38
on all the city and presently after i was aware of the approach of a gentleman of stately and agreeable he was smoking as he walked his light which was open did not conceal his evening clothes and he bore himself with a serious grace that immediately awakened my the spirited old lad k tion before the door of this house he took a pass key from his pocket quietly admitted himself and disappeared into the hall he was scarcely gone when i observed another and a much younger man approaching hastily from the opposite side of the square considering the season of the year and the genial of the night he was somewhat closely muffled up and as he came for all his hurry he kept looking nervously behind him arrived before my door he halted and set one foot upon the step as though about to enter then with a sudden change he turned and began to hurry away halted a second time as if in painful and lastly with a violent gesture wheeled about returned straight to the door and upon the he was almost immediately admitted by the first arrival my curiosity was now broad awake i made myself as small as i could in the very of the shadow and waited for the nor had i long to wait from the same side of the square a second young man made his appearance walking slowly and softly and like the first muffled to the nose before the house he paused looked all about him with a swift and comprehensive glance and seeing the square lie empty in the moon and leaned the spirited old lady i far across the area and appeared to listen to what was passing in the house the dining room there came the report of a champagne cork and following upon that the sound of rich and manly laughter the listener took heart of grace produced a key unlocked the area gate shut it noiselessly behind him and descended the stair just when his head had reached the level of the pavement he turned half round and once more the square with a suspicious the had fallen lower round his neck the moon shone full upon him and i was startled to observe the and passionate agitation of his face i could remain no longer passive persuaded that something deadly was i crossed the and drew near the area there was no one below the man must therefore have entered the house with what purpose i dreaded to imagine i have at no part of my career lacked courage and now finding the area gate was merely laid to i pushed it gently open and descended the stairs kitchen door of the house like the area gate was closed but not fastened it flashed upon me that the criminal was thus preparing his escape and the thought as it confirmed the worst of my suspicions lent me new resolve i entered the house and being now quite reckless of my life i shut and locked the door the spirited old lady from the dining room above i could hear the pleasant tones of a voice in easy conversation on the ground floor all was not only profoundly silent but the darkness seemed to weigh upon my eyes here then i stood for some time having thrust myself into the utmost peril and being destitute of any power to help or interfere nor will i deny that fear had begun already to me when i became aware all at once and as though by some immediate but silent of a certain glimmering of light upon the passage floor toward this i my way with infinite precaution and having come at length as far as the angle of the corridor beheld the door of the butler s standing just and a narrow thread of brightness falling from the creeping still closer i put my eyes to the the man sat within upon a chair listening i could see with the most attention on a table before him he had laid a watch a pair of steel and a bull lantern for one second many contradictory theories and projects whirled together in my head the next i had the door and turned the key upon the surprised at my own decision i stood and panted leaning on the wall from within the not a sound was to be heard the man whatever he was had accepted his fate without a the spirited old lady struggle and now as i myself to fancy sat frozen with terror and looking for the worst to follow i promised myself that he should not be disappointed and the better to complete my task i turned to ascend the stairs the situation as i my way to the first floor appealed to me suddenly by my strong sense of humor here was i the owner of the house present in its walls and there in the dining room were two gentlemen unknown to me seated complacently at supper and only saved by my from some surprising or deadly interruption it were strange if i could not manage to extract the matter of amusement from so unusual a situation behind this dining room there is a small apartment intended for a library it was to this that i cautiously my way and you wiu see how fortune had exactly served me the weather i have said was in order to the dining room and yet preserve the appearance of the mansion to the front the window of the library had been widely opened and the door of communication between the two apartments left to this interval i now applied my eye wax set in silver shed their brightness on the of the and the remains of a cold the spirited old lad y tion of the delicacy the two gentlemen had finished supper and were now trifling with cigars and	38
while in a silver spirit lamp of the most fragrance was preparing in the fashion of the east the elder of the two he who had first arrived was placed directly facing me the other was set on his left hand both like the man in the butler s seemed to be intently listening and on the face of the second i thought i could perceive the marks of fear oddly enough however when they came to speak the parts were found to be reversed i assure you said the elder gentleman i not only heard the of a door but the sound of very guarded foot steps your was certainly deceived replied the other lam endowed with the hearing and i can swear that not a mouse has yet the and of his features were in total discord with the tenor of his words his whom of course i readily divined to be prince looked at his companion for the least of a second and though nothing shook the easy quiet of his attitude i could see that he was far from being it is well said he let us dismiss the topic and now sir that i have very freely explained the sentiments by which i am the spirited old lady directed let me ask yon according to your promise to imitate my frankness i have heard you replied the other with great interest with singular patience said the prince politely ay your and with for sympathy returned the young man i know not how to tell the change that has befallen me you have i must suppose a charm to which even your enemies are subject he looked at the clock on the mantel piece and visibly so late he cried your god knows i am speaking from the heart before it be too late leave this house the prince glanced once more at his companion and then very deliberately shook the ash from his cigar that is a strange remark said he and de i never continue a cigar when once the ash is fallen the spell breaks the soul of the flavor flies away and there remains but the dead body of tobacco and i make it a rule to throw away that and choose another he suited the action to the words do not trifle with my appeal resumed the young man in tones that trembled with emotion it is made at the price of my honor and to the peril of my life go go now i lose not a the spirited old lady moment and if yon have any kindness for a young man miserably deceived indeed but not devoid of better sentiments look not behind you as you leave sir said the prince i am here upon your honor i assure you upon mine that i shall continue to rely upon that the is ready i must again trouble you i fear and with a courteous movement of the hand he seemed to invite his companion to pour out the coffee the unhappy young man rose from his seat to you he cried by every holy sentiment in mercy to me if not in pity to yourself before it is too late sir replied the prince i am not readily accessible to fear and if there is one defect to which i must plead guilty it is that of a curious disposition you go the wrong way about to make me leave this house in which i play the part of your and suffer me to add young man if any peril threaten us it was of your not of mine alas you do not know to what you condemn me cried the other but i at least will have no hand in it with these words he carried his hand to his pocket hastily swallowed the contents of a and with the very act back and fell across his chair upon the floor the prince left his place and the spirited old lady came and stood above mm where he lay upon the carpet poor i heard his murmur alas poor must we again inquire which is the more fatal weakness or wickedness and can a sympathy with ideas surely not in themselves conduct a man to this death by this time i had pushed the door open and walked into the room tour said i this is no time for with a little we may save this creature s life and as for the other he need cause you no concern for i have him safely under lock and key the prince had turned about upon my entrance and regarded me certainly with no alarm but with a of wonder which almost robbed me of my self possession my dear madam he cried at last and who the devil are you i was already on the floor beside the dying man i had of course no idea with what he had attempted his life and i was forced to try him with a variety of here were both oil and for the prince had done the young man the honor of for him one of his celebrated and of each of these i administered from a quarter to half a pint with no apparent i next plied the spirited old lad y him with the hot of which there may have been near upon a have you no milk i inquired i fear madam that milk has been omitted returned the prince salt then said i salt is a pass the salt and possibly the asked his as he offered me the contents of the various salt poured together on a plate ah cried i the thought is excellent mix me about half a pint of whether it was the salt or the or the mere combination of so many agents as soon as the last had been poured over his throat the young sufferer	38
obtained relief there i exclaimed with natural triumph i have saved a life and yet madam returned the prince your mercy may be cruelty disguised where the honor is lost it is at least superfluous to the life if you had led a life as as mine your i replied you would hold a very different opinion for my part and after whatever extremity of misfortune or disgrace i should still count to morrow worth a trial you speak as a lady madam said the u the spirited old lady prince and for such yon speak the truth but to men there is permitted such a field of license and the good behavior asked of them is at once so easy and so little that to fail in that is to fall beyond the reach of pardon but will you suffer me to repeat a question put to you at first i am afraid with some defect of courtesy and to ask you once more who you are and how i have the honor of your company i am the proprietor of the house in which we stand said i and still i am at fault returned the prince but at that moment the on the mantel shelf began to strike the hour of twelve and the young man raising himself upon one elbow with an expression of despair and horror that i have never seen cried midnight o just god we stood frozen to our places while the hammer of the measured the remaining strokes nor had we yet stirred so tragic had been the tones of the young man when the various bells of london began in turn to declare the hour the was beyond the walls of the chamber where we stood but the second of big ben had scarcely into the night before a sharp rang about the house the u the spirited old lady prince sprang for the door by which i had entered but quick as he was i yet contrived to him are you armed i cried no madam replied he you remind me i will take the the man below said i has two would you him at such odds he paused as though staggered in his purpose and yet madam said he we can not continue to remain in ignorance of what has passed no cried i and who it i am as curious as yourself but let us rather send for the police or if your a scandal for some of your own servants nay madam he replied smiling for so brave a lady you surprise me would you have me then send others where i fear to go myself you are perfectly right said i and i was entirely wrong go in god s name and i will hold the candle together therefore we descended to the lower story he carrying the i the light and together we approached and opened the door of the butler s in some sort i believe i was prepared for the spectacle that met our eyes i was prepared that is to find the villain dead but the rude details of such a the spirited old lady violent suicide i was unable to endure the prince by horror as he had remained by alarm assisted me with the most respectful gallantry to regain the dining room there we found our patient still indeed deadly pale but vastly recovered and already seated on a chair he held out both his hands with a most pitiful gesture of he is dead said the prince alas cried the young man and it should be i what do i do thus lingering on the stage i have disgraced while he my sure comrade indeed for much but yet the soul of fidelity has judged and slain himself for an involuntary fault ah sir said he and you too madam without whose cruel help i should be now beyond the reach of my conscience you behold in me the victim of my own faults and virtues i bom a of injustice from my most tender years my blood boiled against heaven when i beheld the sick and against men when i witnessed the sorrows of the poor the s crust stuck in my throat when i sat down to eat my and the crippled child has set me weeping what was there in that but what was noble and yet observe to what a fall these thoughts have led me i tear after year this passion for the lost me closer what hope was there in kings what the spirited old lady hope in these well classes that now roll in money i had observed the course of history i knew the our ruler of today to be base cowardly and dull i saw him in every age combine to pull down that which was immediately above and to prey upon those that were below his i knew would ultimately bring about his ruin i knew his days were numbered and yet how was i to wait how was i to let the poor child shiver in the rain the better days indeed were coming but the child would die before that alas your in surely no impatience i myself among the enemies of this unjust and doomed society in surely no unnatural desire to keep the fires of my alight i bound myself by an oath that oath is all my history to give freedom to posterity i have my own i must attend upon every signal and soon my father complained of my irregular hours and turned me from his house i was engaged in to an honest girl from her also i had to part for she was too shrewd to credit my inventions and too innocent to be with the truth behold me then alone with alas as the years went on my illusions left me surrounded as i was by the fervent and	38
of revolution the spirited old lady i beheld them daily advance in confidence and desperation i beheld myself upon the other hand and with an almost equal regularity decline in faith i had sacrificed all to further that cause in which i still believed and daily i began to grow in doubts if we were advancing it indeed horrible was the society with which we but our own means were not less horrible i will not upon my sufferings i will not pause to tell you how when i beheld young men still free and happy married fathers of children cheerfully toiling at their work my heart reproached me with the greatness and vanity of my unhappy sacrifice i will not describe to you how worn by poverty poor lodging scanty food and an conscience my health began to fail and in the long nights as i wandered in the rainy streets the most cruel sufferings of the body were added to the of the mind these things are not personal to me they are common to all in my position an oath so light a thing to swear so grave a thing to break an oath taken in the heat of youth repented with what of the heart but yet in vain repented as the years go on an oath that was once the very utterance of the truth of god but that falls to be the symbol of a and empty slavery such is the the spirited old lad v yoke that many young men joyfully assume and under whose dead weight they live to suffer worse than death it is not that i was patient i have begged to be released but i knew too much and was still refused i have fled ay and for the time successfully i reached paris i found a lodging in the st almost opposite the de grace my room was mean and bare but the sun looked into it toward evening it commanded a peep of a green garden a bird hung by a neighbor s window and made the morning beautiful and i who was sick might lie in bed and rest myself i who was in full revolt against the principles that i had served and was no longer at the of the council and was no longer charged with shameful and tasks oh what an interval of peace was that i still dream at times that i can hear the note of my neighbor s bird my money was running out and it became necessary that i should find employment scarcely had i been three days upon the search ere i thought that i was being followed i made certain of the features of the man which were quite strange to me and turned into a small where i away an hour pretending to read the papers but inwardly with terror when i came forth into the street it was quite empty and i breathed again but the spirited old lady ms alas i had not turned three comers when i once more observed the human hound pursuing me not an hour was to be lost submission might yet preserve a life which otherwise was and and i fled with what speed you may conceive to the paris agency of the society i served my submission was accepted i took up once more the hated burden of that life once more i was at the call of men whom i despised and hated while yet i envied and admired them they were whole hearted in the things they proposed but i who had once been such as they had fallen from the brightness of my faith and now labored like a for the wages of a existence ay sir to that i was condemned i obeyed to continue to live and lived but to obey the last charge that was laid upon me was the one which has to night so ended boldly telling who i was i was to request from your on behalf of my society a private audience where it was designed to murder you if one thing remained to me of my old convictions it was the hate of kings and when this task was offered me i took it gladly alas sir you as we you gained upon my heart your character your talents your designs for our unhappy country all had been i began to forget you the spirited old lady were a prince i began all too to remember that you were a man as i saw the hour approach i suffered agonies and when at last we heard the of the door which announced in my unwilling ears the arrival of the partner of my crime you will bear me out with what i you to depart you would not alas and what could i kill you i could not my heart my hand turned back from such a deed yet it was impossible that i should suffer you to stay for when the hour struck and my companion came true to appointment and he at least true to design i could neither suffer you to be killed nor yet him to be arrested from such a tragic passage death and death alone could save me and it is no fault of mine if i continue to exist but you madam continued the young man addressing himself more directly to myself were doubtless born to save the prince and to confound our purposes my life you have prolonged and by turning the key on my companion you have made me the author of his death he heard the hour strike he was impotent to help and thinking himself to honor thinking that i should fall alone upon his and perish for lack of his support he has turned his pistol on himself the spirited old lady you are right said prince it was in no spirit that you brought	38
these burdens on yourself and when i see you so nobly to blame so punished i stand like one for is it not strange madam that you and i by accepted and virtues and commonplace but still faults should stand here in the sight of god with what we call clean hands and quiet while this poor youth for an error that i could almost envy him should be sunk beyond the reach of hope sir resumed the prince turning to the young man i can not help you my help would but the that you and i can but leave you free and sir said i as this house belongs to me i will ask you to have the kindness to remove the body you and your it appears to me can hardly in civility do less it shall be done said the young man with a dismal accent and you dear madam said the prince you to whom i owe my life how can i serve you your i said to be very plain this is my favorite house being not only a valuable property but to me by the spirited old lady various associations i have endless troubles with tenants of the ordinary class and at first applauded my good fortune when i found one of the station of your master of the horse i now begin to think otherwise dangers set a siege about great and i do not wish my to share these risks procure me the of the ie and i shall feel myself your i must tell you madam replied his that colonel is but a cloak for myself and i should be sorry indeed to think myself so a tenant your said i i have conceived a sincere admiration for your character but on the subject of house property i can not allow the interference of my feelings i will however to prove to you that there is nothing personal in my request here solemnly engage my word that i will never put another tenant in this house madam said you plead your cause too to be refused thereupon we all three withdrew the young man in his walk departed by himself to seek the assistance of his fellow and the prince with the most attentive gallantry lent me his escort to the door of my hotel the next day the lease was nor from that hour to this though sometimes the superfluous mansion my engagement have i suffered a tenant in this house tee mansion as soon as the old lady had finished her relation made haste to offer her his compliments madam said he your story is not only entertaining but instructive and you have told it with infinite vivacity i was much affected toward the end as i held at one time very liberal opinions and should certainly have joined a secret society if i had been able to find one but the whole tale came home to me and i was the better able to feel for you in your various as i am myself of somewhat hasty temper i do not understand you said mrs in a very high key you must have strangely what i have told you you must be a singularly dense young man seeing no probable termination to the lady s anger hurried to dear mrs said he you certainly my remark as a of somewhat fiery humor my conscience pricked me when i heard what you ha iso the us mansion suffered at the hands of persons constituted h very well indeed replied the old lady and a very proper spirit i regret that i have met with it so rarely but in all this resumed the young man i perceive nothing that concerns myself i am about to come to that she returned and you have already before you in the pledge i gave prince one of the elements of the affair i am a woman of the sort and when i have no case before the courts i make it a habit to visit continental not that i have ever been ill but then i am no longer young and i am always happy in a crowd well to come more shortly to the point i am now on the wing for this of a house which i must leave behind and dare not let hangs heavily upon my hands and i propose to rid myself of that concern and do yon a very good turn into the bargain by you the mansion with all its as it stands the idea was sudden it appealed to me as humorous and i am sure it will cause my relatives if they should ever hear of it the keenest possible here then is the key and when you return at two to morrow afternoon you will find neither me nor my cats to disturb you in your new possession so saying the old lady arose as if to dismiss the us mansion s i her visitor but looking somewhat on the key began to protest dear mrs said he this is a most unusual proposal you know nothing of me beyond the fact that i displayed both impudence and timidity i may be the worst kind of scoundrel j i may sell your furniture you may blow up the house with for what i care cried mrs it is in vain to reason such is the force of my character that when i have one idea clearly in my head i do not care two for any side consideration it me to do it and let that suffice on your side you may do what you please let apartments or keep a private hotel on my part i promise you a full month s warning before i return and i never fail to keep my promises the young man was about to renew his protest when he observed a sudden and	38
significant change in the old lady s countenance if i thought you capable of i she cried madam said with the extreme of madam i accept i beg you to understand that i accept with joy and gratitude ah well returned mrs if i am mistaken let it pass and now since all i s a the us mansion is comfortably settled i wish you a thereupon as if to leave him no room for repentance she hurried out of the front door and left him standing key in hand upon the pavement the next day about the hour appointed the young man found his way to the square which i will here call golden square though that was not its name what to expect he knew not for a man may live in dreams and yet be unprepared for their it was already with a certain pang of surprise that he beheld the mansion standing in the eye of day a solid among the key upon trial readily opened the front door he entered that great house a privileged and escorted by the echoes of desertion rapidly the empty chambers cats servant old lady the very marks of habitation like writing on a slate had been in these few hours he wandered from floor to floor and found the house of great extent the kitchen offices and well appointed the rooms many and large and the drawing room in particular an apartment of size and although the day without was warm genial and sunny with a wind from the quarter of a chill as it were of suspended animation inhabited the house the us mansion dust and shadows met the eye and but for the ominous procession of the echoes and the of the wind among the garden trees the ear of the young man was stretched in vain behind the dining room that pleasant library referred to by the old lady in her tale looked upon the flat roofs and of the kitchen quarters and on a second visit this room appeared to greet him with a smiling countenance he might as well he thought avoid the expense of lodging the library fitted with an iron which he had remarked in one of the upper chambers would serve his purpose for the night while in the dining room which was large airy and looking on the square and garden he might very agreeably pass his days cook his meals and study to bring himself to some in that art of painting which he had recently determined to adopt it did not take him long to make the change he had soon returned to the mansion with his modest and the who brought him was readily induced by the young man s pleasant manner and a small to assist him in the of the iron bed by six in the evening when went forth to dine he was able to look back upon the mansion with a sense of pride and four square it stood of an imposing and on the superfluous mansion either side by family his eye from where he stood whistling in the key with his back to the garden on every feature of reality and yet his own possession seemed as as a dream in the course of a few days the genteel inhabitants of the square began to remark the customs of their neighbor the sight of a young gentleman discussing a clay pipe about four o clock in the afternoon in the drawing room balcony of so discreet a mansion and perhaps still more his excursion to a decent tavern in the neighborhood and his return nursing the full had presently raised to a high pitch the interest and indignation of the servants of the square the of some of these gentlemen at first proceeded to the length of insult but knew how to be with any class of men and a few rude words merrily accepted and a few glasses shared gained for him the right of the young man had embraced the art of partly from a notion of its ease partly from an distrust of offices he scorned to bear the yoke of any regular and proceeded to turn one half of the dining room into a for the of still life there he a variety of objects chosen from the kitchen the superfluous mansion the drawing room and the back garden and there spent his days in smiling meantime the great bulk of empty building overhead lay like a load upon his imagination to hold so great a stake and to do nothing argued some defect of energy and he at length determined to act upon the hint given by mrs herself and to stick with in the window of the dining room a small announcing furnished lodgings at past six of a fine july morning he the bill and went forth into the square to study the result it seemed to his eye promising and and he returned to the drawing room balcony to consider over a pipe the problem of how much he was to charge thereupon he somewhat relaxed in his devotion to the art of painting indeed from that time forth he would spend the best part of the day in the front balcony like the attentive on his float and the better to support the he would frequently console himself with his clay pipe on several occasions by appeared to be arrested by the ticket and on several others ladies and gentlemen drove to the very by the ul but it appeared there was something repulsive in the appearance of the house for with one accord they would cast but one i s the us mansion look upward and hastily resume their onward progress or direct the driver to proceed had thus the mortification of actually meeting the eye of a large number of and though he hastened to withdraw his pipe and to	38
compose his features to an air of invitation he was never rewarded by so much as an inquiry can there he thought be any thing in myself but a candid examination in one of the pier glasses of the drawing room led him to dismiss the fear something however was amiss his vast and accurate calculations on the fly leaves of books or on the backs of appeared to have been an idle sacrifice of time by these he had the weekly of the house from sums as modest as five shillings up to the more majestic figure of a hundred pounds and yet in despite of the very elements of here he was making literally nothing this impressed him deeply and occupied his thoughtful leisure on the balcony and at last it seemed to him that he had detected the error of his method this he reflected is an age of generous display the age of the man of of soap and of s fruit salt which by sheer brass and and the most dis the s pictures i ever remember to have seen has that of my childhood s was genteel was was original and vulgar and here have i a man of some pretensions to knowledge of the world contented myself with half a sheet of note paper a few cold words which do not directly address the imagination and the if it may be called of four red am i then to sink with or to with am i to adopt that modesty which is doubtless becoming in a duke or to take hold of the red facts of life with the emphasis of the and the poet upon these meditations he procured several sheets of the very largest size of drawing paper and laying forth his proceeded to compose an that might attract the eye and at the same time in his own directly address tlie imagination of the passenger something taking in the way of color a good choice of words and a design setting forth the life a might expect to lead within the walls of that palace of delight these he perceived must be the elements of his advertisement it was possible upon the one hand to the sober pleasures of domestic life the evening s the superfluous mansion fire headed and the his but on the other it was possible and he almost felt as if it were more suited to his muse to set forth the charms of an existence somewhat wider in its range or boldly say the paradise of the so long did the artist between these two views that before he arrived at a conclusion he had finally conceived and completed both designs with the tender heart of the parent he found himself unable to sacrifice either of these offspring of his art and decided to expose them on alternate days in this way he thought i shall address myself indifferently to all classes of the world the tossing of a penny decided the only remaining point and the more imaginative canvas received the of fortune and appeared first in the window of the mansion it was of a high fancy the legend writ the scheme of color taking and bold and but for the of the artist s drawing it might have been taken for a model of its kind as it was however when viewed from his favorite point against the garden and with some touch of distance it caused a rising of the artist s heart i have thrown away he ejaculated an invaluable motive and this shall be the subject of my first academy picture the the fate of neither of these works was equal to its merit a crowd would certainly from time to time collect before the area but they came to and not to and those who pushed their inquiries further were too plainly animated by the spirit of derision the of the two displayed indeed no symptom of attractive merit and though it had a certain share of that success called scandalous failed utterly of its effect on the day however of the second appearance of the companion work a real did actually present himself before the eyes of this was a gentlemanly man with some marks of recent merriment and his voice under inadequate control i beg your pardon said he but what is the meaning of your extraordinary bill i beg yours returned hotly its meaning is sufficiently explicit and being now from dire experience fearful of ridicule he was preparing to close the door when the gentleman thrust his cane into the not so fast i beg of you said he if you really let apartments here is a possible tenant at your door and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see the accommodation and to learn your terms l o the man his heart beating admitted the visitor showed him over the various ai and with some return of his eloquence their attractions the gentleman was particularly pleased by the elegant proportions of the drawing room this he said would suit me very well what may i would be your terms a week for this floor and the one above it i was thinking returned of a hundred pounds surely not exclaimed the gentleman well then returned fifty the gentleman regarded him with an air of some amazement you seem to be strangely elastic in your demands said he what if i were to proceed on your own principle of division and you twenty five done cried and then overcome by a sudden embarrassment you see he added it is all found money for me really said the stranger looking at him all the while with growing wonder without then i i suppose so stammered the keeper of the lodging house service included pursued the gentleman service cried do you mean that you expect me to empty your fc i i	38
the sick man his manners were not suggestive of a university career the nurse again was scarcely a desirable house fellow since her arrival the fall of in the young man s private bottle was much and though never she was at times familiar when asked about the patient s health she the us mansion would shake her head and declare that the poor gentleman was in a pitiful condition yet somehow had early begun to entertain the notion that his complaint was other than bodily the ill looking birds that gathered to the house the strange noises that sounded from the drawing room in the dead hours of night the careless attendance and habits of the nurse the entire absence of correspondence the entire seclusion of mr jones himself whose face up to that hour he could not have sworn to in a court of justice all weighed upon the young man s mind a sense of something evil irregular and haunted and depressed him and this uneasy sentiment was the more firmly rooted in his mind when in the of time he had an opportunity of observing the features of his tenant it fell in this way the young landlord was awakened about four in the morning by a noise in the hall leaping to his feet and opening the door of the library he saw the tall man candle in hand in earnest conversation with the gentleman who had taken the rooms the faces of both were strongly illuminated and in that of his tenant could perceive none of the marks of disease but every sign of health energy and resolution while he was still the us mansion looking the visitor took his departure and the invalid having carefully fastened the front door sprang np stairs without a trace of that night upon his pillow began to once more into the hot fit of the fever and the next morning resumed the practice of his art with careless hand and an abstracted mind the day was destined to be fertile in surprises nor had he long been seated at the ere the first of these occurred a cab laden with baggage drew up before the door and mrs in person rapidly mounted the steps and began to pound upon the hastened to attend the summons my dear fellow she said with the utmost here i come dropping from the moon i am delighted to find you faithful and i have no doubt you will be equally pleased to be restored to liberty could find no words whether of protest or welcome and the spirited old lady pushed briskly by him and paused on the threshold of the dining room the sight that met her eyes was one well calculated to inspire astonishment the mantel piece was arrayed with and empty bottles on the fire some were the floor was from end to end with books clothes walking the us mansion and the materials of the painter s craft but what far the other wonders of the place was the comer which had been arranged for the study of still life this formed a sort of conspicuous upon which according to the principles of the art of composition a was relieved against a copper kettle and both contrasted with the mail of a boiled my gracious goodness i cried the lady of the house and then turning in wrath on the young man from what rank in life are you sprung she demanded you have the exterior of a gentleman but from the astonishing evidences before me i should say you can only be a green s man pray gather up your vegetables and let me see no more of you madam you promised me a month s warning that was under a returned the old lady i now give you warning to leave at once madam said the young man i wish i could and indeed as far as i am concerned it might be done but then my your echoed mrs my why should i deny it returned he is only here by the week the old lady sat down upon a you the us mansion have a you she cried and pray how did you get him by advertisement replied the young man oh madam i have not lived i adopted his eyes involuntarily shifted to the i adopted every method her eyes had followed his for the first time in s experience she produced a double and as soon as the full merit of the works flashed upon her she gave way to peal after peal of her and laughter oh i think you are perfectly delicious i she cried i do hope you had them in the window m she continued crying to her maid who had been all this time grimly waiting in the hall i lunch with mr set take the cellar key and bring some wine in this gay humor she continued throughout the luncheon presented with a couple of dozen of wine which she made m bring up from the cellar as a present my dear she said with another burst of tearful merriment for your charming pictures which you must be sure to leave me when you go and finally protesting that she dared not spoil the of in the whole of london departed as she vaguely it for the continent of europe she was no sooner gone than the superfluous mansion in the corridor the irish nurse sober to all appearance and yet a prey to singularly strong emotion it was made to appear from her account that mr jones had already suffered in his health from mrs s visit and that nothing short of a full explanation could the invalid s uneasiness somewhat staring told what he thought fit of the affair is that all cried the woman as god sees you is that all my good woman said the	38
young man i have no idea what you can be driving at suppose the lady were my friend s wife suppose she were my fairy suppose she were the queen of and how should that affect yourself or mr jones blessed mary cried the nurse it s he that will be glad to hear it and immediately she fled up stairs on his part returned to the and with a very thoughtful brow and many theories disposed of the remainder of the bottle it was port and port is a wine sole among its equals and that can in some degree support the competition of tobacco smoking and moved on from suspicion to suspicion from resolve to resolve still growing and as the bottle h the sup l us mansion a none of the name he had no horror at command whether for crimes or vices but beheld and embraced the world with an approbation the frequent consequence of youth and health at the same time he felt convinced that he dwelt under the same roof with secret and the instinct of the chase impelled him to severity the bottle had run low the summer sun had finally wn and at the same moment night and the pangs of hunger recalled him from his dreams he went forth and dined in the a dinner in not so much with his purse as with the admirable wine he had discussed what with one thing and another it was long past midnight when he returned home a cab was at the door and entering the hall found himself face to face with one of the most regular of the few who visited mr jones a man of powerful figure strong and a chin beard in the american fashion this person was carrying on one shoulder a black seemingly of considerable weight that he should find a visitor removing baggage in the dead of night recalled some odd stories to the young man s memory he had heard of who thus gradually drained away not only their own effects but the very furniture and of the house that sheltered the us them and now in a mood between and suspicion and the manner of a he roughly against the man with the chin beard and knocked the from his shoulder to the floor with a face struck suddenly as white as paper the man with the chin beard called on the name of his maker and fell in a mere heap on the mat at the foot of the stairs at the same time though only for a single instant the heads of the sick and the irish nurse out like over the of the first floor and on both the same scare and were apparent the sight of this incredible emotion turned to stone and he continued speechless while the man gathered himself together and with the help of the and audibly thanking god scrambled once more upon his feet what in heaven s name you gasped the young man as soon as he could find words and utterance have you a drop of brandy returned the other i am sick administered two one after the other to the man with the chin beard who then somewhat restored began to confound himself in apologies for what he called his miserable the result he said of a long course the mansion of dumb and having taken leave with a hand that still and trembled he resumed his burden and departed retired to bed but not to sleep what he asked himself had been the contents of the black stolen goods the of one murdered and at the thought he sat upright in bed an infernal machine he took a solemn vow that he would set these doubts at rest and with the next morning himself beside the dining room window with eye and ear to await and profit by the earliest opportunity the hours went heavily by within the house there was no circumstance of novelty unless it might be that the nurse more frequently made little journeys round the comer of the square and before afternoon was somewhat loose of speech and gait a little after six however there came round the comer of the gardens a very handsome and dressed young woman who paused a little way oflf and for some time and with frequent sighs contemplated the front of the superfluous mansion it was not the first time that she had thus stood afar and looked upon it like our common parents at the gates of and the young man had already had occasion to remark the lively of her carriage and had already been the butt of a chance arrow from the us mansion her eye he hailed her then with pleasant feelings and moved a little nearer to the window to enjoy the sight what was his surprise however when as if with a sensible effort she drew near mounted the steps and tapped at the door he made haste to get before the irish nurse who was not asleep and had the satisfaction to receive this gracious visitor in person she inquired for mr jones and then without transition asked the young man if he were the person of the house and at the words he thought he could perceive her to be smiling because she added if you are i should like to see some of the other rooms told her he was under an engagement to receive no but she assured him that would be no matter as these were friends of mr jones s and she continued moving suddenly to the dining room door let us begin here was too late to prevent her entering and perhaps he lacked the courage to essay ah she cried how changed it is i madam cried the young man since your entrance it is i who have the right to say so she received this	38
behind him for some time the two looked upon each other in perfect silence then mr jones moved forward to the table took a seat and still without once changing the direction of his eyes addressed the young man you are right he said it is for me the blood money is offered and now what will you do it was a question to which was far from being able to reply taken as he was at unawares in the man s own coat and surrounded by a whole of the keeper of the lodging house was silenced yes resumed the other i am he i am that man whom with impotent hate and fear they still hunt from den to den from disguise to disguise yes my landlord you have it in your power if you be poor to lay the basis of l o the superfluous mansion your fortune if you be unknown to capture honor at one snatch you have an innocent widow and i find you here in my apartment for whose use i pay you in stamped money searching my wardrobe and your hand shame sir your hand in my very pocket you can now complete the of your acts by what will be at once the simplest the safest and most the speaker paused as if to his words and then with a great change of tone and manner thus resumed and yet sir when i look upon your face i feel certain that i can not be deceived certain that in spite of all i have the honor and pleasure of speaking to a gentleman take off my coat sir which but you yourself of this confusion that which is but thought upon thank god need be no burden to the conscience we have all guilty thoughts and if it flashed into your mind to sell my flesh and blood my anguish in the dock and the sweat of my death agony it was a thought dear sir you were as incapable of acting on as i of any further question of your honor at these words the speaker with a very open smiling countenance like a father offered his hand it was not in the young man s nature to refuse forgiveness or generosity he the superfluous mansion l l instantly and almost without thought accepted the grasp and now resumed the now that i hold in mine your loyal hand i lay by my apprehensions i dismiss suspicion further by an of will i banish the memory of what is past how you came here i care not enough that you are here as my guest sit ye down and let us with your good permission improve acquaintance over a glass of excellent so speaking he produced glasses and a bottle and the pair pledged each other in silence confess observed the smiling host you were surprised at the appearance of the room i was indeed said nor can i imagine the purpose of these changes these replied the are the devices by which i continue to exist conceive me now accused before one of your unjust conceive the various witnesses appearing and the singular variety of their reports i one wiu have visited me in this drawing room as it originally stood a second finds it as it is to night and to morrow or next day all may have been changed if you love romance as artists do few lives are more romantic than that of the obscure individual now addressing you obscure yet famous mine is an infernal glory by infamous means i x the superfluous mansion work toward my bright purpose i found the liberty and peace of a poor country desperately abused the future smiles upon that land yet in the meantime i lead the existence of a hunted brute work toward appalling ends and practice s glass in hand contemplated the strange before him and listened to his heated with indescribable ment he looked him in the face with curious saw there the marks of education and wondered the more profoundly sir he said for i know not whether i should still address you as mr jones jones by all or any of these you may address me said the for all i have at some time borne yet that which i most price that which is most feared hated and obeyed is not a name to be found in your it is not a name current in post offices or banks and indeed like the celebrated m i may justly describe myself as being nameless by day but he continued rising to his feet by night and among my desperate followers i am the was with the name but he politely expressed surprise and gratification i am to understand he continued the superfluous mansion that this you follow the profession of a the had resumed his seat and now the glasses i do he said in this dark period of time a star the star of has risen for the oppressed and among those who practice its use so thick beset with dangers and attended by such incredible difficulties and disappointments few have been more and not many he paused and a shade of embarrassment appeared upon his face not many have been more successful than myself i can imagine observed that from the sweeping consequences looked for the career is not devoid of interest tou have besides some of the entertainment of the game of hide and seek but it would still seem to me i speak as a that nothing could the author of the original has here a long passage conceived in a style too oriental for the english reader we a specimen and it seems doubtful whether it should be printed as prose or verse any who writes shall find in me a and he goes on if we	38
correctly gather his meaning to object to such elegant and obviously correct as lamp light ard com apple clearly justified by the parallel and opera he adds i could understand the superfluous mansion be or safer than to deposit an infernal machine and retire to an adjacent county to await the painful consequences you speak indeed returned the with some evidence of warmth you speak indeed most do you make nothing then of such a peril as we share this moment do you think it nothing to occupy a house like this one and in a word literally tottering to its good god ejaculated and when you speak of ease pursued in this age of scientific studies you fill me with surprise are you not aware that are as as woman and as capricious as the very devil do you see on my brow these of anxiety do you observe the silver threads that mingle with my hair has stamped them on my brow have sprinkled them upon my locks no mr he resumed after a moment s pause his voice still quivering with sensibility you must not suppose the s life to be all gold on the contrary you can not picture to yourself the and the staggering disappointments of a life like mine i have toiled let us say for months up early and down late my bag is ready my clock set a daring agent has hurried with white face to the us mansion deposit the instrument of ruin we await the fall of england the of thousands the yell of fear and and lo a snap like that of a child s pistol an offensive smell and the entire loss of so much time and plant if he continued we had been merely able to recover the lost bags i believe with but a touch or two i could have the engine but what with the loss of plant and the almost scientific difficulties of the task our friends in france are almost ready to desert the chosen medium they propose instead to break up the system of cities and sweep off whole with the a tempting and a scientific project a process indeed but of simplicity i recognize its elegance but sir i have something of the poet in my nature something possibly of the and for my small part i shall remain devoted to that more emphatic more striking and if you please more popular method of the yes he cried with hope i will still continue and i feel it in my bosom i shall yet succeed two things i remark said the first somewhat me have you then in all this course of life which you have so have you not once succeeded the superfluous mansion pardon me said i have had one success you behold in me the author of the outrage of red lion court but if i remember right objected the thing was a a s and some copies of the weekly these were the only victims you will pardon me again returned with positive a child was injured and that brings me to my second point said observed you to employ the word now surely a s and a child if child there was represent the very and top pin point of and pardon me of ineffectual did i employ the word asked well i will not defend it but for you touch on graver matters and before entering upon so vast a subject permit me once more to fill our glasses is dry work he added with a charming of manner once more accordingly the pair pledged each other in a and leaning back with an air of some complacency proceeded more largely to develop his opinions the he began war my dear sir is war not the child it not the of the harmless no more he concluded beam the us mansion ing no more do i whatever may strike fear whatever may confound or the of the guilty nation or child imperial parliament or excursion steamer is welcome to my simple plans you are not he inquired with a shade of sympathetic interest you are hot i trust a sir i believe in nothing said the young man you are then replied in position to grasp my argument we agree that humanity is the object the glorious triumph of humanity and being pledged to labor for that end and face to face with the opposition of kings churches and the members of the force who am i who are we dear sir to affect a about the tools employed you might perhaps expect us to attack the queen the sinister the rigid or the but there you would be in error our appeal is to the body of the people it is these that we would touch and interest now sir have you observed the english i should think i had cried from a man of taste and a of art i had expected it returned the politely a type apart a very charming figure and thoroughly adapted to our ends the neat cap the clean print the comely per the son the engaging manner her position between classes parents in one in another the probability that she will have at least one sweetheart whose feelings we shall address yes i have a leaning call it if yon will a weakness for the not that i would be understood to despise the nurse for the child is a very interesting feature i have long since marked out the child as the sensitive point in society he his head with a wise pensive smile and talking sir of children and of the perils of our trade let me now to you a little incident of an that fell out some weeks ago under my own observation it fell out thus and leaning back in his chair the	38
following simple tale tale of the i dined by appointment with one of our most trusted agents in a private chamber at st james s hall you have seen the man it was m the most of creatures the author with that quaint of touch which our translation usually here a somewhat interesting detail pronounced the word boom and the reader if bat for the will possibly consent to follow him the but not himself expert in our hence the necessity of our meeting for i need not remind you what enormous issues depend upon the nice of the engine i set our little for half an hour the scene of action being hard by and the better to employed a device a recent invention of my own by which the opening of the bag in which the was carried should instantly determine the explosion w was somewhat dashed by this arrangement which was new to him and pointed out with excellent clear good sense that should he be arrested it would probably involve him in the fall of our but i was not to be moved made a strong appeal to his patriotism gave him a good glass of and him on his glorious errand our was the of shakespeare in square a spot i think admirably chosen not only for the sake of the still very foolishly claimed as a glory by the english race in spite of his disgusting political opinions but from the fact that the seats in the immediate neighborhood are often thronged by children errand boys unfortunate young ladies of the poorer class and old men all classes making a direct appeal to public pity and therefore suitable with our designs as w drew near his heart was the by the most noble sentiment of triumph never had he seen the garden so crowded children still stumbling in the of youth ran to and fro shouting and playing round the an old sick sat upon the nearest bench a on his breast a stick with which he walked for he was by wounds on his knee guilty england would thus be in the most delicate quarters the moment had indeed been well selected and m with a radiant of the event drew merrily nearer suddenly his eye alighted on the form of a policeman standing hard by the in an attitude of watch my bold companion paused he looked about him closely here and there at different points of the other men stood or affecting an abstraction to gaze upon the shrubs to talk to be weary and to rest upon the benches m was no child in these affairs he instantly divined one of the plots of the a chief difficulty with which we have to deal is a certain in the branches of the corps as the hour of some design draws near these chicken appear to suffer some of intent and frequently to the authorities not indeed specific but vague the but for this circumstance england had long ago been an historical expression on the receipt of such a letter the government lay a trap for their and surround the threatened spot with my blood sometimes in my veins when i consider the case of those who sell themselves for money in such a cause true thanks to the generosity of our we receive a very comfortable i myself of course touch a salary which puts me quite beyond the reach of any i thoughts m again ere he joined our ranks was on the brink of starving and now thank god receives a decent income that is as it should be the must not be diverted from his task by any base consideration and the distinction between our position and that of the police is too obvious to be stated plainly however our square design had been the government had filled the place with even the was not a in disguise and our without other aid or protection than the simple apparatus in his bag found himself confronted by force brutal force that strong hand which was a character of the ages of oppression should he venture to deposit the machine it was almost certain i the that he would be observed and arrested a cry would arise and there was just a fear that the police might not be present in force to protect him from the of the mob the scheme must be delayed he stood with his bag on his arm pretending to survey the front of the when there flashed into his mind a thought to the the machine was set at the appointed hour it must and how in the interval was he to be rid of it put yourself i you into the body of that there he was and helpless a man in the very flower of life for he is not yet forty with long years of happiness before him and now condemned in one moment to a cruel and death by the square he said went round him like a he saw the leap into the air like a and against the railing it is probable he fainted when he came to himself a had him by the arm my god he cried you seem to be sir said the feel better now cried poor m and with steps for the pavement of the square seemed to and under his footing he fled from the scene of this disaster the alas from what was he did he not carry that from which he fled along with him and had he the wings of the eagle had he the swiftness of the ocean winds could he have been into the quarters of the earth how should he escape the ruin that he carried we have heard of living men who have been to the dead the grievance considered is no more than sentimental the case is but a bite	38
to that of him who was linked like poor m to an a thought struck him in green street like a dart through his liver suppose it were the hour already he stopped as though he had been shot and plucked his watch out there was a howling in his ears as loud as a winter tempest his sight was now obscured as if by a cloud now as by a lightning flash would show him the very dust upon the street but so brief were these intervals of vision and so violently did the watch in his hands that it was impossible to distinguish the numbers on the dial he covered his eyes for a few seconds and in that space it seemed to him that he had fallen to be a man of ninety when he looked again the watch plate had grown he had twenty minutes twenty minutes and no plan i green street at that time was very empty the and he now observed a little girl of six drawing near to him and as she came kicking in front of her as children will a piece of wood she sang too and something in her accent recalling him to the past produced a sudden clearness in his mind here was a god sent opportunity my dear said he would you like a present of a pretty bag the child cried aloud with joy and put out her hands to take it she had looked first at the bag like a true child but most unfortunately before she had yet received the fatal gift her eyes fell directly on m and no sooner had she seen the poor gentleman s face than she screamed out and leaped backward as though she had seen the devil almost at the same moment a woman appeared upon the threshold of a neighboring shop and called upon the child in anger come here she said and don t be the poor old gentleman with that she the house and the child followed her sobbing aloud with the loss of this hope m s reason within him when next he awoke to consciousness he was standing before st martin s in the fields wavering like a drunken man the by regarding him with eyes in which he read as in a glass an image of the the terror and horror that dwelt within his own i am afraid you are very ill sir observed a woman stopping and gazing hard in his face can i do any thing to help you lu r said m o god and then recovering some shadow of his self command madam said he a long course of the dumb but since you are so compassionate an errand that i lack the strength to carry out he gasped this bag to square o compassionate woman as you hope to be saved as you are a mother in the name of your babies that wait to welcome you at home oh take this bag to square i have a mother too he added with a broken voice number square i suppose he had expressed himself with too much energy of voice for the woman was plainly taken with a certain fear of him poor gentleman said she if i were you i would go home and she left him standing there in his distress home i thought m what a derision what home was there for him the victim of he thought of his old mother of his happy youth of the hideous pang of the explosion of the possibility that he might not be killed that he the might be crippled for life condemned to life long pains blinded perhaps and almost surely ah you spoke lightly of the s peril but even death have you realized what it is for a fine brave young man of forty to be smitten suddenly with cut off from all the music of life and from the voice of friendship and love how little do we realize the sufferings of others even your brutal government in the of its lust for cruelty though it scruples not to hound the with to pack the corrupt jury to bribe the and to erect the infamous gallows would hesitate to inflict so horrible a doom not i am well aware from virtue not from but with the fear before it of the withering scorn of the good but i wander from m this dread glance into the past and future his thoughts returned at a bound upon the present how had he wandered there and how long o heavens i how long had he been about it he pulled out his watch and found that but three minutes had elapsed it seemed too bright a thing to be believed he glanced at the church clock and sure enough it marked an hour four minutes faster than the watch of all that he endured m declares that pang was the most desolate till then he had the had one friend one in whom he trusted by whose advertisement he numbered the minutes that remained to him of life on whose sure testimony he could tell when the time was come to risk the last adventure to cast the bag away from him and take to flight and now in what was he to place reliance his watch was slow it might be losing time if so in what degree what limit could he set to its and how much was it possible for a watch to lose in thirty minutes five ten fifteen it might be so already it seemed years since he had left st james s hall on this so promising enterprise at any moment then the blow was to be looked for in the face of this new distress the wild disorder of his settled down and a broken weariness succeeded as though he had lived for	38
centuries and for centuries been dead the buildings and the people in the street became small and far away and bright london sounded in his ears like a whisper and the rattle of the cab that nearly charged him down was like a sound from africa meanwhile he was conscious of a strange abstraction from himself and heard and felt his on the ground as those of a very old small and man whom he sincerely pitied the as he was thus forward past the national gallery in a medium it seemed of greater and quiet than ordinary air there slipped into his mind the recollection of a certain entry in street hard by where he might perhaps lay down his tragic cargo thither then he bent his steps seeming as he went to float above the pavement and there in the mouth of the entry he found a man in a waistcoat gravely a straw he passed him by and twice the entry for the chance but the man had faced about and continued to observe him curiously another hope was gone m from the entry still followed by the wondering eyes of the man in the waistcoat he once more consulted his watch there was but fourteen minutes left to him at that it seemed as if a sudden genial heat were spread about his brain for a second or two he saw the world as red as blood and thereafter entered into a complete possession of himself with an incredible cheerfulness of spirits him to sing and chuckle as he walked and yet this mirth seemed to belong to things external and within like a black and leaden heavy he was conscious of the weight upon his soul i care for nobody no not i and nobody cares for me the he sang and laughed at the appropriate burden so that the passengers stared upon him on the street and still the warmth seemed to increase and to become more genial what was life he considered and what he m what even our green all seemed so little that he smiled as he looked down upon it he would have given years had he possessed them for a glass of spirits but time failed and he must deny himself this last indulgence at the comer of the he very hailed a cab jumped in bade the fellow drive him to a part of the which he named and as soon as the vehicle was in motion concealed the bag as completely as he could under the of the apron and once more drew out his watch so he rode for five interminable minutes his heart in his mouth at every scarce able to possess his terrors yet fearing to wake the attention of the driver by too obvious a change of plan and willing if possible to leave him time to forget the bag at length at the head of some stairs on the he hailed the cab was stopped and he alighted with how glad a heart he thrust his hand into his pocket all was now over he had saved his life nor that alone but he had a striking act of the for what could be more what more than the explosion of a cab as it sped rapidly along the streets of london he felt in one pocket then in another the most crushing of despair descended on his soul and struck into abject he stared upon the driver he had not one penny said the driver don t seem weu lost my money said m in tones so faint and strange that they surprised his hearing the man looked through the trap i said he you ve left your bag m half unconsciously fetched it out and looking on that black continent at arm s length withered inwardly and felt his features as with mortal sickness this is not mine said he tour last fare must have left it you had better take it to the station now look here returned the are you your or am i well then i ll tell you what exclaimed m you take it for your fare oh i replied the driver any thing else what s in your bag open it and let me see no no returned m oh no not the i that it s a surprise it s prepared expressly a surprise for honest no you don t said the man from his perch and coming very close to the unhappy you re either going to pay my fare or get in again and drive to the office it was at this supreme hour of his distress that m the stout figure of one a of street drawing near along the the man was not unknown to him he had bought of his wares and heard him quoted for the soul of liberality and such was now the of his peril that even at such a straw of hope he clutched with gratitude thank god he cried here comes a friend of mine i ll borrow and he dashed to meet the sir said he mr i have dealt with you you doubtless know my face for which i can not blame myself have overwhelmed me oh sir for the love of innocence for the sake of the bonds of humanity and as you hope for mercy at the throne of grace lend me two i do not recognize your face replied mr but i remember the cut of your beard which i have the misfortune to dislike here sir is a sovereign which i very willingly the superfluous mansion advance to yon on the single condition that you your chin m grasped the coin without a word cast it to the calling out to him to keep the change bounded down the steps flung the bag far forth into the river and fell headlong after it he was	38
plucked from a watery grave it is believed by the hands of mr even as he was being hoisted dripping to the shore a dull and choked explosion shook the solid of the and far out in the river a momentary fountain rose and disappeared the u mansion in vain strove to attach a meaning to these words he had in the meanwhile applied himself to the the began to melt in twain and seemed to and on his seat and with a vague sense of the young man rose to his feet and refusing the of a third insisted that the hour was late and he must positively go to bed dear me observed i you very temperate but i will not be oppressive suffice it that we are now fast friends and my dear landlord au the el vo us mansion so saying the once more shook hands and with the ceremonies and some necessary guidance conducted the bewildered young gentleman to the top of the stair precisely how he got to bed was a point on which remained in utter darkness but the next morning when at a blow he started broad awake there fell upon his mind a perfect of horror and wonder that he should have suffered himself to be led into the semblance of with such a man as his abominable appeared in the cold light of day a mystery of human weakness true he was caught in a situation that might have tested the of that was perhaps a but it was no excuse for so a of principle for such a fall into criminal familiarity no excuse indeed was possible nor any remedy but to withdraw at once from the relation as soon as he was dressed he hurried up stairs determined on a hailed him with the warmth of an old friend come in he cried dear mr come in sit down and without ceremony join me at my morning meal sir said you must permit me first to my honor last night i was surprised into a certain appearance of but once for all let me inform you that i the superfluous mansion regard you and your with horror and disgust and i wiu leave no stone to crush your vile conspiracy my dear fellow replied with an air of some complacency i am well accustomed to these human weaknesses disgust i have felt it myself it speedily wears off i think none the worse i think the more of you for this engaging frankness and in the meanwhile what are you to do you find yourself if i interpret rightly in very much the same situation as charles the second possibly the least degraded of your british sovereigns when he was taken into the confidence of the thief to me is out of the question and what else can you attempt no dear mr your hands are tied and you find yourself condemned under pain of like a to be that same charming and intellectual companion who delighted me last night at least cried i can and do order you to leave this house ah cried the but there i fail to follow you you may if you choose the part of but if as i suppose you from that extremity of meanness i am on my side far too intelligent to leave these lodgings in which i please myself exceedingly and from which you lack the power to drive me the vo us mansion no no dear sir here i am and here i propose to stay i repeat cried beside himself with a sense of his own weakness i repeat that i give you warning i am master of this house and i emphatically give you warning a week s warning said the very well we will talk of it a week from now that is arranged and in the meanwhile i observe my breakfast growing cold do dear mr since you find yourself condemned for a week at least to the society of a very interesting character display some of that open favor some of that interest in life s sides which stamp the character of the true artist hang me if you will to morrow but to day show yourself of the scruples of the and sit down pleasantly to share my meal man cried do you understand my sentiments certainly replied and i respect them would you be in such a contest will you alone be partial and in this nineteenth century can not two gentlemen of education agree to differ on a point of politics come sir all your hard words have left me smiling judge then which of us is the philosopher was a young man of a very o the superfluous mansion disposition and by nature easily to he threw up his hands with a gesture of despair and took the seat to which the invited him the meal was excellent the host not only but with curious information he seemed indeed like one who had too long endured the torture of silence to in the most the interest of what he had to tell was great his character besides developed step by step and as the time fled not only some of the discomfort of his false position but began to regard the with a familiarity that upon contempt in any circumstances he had a singular inability to leave the society in which he found himself company even if distasteful held him captive like a and on this occasion he suffered hour to follow hour was easily persuaded to sit down once more to table and did not even attempt to withdraw till on the approach of evening with many apologies dismissed his guest his the handsomely explained as they were with the sterling qualities of the young man would be alarmed at the sight of a strange face as soon as he was alone fell back upon the humor	38
of the morning he raged at the thought of his facility he paced the din the superfluous ing room forming the resolutions for the future he wrung the hand which had been by the touch of an and among all these whirling thoughts there flashed in from time to time and ever with a chill of fear the thought of the confounded with which the house was stored a powder magazine seemed a secure alongside of the superfluous mansion he sought refuge in flight in in the flowing bowl as long as the bars were open he from one to another seeking light safety and the companionship of human faces when these resources failed him he fell back on the baked man and at length still pacing the streets he was to with the police alas with what a sense of guilt he conversed with these of the law how gladly had he wept upon their ample and how the secret fluttered to his lips and was still denied an exit i fatigue began at last to triumph over remorse and about the hour of the first he returned to the door of the mansion looked at it with a horrid expectation as though it should have burst that instant into flames drew out his key and when his foot already rested on the steps once more lost heart and fled for repose to the shelter of a os the superfluous mansion it was on the stroke of noon when he awoke searching in his pockets he found himself reduced to half a crown and when he had paid the price of his distasteful couch saw himself obliged to return to the superfluous mansion he into the hall and stole on to the cupboard where he kept his money yet half a minute he told himself and he would be free for days from his and might decide at leisure on the course he should pursue but fate had otherwise designed there came a tap at the door and entered have i caught you he cried with innocent dear fellow i was growing quite impatient and on the speaker s somewhat stolid face there came a glow of genuine affection lam so long unused to have a friend he continued that i begin to be afraid i may prove jealous and he wrung the hand of his landlord was of all men least fit to deal with such a greeting to reject these kind advances was beyond his strength that he could not return cordiality for cordiality was already almost more than he could carry that between kind sentiments which to generous characters will always seem to be a sort of guilt oppressed him to the ground and he stammered vague and lying words the superfluous mansion that is all right cried that is as it should be say no more i had a vague alarm i feared you had deserted me but i now own that fear to have been unworthy and to doubt of your forgiveness were to repeat my sin come then dinner waits join me again and tell me your adventures of the night kindness still sealed the lips of and he suffered himself once more to be set down to table with his innocent and criminal acquaintance once more the plunged up to the neck in now it would be the name and biography of an individual now the address of some important that rose as if by accident upon his lips and each word was like another turn of the to his unhappy guest finally the course of s bland led him to the young lady of two days ago that young lady who had flashed on for so brief a while but with so conquering a charm and whose engaging grace eyes and admirable conduct of the sweeping skirt remained on his memory you saw her said beautiful is she not she too is one of ours a true nervous perhaps in presence of the but in matters of the very soul of skill and daring lake de a the mansion such are some of the names that she her true name but there perhaps i go too far suffice it that it is to her i owe my present lodging and dear the pleasure of your acquaintance it appears she knew the house you see dear fellow i make no concealment all that you can care to hear i tell you openly for god s sake cried the wretched hold your tongue you can not imagine how you torture me a shade of serious crossed the open countenance of there are times he said when i begin to fancy that you do not like me why why dear this lack of cordiality i am depressed the of my life draws near and if i fail he gloomily nodded from all the height of my ambitious schemes i fall dear boy into contempt these are grave thoughts and you may judge my need of your delightful company innocent you relieve the weight of my concerns and yet and yet the speaker pushed away his plate and rose from table follow me said he follow me my mood is on i must have air i must behold the plain of battle so saying he led the way hurriedly to the top flat of the mansion and thence by ladder and trap to a certain platform sheltered at the us mansion one end by a great stalk of chimneys and occupying the actual summit of the roof on both sides it bordered without et or rail on the incline of and northward above all commanded an extensive view of and rising through the smoke the distant of churches here cried you behold this field of city rich crowded laughing with the spoil of but soon how soon to be laid low some day some night from this of you shall	38
perhaps be startled by the of the judgment gun not sharp and empty like the crack of cannon but and solemn instantly thereafter you shall behold the flames break forth ay he cried stretching forth his hand ay that will be a day of then shall the pallid flee side by side with the detected thief blaze he cried blaze city pall fall like with these words his foot ed upon the lead and but for s quickness he had been instantly into space pale as a sheet and limp as a pocket handkerchief he was dragged from the edge of by one arm helped or rather carried down the ladder and deposited in safety on the landing here he began to come to himself wiped the mansion his brow and at length seizing s hand in both of his began to utter his this it said he ours is a life and death connection you have plucked me from the jaws of death and if i were before attracted by your character judge now of the of my gratitude and love but i perceive i am still greatly shaken lend me i you lend me your arm as far as my apartment a of spirits restored the to something of his customary self possession and he was standing glass in hand and when his eye was attracted by the of the unfortunate young man good heavens dear he cried what you let me offer you a touch of spirits but had fallen below the reach of this material comfort let me be he said i am lost you have caught me in the toils up to this moment i have lived all my life in the most reckless manner and done exactly what i pleased with the most perfect innocence and now what am i are you so blind and wooden that you do not see the you inspire me with is it possible you can suppose me willing to continue to exist upon such terms to think he cried that a young man guilty of no the us mansion fault on earth but should find himself involved in such a damned and placing his in his eyes rolled upon the sofa my god said is this possible and i so filled with tenderness and interest r can it be dear that you are under the empire of these scruples or that you judge a by the morality of the religious tract i thought you were a good mr jones said it is in vain to argue i boast myself a total not only in revealed religion but in the method and conclusions of the whole of well what matters it what a form of words i regard you as a whom i would rejoice whom i long to stamp under my heel you would blow up others well then understand i want with every circumstance of and agony to blow up you said turning very pale this is wrong this is very wrong you pain you wound me give me a match cried wildly let me set fire to this monster i let me perish with him in ins fall for god s sake cried clutching hold of the young man for god s sake command yourself we stand upon the brink a the death around us a man a stranger in this foreign land one whom you hare called your friend silence cried you are no friend no friend of mine i look on you with like a my flesh with physical my soul against the sight of you burst into tears alas he sobbed this the last link that bound me to humanity my friend he me i am indeed accursed stood for an instant staggered by this sudden change of front the next moment with a despairing gesture he fled from the room and from the house the first dash of his escape carried him hard upon to the next police but presently he began to and before he reached the house of lawful he fell once more among doubtful counsels was he an had he a right to act away with such nonsense and let perish ran his thoughts and then again had he not promised had he not shaken hands and broken bread and that with open eyes and if so how could he take action and not honor but honor what was honor a which in the hot pursuit of crime he ought to dash aside ay but crime a too which the mansion intellect discarded all day he wandered in the a prey to whirling thoughts all night the city and at the peep of day he sat down by the in the neighborhood of and bitterly wept his gods had fallen he who had chosen the broad paths of universal found himself still the of honor he who had accepted life from a point of view as lofty as the eagle s though with no design to prey he who had clearly recognized the common moral basis of war of commercial competition and of crime he who was prepared to help the escaping murderer or to embrace the thief found to the overthrow of all his logic that he objected to the use of the dawn crept among the sleeping and over the fields of city and still the unfortunate sobbed over his fall from at length he rose and took the rising sun to witness there is no question as to fact he cried right and wrong are but and the shadow of a word but for all that there are certain things that i can not do and there are certain others that i will not stand thereupon he decided to return to make one last effort of persuasion and if he could not prevail on to from his infernal trade j the wn box throw delicacy to the winds give the	38
as he spoke he placed the little volume in her hand her eyes fell as she turned the pages and a flush rose and died again upon her cheeks as deep as it was fleeting you are angry he cried in agony i have presumed no it is not that returned the lady i and a flood of color once more mounted to her brow i am confused and ashamed because i have deceived you spanish she began and paused spanish is of course my native tongue she resumed as though suddenly taking courage and this should certainly put the highest value on your thoughtful present but alas sir of what use is it to me and how shall i confess to you the truth the humiliating truth that i can not read as harry s eyes met hers in amazement the fair seemed to shrink before his gaze read harry you the fair she pushed the window still more widely open with a large and noble gesture enter said she the time has come to which i have long looked forward not without alarm when i must either fear to lose your friendship or tell you without disguise the story of my life it was with a sentiment on devotion that harry passed the window a delight in form and color had presided over the studied disorder of the room in which he found himself it was filled with dainty and and of brilliant hues and set with elegant and curious trifles on the mantel shelf an antique lamp upon a and on the table a bowl of nut about half full of jewels the fair herself a of color and the fit for that rich frame harry to a seat and sinking herself into another thus began her history of the fair i am not what i seem my father drew his descent on the one hand from of spain and on the other through the maternal line from the my mother too was the of a line of kings but alas the fair these kings were african she was fair as the day fairer than i for i inherited a darker strain of blood from the veins of my european father her mind was noble her manners and accomplished and seeing her more than the equal of her neighbors and surrounded by the most considerate and respect i grew up to her and when the time came received her last sigh upon my lips still ignorant that she was a slave and alas my father s mistress her death which me in my sixteenth year was the first sorrow i had known it left our home of its attractions cast a shade of melancholy on my youth and wrought in my father a tragic and change months went by with the of my years i regained some of the simple mirth that had before distinguished me the plantation smiled with fresh crops the on the estate had already forgotten my mother and transferred their simple obedience to myself but still the cloud only darkened on the brows of his from home had been frequent even in the old days for he did business in precious gems in the city of they now became almost continuous and when he returned it was but for the night and with the manner of a man crushed down by adverse fortune the place where i was bom and passed my the fair days was an isle set in the sea some half hour s from the coast of it was steep rugged and except for my father s f and plantation and left to nature the house a low building surrounded by spacious stood upon a rise of ground and looked across the sea to the breezes blew about it gratefully us as we lay swinging in our silken and tossed the boughs and flowers of the behind and to the left the quarter of the and the waving fields of the plantation covered an eighth part of the surface of the isle on the right and closely on the garden lay a vast and deadly swamp covered with wood breathing fever dotted with profound and inhabited by poisonous man eating and sickly fishes in the recesses of that none could penetrate but those of african descent an invisible foe lay there in wait for the european and the air was death one morning from which i must date the beginning of my misfortune i left my room a little after day for in that warm climate all are early and found not a servant to attend upon my wants i made the circuit of the house still calling and my surprise had almost changed into alarm when coming at the fair last into a large court i found it thronged with even then even when i was amongst them not one turned or paid the least regard to my arrival they had eyes and ears for but one person a woman richly and attired of elegant carriage and a musical speech not so much old in years as worn and by self indulgence her face which was still attractive stamped with the most cruel passions her eye burning with the of evil it was not from her appearance i believe but from some of her soul that i in a kind of fainting terror as we hear of plants that and that the woman shocked and me but i was of a brave nature trod the weakness down and forcing my way through the slaves who fell back before me in embarrassment as in the presence of rival i asked in imperious tones who is this person a girl slave to whom i had been kind whispered in my ear to have a care for that was madam but the name was new to me in the meanwhile the woman applying a pair of	38
glasses to her eyes studied me with insolent from head to foot young woman said she at last i have had a great experience in servants the fair and take a pride in breaking them you really tempt me and if i had not other affairs and these of more importance on my hand i should certainly buy you at your father s sale madam i began but my voice failed me is it possible that you do not know your position she returned with a hateful laugh ho w positively i must buy her accomplishments i suppose she added turning to the servants several assured her that the young mistress had been brought up like any lady for so it seemed in their she would do very well for my place of business in said the once more studying me through her glasses and i should take a pleasure she pursued more directly addressing myself in bringing you acquainted with a whip and she smiled at me with a lust of cruelty upon her face at this i found expression calling by name upon the servants i bade them turn this woman from the house fetch her to the boat and set her back upon the but with one voice they protested that they not obey coming close about me pleading and me to be more wise and when i insisted rising higher in passion and speaking of this foul n the fair intruder in the terms she had deserved they fell back from me as from one who had a reverence plainly encircled the stranger i could read it in their changed and in the that prevailed upon the natural color of their faces and their fear perhaps on myself i looked again at madam she stood i composed watching my face through her glasses with a smile of scorn and at the sight of her assured superiority to all my threats a cry broke from my lips a cry of rage fear and despair and i fled from the and the house i ran i knew not where but it was toward the beach as i went my head whirled so strange so sudden were these events and who was she what in heaven s name the power she over my obedient why had she addressed me as a slave why spoken of my father s sale to all these questions i could find no answer and in the turmoil of my mind nothing was plain except the hateful image of the woman i was still running mad with fear and anger when i saw my father coming to meet me from the landing place and with a cry that i thought would have killed me leaped into his arms and broke into a passion of sobs and tears a the fair upon his bosom he made me sit down below a tall that grew not far off comforted me but with some abstraction in his voice and as soon as i regained the least command upon my feelings asked me not without what this grief i was surprised by his tone into a still greater measure of composure and in firm tones though still interrupted by sobs i told him there was a stranger in the island at which i thought he started and turned pale that the servants would not obey me that the stranger s name was madam and at that he seemed to me both troubled and relieved that she had insulted me treated me as a slave and here my father s brow began to threatened to buy me at a sale and questioned my own servants before my face and that at last finding myself quite helpless and exposed to these intolerable liberties i had from the house in terror indignation and amazement said my father with singular gravity of voice i must make to day a call upon your courage much must be told you there is much that you must do to help me and my daughter must prove herself a woman by her spirit as for this what shall i say or how am i to tell you what she is twenty years ago she was the loveliest of slaves to day she is what you see her the fair old disgraced by the practice of every vice and every industry but free rich married they say to some man whom may heaven assist and among her ancient mates the slaves of an influence as unbounded as its reason is mysterious horrible rites it is supposed her empire the rites of be that as it may i would have you dismiss the thought of this witch it is not from her that danger us and into her hands i make bold to promise you shall never fall father i cried was there any truth then in her words am i oh father tell me plain i can bear any thing but this suspense i will tell you he replied with merciful your mother was a slave it was my design so soon as i had saved a to sail to the free land of britain where the law would suffer me to marry her a design too long for death at the last moment you will now understand the with which your mother s memory hangs about my neck i cried out aloud in pity for my parents and in seeking to console the i forgot myself it matters not resumed my father the fair what i have left undone can never be repaired and i must bear the penalty of my remorse but with so cutting a of the evils of delay i set myself at once to do what was still possible to yourself i began to break forth in thanks but he checked me with a your mother s illness he resumed had engaged too great a portion of my time my business	38
recognize some mark for liis countenance became immediately lightened of thought he paused and addressed me here said he is the entrance of the secret path that i have mentioned and here you shall await me i but pass some hundreds of yards into the swamp to bury my poor treasure as soon as that is safe i will return it was in vain that i sought to him urging the dangers of the place in vain that i begged to be allowed to follow pleading the black blood that i now knew to in my veins to all my appeals he turned a deaf ear the fair and bending back a portion of the screen of bushes disappeared into the silence of the swamp at the end of a full hour the bushes were once more thrust aside and my father stepped from out the thicket and paused and almost staggered in the first shock of the blinding sunlight his face was of a singular dusky red and yet for all the heat of the tropical noon he did not seem to sweat you are tired i cried springing to meet him you are ill i am tired he replied the air in that one my eyes besides have grown accustomed to its gloom and the strong sunshine them like knives a moment give me but a moment all shall yet be well i have buried the under a immediately beyond the on the left hand margin of the path beautiful bright things they now lie in you shall find them there if needful but come let us to the house it is time to eat against our journey of the night to eat and then to sleep my poor then to sleep and he looked upon me out of eyes shaking his head as if in pity we went hurriedly for he kept murmuring that he had been gone too long and that the servants might suspect passed through the the fair airy stretch of the and came at h into the grateful twilight of the house the meal was spread the house servants already informed by the of the master s return were all back at their posts and terrified as i could see to face me my father still murmuring of haste with weary and feverish i hurried at once to take my place at table but i had no sooner left his arm than he paused and thrust forth both his hands with a strange gesture of groping how is this he cried in a sharp voice am i blind i ran to him and tried to lead him to the table but he resisted and stood stiffly where he was opening and shutting his jaws as if in a painful effort after breath then suddenly he raised both hands to his temples cried out my head my head i and and fell against the wall i knew too well what it must be i turned and begged the servants to relieve him but they with one accord denied the possibility of hope the master had gone into the swamp they said the master must die all help was idle why should i dwell upon his sufferings i had him carried to a bed and watched beside him he lay still and at times ground his teeth and talked at times only that one word of hurry hurry coming distinctly to my ears and telling me that even in the last the fair with the powers of death his mind was still tortured by his daughter s peril the sun had gone down the darkness had fallen when i perceived that i was alone on this unhappy earth what thought had i of flight of safety of the impending dangers of my situation beside the body of my last friend i had forgotten all except the natural pangs of my the sun was some four hours above the line when i was called to a knowledge of the things of earth by the entrance of the to whom i have already referred the poor soul was indeed attached to me and it was with streaming tears that she broke to me the import of her coming with the first light of dawn a boat had reached our and set on shore upon our isle till now so fortunate a party of officers bearing a warrant to arrest my father s person and a man of a gross body and low manners who declared the island the plantation and au its human to be now his own i think said my slave girl he must be a or some very i for madam had no sooner seen them coming than she took to the woods fool said i it was the officers she feared and at any rate why does that still dare to the island with her the pair ence and oh i exclaimed remembering my grief what matter all these troubles to an orphan mistress said she i must remind you of two things never speak as yon do now of madam or never to a person of color for she is the most powerful woman in this world and her real name even if one pronounce it were a spell to raise the dead and whatever you do speak no more of her to your unhappy for though it is possible she may be afraid of the police and indeed i think that i have heard that she is in hiding and though i know that you will laugh and not believe yet it is true and proved and known that she hears every word that people utter in this whole vast world and your poor is already deep enough in her black books she looks at me mistress till my blood turns ice that is the first i had to say and now for the second do pray for heaven s sake	38
bear in mind that you are no longer the poor s daughter he is gone dear gentleman and now you are no more than a common slave girl like myself the man to whom you belong calls for you oh my dear mistress go at once with your youth and beauty you may still if you are winning and obedient secure yourself an easy life for a moment i looked on the creature with the fair the indignation you may conceive the next it was gone she did but speak after her kind as the bird sings or cattle go said i i thank you for your kind intentions leave me alone one moment with my dead father and tell this man that i will come at once she went and i turning to the bed of death addressed to those deaf ears the last appeal and of my innocence father i said it was your last thought even in the pangs of dissolution that your daughter should escape disgrace here at your side i swear to you that purpose shall be carried out by what means i know not by crime if need be and heaven forgive both you and me and our and heaven help my helplessness on i felt strengthened as by long repose stepped to the mirror ay even in that chamber of the dead hastily arranged my hair refreshed my tear worn eyes breathed a dumb farewell to the of my days and sorrows and my features to a smile went forth to meet my master he was in a great hot bustle that house once ours to which he had but now succeeded a sanguine man of middle age vulgar humorous and if i judged rightly not ill disposed by nature but the the fair sparkle that came into his eye as he observed me enter warned me to expect the worst is this your late mistress he inquired of the slaves and when he had learned it was so instantly dismissed them now my dear said he i am a plain man none of damned but a true blue hard working honest englishman my name is thank you sir said i and very as i had seen the servants come said he this is better than i had expected and if you choose to be dutiful in the station to which it has pleased god to call you you will find me a very kind old fellow i like your looks he added calling me by my name which he is your hair all your own he then inquired with a certain and coming up to me as though i were a horse he satisfied his doubts i was all one flame from head to foot but i contained my righteous anger and submitted that is very well he continued me good under the chin you will have no cause to regret coming to old eh but that is by the way what is more to the point is this your late master was a most rogue and with some valuable property that belonged of rights to me now considering your relation to him i regard you as the person to know the fair what become of it and i warn you before yon answer that my whole future kindness will end upon your honesty i am an honest man myself and expect the same in my servants do you mean the jewels said i sinking my voice into a whisper that is just precisely what i do said he and chuckled hush said i hush he repeated and why hush i am on my own place i would have you to know and surrounded by my own lawful servants are the gone i asked and oh how my hopes hung upon the answer they are said he looking somewhat disconcerted why do you ask i wish you had kept them i answered solemnly enough although my heart at that same moment leaped with exultation master i must not conceal from you the truth the servants on this estate are in a dangerous condition and has long been why he cried i never saw a looking lot of in my life but for all that he turned somewhat pale did they tell you i continued that madam is on the island that her coming they obey none but her that the fair if this morning they have received you with even decent civility it was only by her issued with what after thought i leave you to consider madam said he well she is a dangerous devil the police are after her besides for a whole series of but after all what then to be sure she has a great influence with you colored folk but what in fortune s name can be her errand here the jewels i replied ah sir had you seen that treasure and and and the golden and red as the sunset of what worth of what beauty to the eye i had you seen it as i have and alas as has you would understand and tremble at your danger she has seen them he cried and i could see by his face that my audacity was justified by its success i caught his hand in mine my master said i i am now yours it is my duty it should be my pleasure to defend your interests and life hear my advice then and i you be guided by prudence follow me let none see where we are going i will lead you to the place where the treasure has been buried that once let us make straight for the boat escape to the and not return to this dangerous isle without the of soldiers the fair what free man in a free land would have so sudden a devotion but this through the very arts and he had abused to quiet	38
the rebellion of his conscience and to convince himself that slavery was natural fell like a child into the trap i laid for him he praised and thanked me told me i had all the qualities he valued in a servant and when he had questioned me further as to the nature and value of the treasure and i had once more his bade me without delay proceed to carry ont my plan of action from a shed in the garden i took a pick and a and thence by paths among the led my master to the entrance of the swamp i walked first carrying as i was now in duty bound the tools and glancing continually behind me lest we should be upon and followed when we were come as far as the beginning of the path it flashed into my mind i had forgotten meat and leaving mr in the shadow of a tree i returned alone to the house for a basket of provisions were they for him i asked myself and a voice within me answered no while we were face to face while i still saw before my eyes the man to whom i belonged as the hand belongs to the body my indignation held me bravely up but now that i was the fair alone i conceived a sickness at myself and my designs that i could scarce endure i longed to throw myself at his feet my intended treachery and warn him from that swamp to which i was him to die but my vow to my dead father my duty to my innocent youth prevailed against these scruples and though my face was pale and must have reflected the horror that oppressed my spirits it was with a firm step that i returned to the borders of the swamp and with smiling lips bade him rise and follow me the path on which we now entered was cut like a through the living on either hand and overhead the mass of foliage was joined the day through the depth of impending wood and the air was hot like steam and heavy with vegetable and lay like a load upon the lungs and brain under foot a great depth of received our silent on each side as tall as a man shrank from my passing skirts with a continuous hissing rustle and but for these vegetables all in that den of was motionless and noiseless we had gone but a little way in when mr was seized with sudden and must sit down a moment on the path my heart as i beheld him and i seriously the fair b the doomed mortal to return upon his steps what were a few jewels in the scales with life i asked but no he said that witch madam would find them out he was an honest man and would not stand to be and so forth panting the while like a sick dog he got to his feet again protesting he had conquered his uneasiness but as we again began to go forward i saw in his changed countenance the first approach of death master said i you look pale pale your fills me with dread your eyes are they are red like the that we seek he cried look before you look at your steps i declare to heaven if you annoy me once again by looking back i shall remind you of the change in your position a little after i observed a worm upon the ground and told in a whisper that its touch was death presently a great green serpent vivid as the grass in spring wound rapidly across the path and once again i paused and looked back at my companion with a horror in my eyes the snake said i the snake that dogs its victim like a hound but he was not to be i am an old said he this is a foul indeed but we shall soon be at an end the fair ay said i looking at him with a strange smile what end thereupon he laughed again and again but not very heartily and then perceiving that the path began to and grow higher there said he what did i tell you we are past the worst indeed we had now come to the which was in that place very narrow and across by a fallen trunk but on either hand we could see it out under a of great arms of trees and hanging of a horrible and sickly floated on by the flat heads of and its banks alive with scarlet if we fall from that unsteady bridge said i see where the lies ready to us if by the least from the path we should be in a see where those of scarlet the border of the thicket once helpless how they would swarm together to the assault what could a man do against a thousand of such and what a death were that to perish alive under their claws are you mad girl he cried i bid you be silent and lead on again i looked upon him half and at that he raised the stick that was in his hand and cruelly struck me on the face lead the pair on he cried again must i be all day catching my death in this vile and all for a slave girl i took the blow in silence i took it smiling but the blood back upon my heart something i know not what fell at that moment with a dull plunge in the waters of the and i told myself that it was my pity that had fallen on the further side to which we now hastily scrambled the wood was not so dense the web of not so it was possible here and there to mark a patch of somewhat brighter daylight or to	38
distinguish through the lighter web of the proportions of some soaring tree the on the left stood very visibly forth upon the edge of such a clearing the path in that place and there was a patch of oi en ground beset with horrible ant heaps thick with their i laid down the tools and basket by the root where they were instantly blackened over with the crawling and looked once more in the face of my unconscious victim and foul flies so close a veil between us that his features were obscured and the sound of their flight was like the turning of a mighty wheel here i said is the spot i can not dig for i have not learned to use such instruments the fair but for your own sake i you to be swift in what you do he had sunk once more upon the ground panting like a fish and i saw rising in his face the same dusky flush that had on my father s i feel ill he gasped horribly ill the swamp turns around me the of these flies me have you not wine i gave him a glass and he drank it is for you to think said i if you should further the swamp has an ill name and at the word i nodded give me the pick said he where are the jewels buried i told him vaguely and in the heat and and dim twilight of the he began to the swinging it overhead with the vigor of a healthy man at first there broke forth upon him a strong sweat that made his face to shine and in which the greedy insects settled thickly to sweat in such a place said i oh master is this wise fever is drunk in through open what do you mean he screamed pausing with the pick buried in the soil do you seek to drive me mad do you think i do not understand the danger that i run that is all i want said i i only wish the pair you to be swift and then my mind flitting to my father s death bed i began to murmur scarce above my breath the same vain repetition of words hurry hurry hurry presently to my surprise the treasure took them up and while he still the pick but now with staggering and uncertain blows repeated to himself as it were the burden of a song hurry hurry hurry and then again there is no time to lose the marsh has an ill name ill name and then back to hurry hurry hurry with a dreadful mechanical hurried and yet wearied utterance as a sick man rolls upon his pillow the sweat had disappeared he was now dry but all that i could see of him of the same dull brick red presently his pick the bag of jewels but he did not observe it and continued the sou master said i there is the treasure he seemed to from a dream where he cried and then seeing it before his eyes can this be possible he added i must be light headed girl he cried suddenly with the same screaming tone of voice that i had once before observed what is wrong is this swamp accursed it is a grave i answered you will not go out alive and as for me my life is in s hands as the fair he fell upon the ground like a man struck by a blow but whether from the effect of my words or from sudden of the malady i can not tell pretty soon he raised his head you have brought me here to die he said at the risk of your own days you have condemned me why to save my honor i replied bear me out that i have warned you of these pebbles and not i has been your he took out his revolver and handed it to me you see he said i could have killed you even yet but i am dying as you say nothing could save me and my bill is long enough already dear me dear me he said looking in my face with a curious puzzled and pathetic look like a dull child at school if there be a judgment afterwards my bill is long enough at that i broke into a passion of weeping crawled at his feet kissed his hands begged his forgiveness put the pistol back into his grasp and him to his death for indeed if with my life i could have brought back his i had not balanced at the cost but he was determined the poor soul that i should yet more bitterly regret my act i have nothing to forgive said he dear heaven what a thing is an old fool i i thought upon my word you had taken a fancy to me the fair he was seized at the same time with a dreadful swimming clung to me like a child and called upon the name of some woman presently this which i watched with choking tears lessened and died away and he came again to the full possession of his mind i must write my will he said get out my pocket book i did so and he wrote hurriedly on one page with a pencil do not let my son know he said he is a cruel dog is my son philip do not let him know how you have paid me out and then all of a sudden god he cried i am blind and clapped both hands before his eyes and then again and in a groaning whisper don t leave me to the i swore i would be true to him so long as a pulse stirred and i my promise i sat there and watched him as i had watched my father but with what different	38
with what appalling thoughts through the long afternoon he gradually sank all that while i fought an battle to shield him from the of and the cloud of the prisoner of my crime the night fell the roar of insects instantly in the dark of the swamp and still i was not sure that he had breathed his last at length the flesh of his hand which i yet held in mine grew chill between my fingers and i knew that i was free the pair i took his pocket book and the revolver being resolved rather to die than to be and laden besides with the basket and the bag of gems set forward towards the north the swamp at that hour of the night was with a continuous din animals and insects of all kinds and all to life their parts yet in the midst of this turmoil of sound i walked as though my eyes were beholding nothing the soil sank under my foot with a horrid slippery as though i were walking among the touch of the thick wall of foliage by which alone i guided me like the touch of the darkness checked my breathing like a indeed i have never suffered such extremes of fear as during that walk nor have i ever known a more sensible relief than when i found the path beginning to mount and to grow firmer under foot and saw although still some way in front of me the silver brightness of the moon presently i had crossed the last of the and come forth amongst noble and lofty woods clean rock the clean dry dust the smell of mountain plants that had been baked all day in sunlight and the expressive silence of the night my negro blood had carried me across that and by mere good fortune i had escaped the fair the crawling and with which it was alive and i had now before me the easier portion of my enterprise to cross the isle and to make good my arrival at the haven and my acceptance on the english it was impossible by night to follow such a track as my father had described and i was casting about for any and in my ignorance vainly consulting the disposition of the stars when there fell upon my ear from somewhere far in front the sound of many voices hurriedly singing i scarce knew upon what grounds i acted but i shaped my steps in the direction of that sound and in a quarter of an hour s walking came to the margin of an open it was lighted by the strong moon and by the flames of a fire in the midst there stood a little low and rude building surmounted by a cross a chapel as i then remembered to have heard long since and given over to the rites of hard by the steps of entrance was a black mass continually agitated and stirring to and fro as if with inarticulate life and this i presently perceived to be a heap of dogs and other birds and animals still struggling but helplessly and cruelly tossed one upon another both the fire and the chapel were surrounded by a ring of kneeling both men and women now s the fair they would raise their palms half closed to heaven with a peculiar passionate gesture of now they would bow their heads and spread their hands before them on the ground as the double movement passed and along the line the heads kept rising and falling like waves upon the sea and stiu as if in time to these the hurried chant continued i stood bound knowing that my life depended by a hair knowing that i had stumbled on a of the rites of presently the door of the chapel opened and there came forth a tall negro entirely and bearing in his hand the knife he was followed by an apparition still more strange and shocking madam naked also and carrying in both hands and raised to the level of her face an open basket of it was filled with and these as she stood there with the uplifted basket shot through the grating and curled about her arms at the sight of this the of the crowd seemed to swell suddenly higher and the chant rose in pitch and grew more irregular in time and accent then at a sign from the tall negro where he stood motionless and smiling in the moon and the singing died away and there began the second stage of this barbarous and bloody the fair different parts of the ring one after another man or woman ran forth into the midst with that same gesture of the thrown up hand before the and her and with various uttered aloud the wishes of the heart death and disease were the usually the death or the disease of enemies or rivals some down these upon the nearest of their own blood and one to whom i swear i had been never less than kind them upon at each petition the tall negro still smiling picked up some bird or animal from the heaving mass upon his left it with the knife and tossed its body on the ground at length it seemed it reached the turn of the high she sat down the basket on the steps moved into the of the ring in the dust before the and still lifted up her voice between speech and singing and with so great with so insane of excitement as struck a sort of horror through my blood power she began whose name we do not utter power that is neither good nor evil but below them both stronger than good greater than evil all my life long i have adored and served thee who has shed blood upon thine whose voice is broken with the singing of thy	38
praises whose limbs are faint a o the fair before their age with leaping in thy who has slain the child of her body i she cried i by my own name i name myself i tear away the veil i would be served or perish hear me of the fat swamp blackness of the thunder of the serpent s hear or me i would have two things o one o horror of two things or die the blood of my white faced husband oh i give me that he is the enemy of give me his blood and yet another o of the blind winds o in the ruins of the dead o root of life root of corruption i i grow old i grow hideous i am known i am hunted for my life let thy servant then lay by this body let thy chief turn again to the blossom of her days and be a girl once more and the desired of all men even as in the past and o lord and master as i here ask a marvel not yet wrought since we were torn from the old land have i not prepared the sacrifice in which thy soul the kid without the horns even as she uttered the words there was a great of joy through all the circle of the it rose and fell and rose again and swelled at last into rapture when the tall negro who had stepped an instant into the chapel reappeared before the door carrying in the fair his the body of the slave girl i know not if i saw what followed when next my mind awoke to a clear knowledge was laid upon the steps before the the negro with the knife stood over her the knife rose and at this i screamed out in my great horror bidding them in god s name to pause a stillness fell upon the mob of a moment more and they must have thrown oflf this stupor and i have perished but heaven had designed to save me the silence of these wretched men was not yet broken when there arose in the empty night a sound louder than the roar of any european tempest to travel than the wings of any eastern wind blackness the world blackness across from every side by intricate and blinding lightning almost in the same second at one world stride the heart of the reached the clearing i heard an crash and the light of my reason was overwhelmed when i recovered consciousness the day was come i was the trees close about me had not lost a bough and i might have thought at first that the was a feature in a dream it was otherwise indeed for when i looked abroad i i i had escaped destruction by a hand s breadth a a the fair right through the forest which here covered hill and the storm had a lane of ruin on either hand the trees waved in the air of the morning but in the course of its advance the had left no standing every thing in that line tree man or animal the chapel and the of had been and destroyed in that brief of anger of the powers of air every thing but a yard or two beyond the line of its passage humble flower lofty tree and the poor maid who now to pay her gratitude to heaven awoke in the crystal purity and peace of the new day to move by the path of the was a thing impossible to man so wildly were the of the tall forest piled together by that fugitive i crossed it indeed with such labor and patience with so many dangerous slips and falls as left me at the further side alike of strength and courage there i sat down awhile to my forces and as i ate how should i bless the of heaven my eyes flitting to and fro in the of the great trees alighted on a trunk that had been blazed yes by the directing hand of providence i had been conducted to the very track i was to follow with what a light heart i now set forth and walk the fair ing with how glad a step traversed the of the isle it was hard upon the hour of noon when i came all tattered and to the summit of a steep descent and looked below me on the sea about all the coast the surf roused by the of the night beat with a particular fury and made a fringe of snow close at my feet i saw a haven set in and of rock just outside a ship was heaving on the so so painted so elegant and point device in every feature that my heart was seized with admiration the english colors blew from her and from my high station i caught glimpses of her snowy as she rolled on the deep and saw the sun glitter on the brass of her deck furniture there then was my ship of refuge and of all my difficulties only one remained to get on board of her half an hour later i issued at last out of the woods on the margin of a into whose jaws the tossing and blue entered and along whose shores they broke with a surprising a wooded hid the and i had walked some distance round the beach in what appeared to be a virgin solitude when my eye fell on a boat drawn into a natural harbor where it rocked in safety but the fair deserted i looked about for those who should have her and presently in the immediate entrance of the wood the red embers of a fire and stretched around in various attitudes a party of to these i drew near most were black a few white but all	38
were dressed with the conspicuous decency of and one from his cap and glittering buttons i rightly divined to be an officer him then i touched upon the shoulder he started up the of his movement woke the rest and they all stared upon me in surprise what do you want inquired the officer to go on board the i answered i thought they all seemed disconcerted at this and the officer with something of asked me who i was now i had determined to conceal my name until i met sir and the first name that rose to my lips was that of at the word there went a shock about the little party of the stared at me with indescribable eagerness the themselves with something of a scared surprise and instantly the spirit of mischief prompted me to add and if the name is new to your ears call me i had never seen an effect so wonderful the threw their hands into the air with the the fair same gesture i remarked the night before about the camp fire first one and then another ran forward and down and kissed the skirts of my torn dress and when the white officer broke out swearing and calling to know if they were mad the colored took him by the shoulders dragged him on one side till they were out of hearing and surrounded him with open mouths and extravagant the officer seemed to struggle hard he laughed aloud and i saw him make gestures of and protest but in the end whether overcome by reason or simply weary of resistance he gave in approached me enough but with something of a manner underneath and touching his cap my lady said he if that is what you are the boat is ready my reception on board the for so the was named partook of the same mingled nature we were scarcely within hail of that great and elegant fabric where she lay rolling under and the blue sea to snow before the were lined with the heads of a great crowd of black white and yellow and these and the few who the boat began exchanging shouts in some incomprehensible to me all eyes were directed on the passenger and once more i saw the ne toss up their hands to the fair but now as if with passionate wonder and delight at the head of the i was received by another officer a gentlemanly man with and whiskers and to whom i addressed him my demand to see sir george but this is not he cried and paused i know it returned the other officer who had brought me from the shore but what the devil can we do look at all the i followed his direction and as my eye lighted upon each the poor ignorant and bowed and threw their hands into the air as though in the presence of a creature half divine apparently the officer with the whiskers had instantly come round to the opinion of his for he now addressed me with every signal of respect sir george is at the island my lady said he for which with your s permission i shall immediately make all sail the are prepared steward take lady below under this new name then and so by surprise that i could neither think nor speak i was ushered into a spacious and airy cabin hung about with weapons and surrounded by the steward asked for my commands but i was by this tim so the fair wearied bewildered and disturbed that i could only wave him to leave me to myself and sink upon a pile of cushions presently by the changed motion of the ship i knew her to be under way my thoughts so far from grew the more distracted and confused dreams began to mingle and confound them and at length by insensible transition i sank into a slumber when i awoke the day and night had passed and it was once more morning the world on which i my eyes swam strangely up and down the jewels in the bag that lay beside me together the clock and the to and fro like and overhead were singing out at their work and of rope and on the deck yet it was long before i had divined that i was at sea long before i had recalled one after another the mysterious and inexplicable events that had brought me where i was when i had done so i thrust the jewels which i was surprised to find had been respected into the bosom of my dress and seeing a silver bell hard by upon a table rang it loudly the steward instantly appeared i asked for food and he proceeded to lay the table regarding me the while with a and scrutiny to relieve myself of the fair my embarrassment i asked him with as fair a show of ease as i could muster if it were usual for to carry so numerous a crew madam said he i know not who you are nor what mad fancy has induced you to a name and an appalling destiny that are not yours i warn you from the soul no sooner arrived at the island at this moment he was interrupted by the officer who had entered behind him and now laid a hand upon his shoulder the sudden the deadly and sick fear that was on the steward s face formed a startling addition to his words said the officer and pointed towards the door yes mr said the steward for god s sake mr and vanished with a white face from the cabin thereupon the officer bade me sit down and began to help me and join in the meal i fill your s glass said he and handed me a of neat rum sir cried i do you expect me	38
to drink this he laughed heartily tour is so much changed said he that i no longer expect any one thing more than any other immediately after a white seaman entered the cabin saluted both mr and my the fair self and the officer there was a sail in sight which was bound to pass us very close and that mr was in doubt about the colors being so near the island asked mr that was what mr said sir returned the sailor with a scrape better not i think said mr my compliments to mr and if she seem a lively boat give her the stars and but if she be dull and we can easily her show john that is always another word for at sea so we can disregard a hail or a flag of distress without notice as soon as the sailor had gone on deck i turned to the officer in wonder mr if that be your name said i are you ashamed of your own colors your to the jolly he inquired with perfect gravity and immediately after went into of laughter pardon me said he but here for the first time i recognize your s nor try as i pleased could i extract from him any explanation of this mystery but only and commonplace while we were thus occupied the movement of the gradually became less a the fair violent its speed at the same time diminished and presently after with a sullen plunge the anchor was discharged into the sea immediately rose his arm and conducted me on deck where i found we were lying in a among many low and rocky hovered about by an innumerable cloud of sea fowl immediately under our board a somewhat larger isle was green with trees set with a few low and approached by a pier of very crazy and a little of us a smaller vessel lay at anchor i had scarce time to glance to the four quarters ere a boat was lowered i was handed in took place beside me and we briskly to the pier a crowd of armed both black and white looked on upon our landing and again the word passed about among the and again i was received with and the same gesture of the flung up hand by this what with the appearance of these men and the lawless sea spot in which i found myself my courage began a little to decline and clinging to the arm of mr i begged him to tell me what it meant nay madam he returned yoa know and leading me through the crowd which continued to follow at a considerable distance and at which he still kept looking back i thought with apprehension he brought the fair me to a low house that stood alone in an yard opened the door and begged me to enter but why said i i demanded to see sir george madam returned mr looking suddenly as black as thunder to drop all fence i know neither who nor what you are beyond the fact that you are not the person whose name you have assumed but be what you please spy ghost devil or most ill judging if you do not immediately enter that house i will cut you to the earth and even as he spoke he threw an uneasy glance behind him at the following crowd of i did not wait to be twice threatened i obeyed at once and with a heart and the next moment the door was locked from outside and the key withdrawn the interior was long low and quite but filled almost from end to end with sugar cane tar barrels old rope and other and highly material and not only was the door locked but the solitary window barred with iron i was by this time so exceedingly bewildered and afraid that i would have given years of my life to be once more the slave of mr i still stood with my hands clasped the image of despair looking about me on the a a the fair an lumber room or raising my eyes to heaven when there appeared outside the window bars the face of a very black negro who signed to me to draw near i did so and he instantly and with every mark of addressed me a long speech in some unknown and barbarous tongue i declare i cried clasping my brow i do not understand one syllable not he said in spanish great great are the powers of i her very mind is changed i but o chief why have you suffered yourself to be shut into this cage why did you not call your slaves at once to your do you not see that all has been prepared to murder you at a spark this house will go in flames and alas i who shall then be the chief and what shall be the profit of the miracle heavens i cried i can i not see sir george i must i must come by speech of him oh bring me to sir george i and my terror fairly my courage i fell upon my knees and began to pray to all the saints cried the negro here they come i and his black head was instantly withdrawn from the window i never heard such nonsense in my life exclaimed a voice why so we all say sir george replied the pair the voice of mr but put yourself in our place the were near two to one and upon my word if you ll excuse me sir considering the notion they have taken in their heads i regard it as precious fortunate for all of us that the mistake occurred this is no question of fortune sir returned sir george it is a question of my orders and you may take my word for it either or yourself	38
or or by george all three of you shall swing for this affair these are my sentiments give me the key and be off immediately after the key turned in the lock and there upon the threshold a gentleman between forty and fifty with a very open countenance and of a stout and figure my dear young lady said he who the devil may you be i told him my story in a rush of words he heard me from the first with an amazement you can scarcely picture but when i came to the death of the in the he fairly leaped into the air my dear child he cried clasping me in his arms excuse a man who might be your father i this is the best news i have heard since i was bom for that of a was no less a person than my wife he sat the fair down npon a tax barrel as if by joy dear me said he i declare this me to believe in providence and what he added can i do for you said i i am already rich all that i ask is your protection understand one thing he said with great energy i will never marry i had not ventured to propose it i exclaimed unable to restrain my mirth i only seek to be conveyed to england the natural home of the escaped slave well returned sir george frankly i owe you one for this news besides your father was of use to me now i have made up a small in business a jewel mine a sort of naval agency et and i am on the point of breaking up my company and retiring to my place in to pass a plain old age unmarried one good turn deserves another if you swear to hold your tongue about this island these little arrangements and the whole episode of my unfortunate marriage why fu carry you home aboard the i eagerly accepted his conditions one thing more said he my late wife was some sort of a among the and they are all persuaded she has come alive again in your agreeable person now you will the fair have the goodness to keep up that fancy if you please and to swear to them on the authority of or whatever his name may be that i am from this moment quite a sacred character i swear it said i by my father s memory and that is a vow that i will never break i have considerably better hold on you than any oath returned sir with a chuckle for you are not only an escaped slave but have by your own account a considerable amount of stolen property i was struck dumb i saw it was too true in a glance i recognized that these jewels were no longer mine with similar quickness i decided they should be restored ay if it cost me the liberty that i had just regained forgetful of all else forgetful of sir george who sat and watched me with a smile i drew out mr s pocket book and turned to the page on which the dying man had his testament how shall i describe the agony of happiness and remorse with which i read it i for my victim had not only set me free but to me the bag of jewels my plain tale draws toward a close sir george and i in my character of his wife displayed ourselves arm in arm among the and were cheered and followed to the place of there r e fair sir george turning about made a speech to ms old companions in which he thanked and bade them farewell with a very manly spirit and toward the end of which he f on some expressions which i stiu remember if any of you gentry lose your money he said take care you do not come to me for in the first place i shall do my best to have you murdered and if that fails i hand you over to the law won t do for me tu rather risk all upon a cast than be pulled to pieces by degrees t rather be found out and hang than give a to one man jack of you that same night we got under way and crossed to the port of new whence as a sacred trust i sent the pocket book to mr s son in a week s time the men were all paid oflf new hands were and the weighed her anchor for old england a more delightful voyage it were hard to fancy sir george of course was not a conscientious man but he had an unaffected of character that naturally to the young and it was interesting to hear him lay out his projects for the future when he should be returned to parliament and place at the service of the nation his experience of marine i asked him if his notion of upon a private were not original put he told me no a miss i the fair he observed is a nuisance who who the salmon rivers of the west of scotland who cruelly beats the if they dare to the and the of all i have done is to extend the line a trifle and if you ask me for my opinion i do not suppose that i am in the least alone in short we were the best of friends and lived like father and daughter though i still withheld from him of course that respect which is only due to moral excellence we were still some days sail from england when sir obtained from an ship a packet of newspapers and from that fatal hour my misfortunes he sat the same evening in the cabin reading the news and making comments on the decline of england and the	38
poor condition of the navy when i suddenly observed him to change countenance said he this is bad this is bad miss you would not listen to sound sense you would send that pocket book to that man s son sir said i it was my duty you are prettily paid for it at least says he and much as i regret it i for one am done with you this fellow demands your the fair but a slave i returned is safe in england yes by george replied the but it s not a slave miss it s a thief that he demands he has quietly destroyed the will and now you of your father s estate of jewels to the value of a hundred thousand pounds i was so much overcome by indignation at this hateful charge and concern for my unhappy fate that the genial made haste to put me more at ease do not be cast down said he of course i my hands of you myself a man in my position old family and all that can not possibly be too particular about the company he keeps but i am a old boy let me tell you when not ruffled and i will do the best i can to put you right i will lend you a trifle of ready money give you the address of an excellent lawyer in london and find a way to set you on shore he was in every particular as good as his word four days later the sounded her way under the cloak of a dark night into a certain haven of the coast of england and a boat with muffled oars set me ashore upon the beach within a stone s throw of a railway station thither guided by the fair sir s directions i a way and finding a bench upon the platform sat me down wrapped in a man s fur great coat to await the coming of the day it was still dark when a light was struck behind one of the windows of the building nor had the east begun to to the warmer colors of the dawn before a porter carrying a lantern issued from the door and found himself face to face with the unfortunate he looked all about him in the gray twilight of the dawn the haven was seen to lie deserted and the had long since disappeared who are you he cried i am a said i and where do you come from he asked i am going by the first train to london i replied in such manner like a ghost or a new creation was with her bag of jewels landed on the shores of england in this silent fashion without history or name she took her place among the millions of a new country since then i have lived by the of my lawyer lying concealed in quiet lodgings dogged by the of and not knowing at what hour my liberty and honor may be lost the wn box the brown box the effect of this tale on the mind of harry was instant and convincing the fair had been ah the loveliest she now became in his eyes the most romantic the most innocent and the most unhappy of her sex he was of words to utter what he felt what pity what admiration what youthful envy of a career so vivid and adventurous oh madam i he began and finding no language adequate to that caught up her hand and wrung it in his own count upon me he added with bewildered and getting somehow or other out of the apartment and from the circle of that radiant he found himself in the strange out beholding dull houses wondering at dull by a fallen angel she had smiled upon him as he left and with how significant how beautiful a smile the memory lingered in his heart and when he found his way to a certain where music was performed as it were of paradise accompanied his meal the strings went to the melody of that smile they and it in the sense that he desired and for the first time in his plain and somewhat dreary life he perceived himself to have a taste for music the wn box the next day and the next his meditations moved to that air now he saw her and was favored now saw her not at all now saw her and was put by the fall of her foot upon the stair him the books that he sought out and read were books on and spoke of her indirectly nay and in the very landlady s parlor he found one that told of precisely such a and down to the smallest detail confirmed had confirmation been required the truth of her recital presently he began to fall into that prettiest mood of a young love in which the lover himself for his presumption who was he the dull one the commonplace the man without adventure the the to to such a creature made of fire and air and and adorned by such passages of life what should he do to be more worthy by what devotion down the notice of these eyes to so a being as himself he himself thereupon to the rural privacy of the square where being a lad of a kind heart he had made himself a circle of acquaintances among its shy the half domestic cats and the visitors that hung before windows of the children s hospital he walked considering the depth of his and the height of the adored one s the brown box excellence now lighting upon earth to say a pleasant word to the brother of some infant invalid now with a great heave of breath remembering the queen of women and the sunshine of his life what was he to do he had	38
observed was in the habit of leaving the house toward afternoon she might perchance run danger from some when the presence of a friend might turn the balance in her favor how then if he should follow her to offer his company would seem like an intrusion to dog her openly were a manifest impertinence he saw himself reduced to a more stealthy part which though in some ways distasteful to his mind he did not doubt that he could practice with the skill of a the next day he proceeded to put his plan in action at the comer of court road however the suddenly turned back and met him face to face with every mark of pleasure and surprise ah i am sometimes fortunate she cried i was looking for a messenger and with the sweetest of smiles she him to the east end of london to an address which he was unable to find this was a bitter to the knight but when he returned at night worn out with fruitless wan the wn box and dismayed by his the lady received him with a friendly protesting that all was for the best since she had changed her mind and long since repented of her message next day he resumed his labors glowing with pity and courage and determined to protect with his life but a painful shock awaited him in the narrow and silent street she turned suddenly about and addressed him with a manner and a light in her eyes that were new to the young man s experience do i understand that you follow me she cried are these the manners of the english gentleman harry confounded himself in the most abject apologies and prayers to be forgiven vowed to offend no more and was at length dismissed and heavy of heart the check was final he gave up that road to service and began once more to hang about the square or on the terrace filled with remorse and love admirable and a fit object for the scorn and envy of older men in these idle hours while he was fortune for a sight of the beloved it fell out naturally that he should observe the manners and appearance of such as came about the house one person alone was the occasional visitor of the young a the brown box lady a man of considerable and distinguished only by the doubtful ornament of a beard in the style of an american something in his appearance upon harry this grew upon him in the course of days and when at length he courage to inquire of the fair who this was he was yet more dismayed by her reply that gentleman said she a smile struggling to her face that gentleman i will not attempt to conceal from you desires my hand in marriage and presses me with the most respectful alas what am i to say i the forlorn how shall i refuse or accept such harry feared to say more a horrid pang of jealousy him and he had scarce the strength of mind to take his leave with decency in the solitude of his own chamber he gave way to every of despair he passionately adored the but it was not only the thought of her possible union with another that distressed his soul it was the conviction that her was unworthy to a duke a bishop a victorious general or any man adorned with obvious qualities he had resigned her with a sort of bitter joy he saw himself follow the wedding party from a great way oflf he saw himself the wn box return to the poor house then robbed of its jewel and while he could have wept for his despair he felt he could support it nobly but this affair looked otherwise the man was no gentleman he had a startled guilty bearing his nails were black his eyes his love perhaps was a pretext he was perhaps under this deep disguise a harry swore that he would satisfy these doubts and the next evening about the hour of the usual visit he posted himself at a spot whence his eye commanded the three issues of the square presently after a four to the door and the man with the chin beard alighted paid off the and was seen by harry to enter the house with a brown box hoisted on his back half an hour later he came forth again without the box and struck eastward at a rapid walk and with the same skill and caution that he had displayed in following proceeded to dog the steps of her admirer the man began to studying with apparent interest the wares of the small or twice he returned hurriedly upon his former course and then as though he had suddenly conquered a moment s hesitation once more set forth with resolute and swift steps in the direction of s inn at length in a deserted the wn box by street he turned and coming np to harry with a countenance which seemed to have become older and inquired with some severity of speech if he had not had the pleasure of seeing the gentleman before you have sir said harry somewhat abashed but with a good show of and i will not deny that i was following you on purpose doubtless he added for he supposed that all men s minds must stiu be running on you can divine my reason at these words the man with the chin beard was seized with a tremor he seemed for some seconds to seek the utterance which his fear denied him and then sharply about he took to his heels at the most furious speed of running harry was at first so taken that he neglected to pursue and by the time he had recovered his wits his best expedition was only rewarded by a glimpse of the	38
man with the chin beard mounting into a which immediately after disappeared into the moving crowds of puzzled and dismayed by this unusual behavior harry returned to the house in queen square and ventured for the first time to knock at the fair s door she bade him enter and he found her kneeling with rather a air beside a brown wooden trunk the wn box he broke out i doubt whether that man s character is what he wishes you to believe his when he found and indeed when i admitted that i was following him was not the manner of an honest man oh she cried throwing up her hands as in desperation don don have you again been against and then with a laugh poor soul she added how you must have terrified him for know that the authorities are here and your poor may soon be hunted down even yon humble clerk from my s office may find himself at any moment the of armed a humble clerk cried harry why you told me yourself that he wished to marry you i thought you english like what you call a joke replied the lady calmly as of fact he is my lawyer s clerk and has been here to night charged with disastrous news i am in sore straits harry will you help me at this most welcomed word the young man s heart and in the hope pride and self esteem that kindled with the very thought of service he forgot to dwell ui on the lady s jest can you ask he cried the box what is there that i can do only tell me that with signs of an emotion that was certainly the fair laid her hand ni on the box this box she said contains my jewels papers and clothes all in a word that still me with and my dreadful past they must now be out of england or by the opinion of my lawyer i am lost beyond remedy to morrow on board the irish packet a sure hand the box the problem still is to find some one to carry it as far as to see it placed on board the steamer and instantly return to town will you be he will you leave tomorrow by the first train obey orders bear still in mind that you are surrounded by and without so much as a look behind you or a single movement to betray your interest leave the box where you have put it and come straight on shore will you do this and so save your friend i do not clearly understand began harry no more do i replied the it is not necessary that we should so long as we obey the lawyer s orders returned harry gravely i think this of course a very little thing to do for you when i would willingly do all but the brown box suffer me to say one word if london is for your treasures it can not long be safe for you and indeed if i at all the plan of your i fear i may find you already fled on my return i am not considered clever and can only speak out plainly what is in my heart that i love you and that i can not bear to lose all knowledge of you i hope no more than to be your servant i ask no more than just that i shall hear of you oh promise me so much you shall she said after a pause i promise you you shall but though she spoke with earnestness the marks of great embarrassment and a strong conflict of emotions appeared upon her face i wish to tell you resumed in case of accidents accidents she cried why do you say that i do not know said he you may be gone before my return and we may not meet again for long and so i wished you to know this that since the day you gave me the you have never once not once been absent from my mind and if it will in any way serve you you may me up like that piece of paper and throw me on the i would love to die for you gk she said go now at once my the box brain is in a whirl i scarce know what we are talking go and good night and oh may you come safe once back in his own room a fearful joy i the young man s mind and as he recalled her face struck suddenly white and the broken utterance of her last words his heart at once and him love had indeed looked upon him with a tragic mask and yet what mattered since at least it was love since at least she was at their division j he got to bed with these colored thoughts passed from one dream to another all night long the white face of still haunting him wrung with thoughts and in the gray of the dawn leaped suddenly out of bed in a kind of horror it was already time for him to rise he dressed made his breakfast on cold food that had been laid for him the night before and went down to the room of his idol for the box the door was open a strange disorder reigned within the furniture all pushed aside and the of the room left bare of as though for the pacing of a creature with a tortured mind there lay the box however and upon the lid a paper with these words harry i hope to be back before you go he sat down to wait laying his watch before the wn box him on the table she had called tn m that should be enough he thought to fill the day with sunshine and yet somehow the sight	38
of that disordered room stiu poisoned his enjoyment the door of the stood gaping open and though he turned aside his eyes as from a he could not but observe the bed had not been slept in he was still pondering what this should mean still trying to convince himself that all was well when the moving needle of his watch summoned him to set forth without delay he was before all things a man of his word ran round to row to fetch a cab and taking the box on the front seat drove off toward the the streets were scarcely awake there was little to amuse the eye and the young man s attention on the dumb companion of his drive a card was nailed upon one side bearing the miss passenger to glass with care he thought with a sentimental shock that the fair idol of his heart was perhaps driven to adopt the name of and as he still studied the card he was aware of a deadly black depression settling steadily upon his spirits it was in vain for him to contend against the tide in vain that he shook himself or tried to whistle tiie sense of some impending blow was not to the wn box be averted he looked out in the long empty streets the cab pursued its way without a trace of any he gave ear and over and above the of the wheels upon the road he was conscious of a certain regular and quiet sound that seemed to issue from the box he put his ear to the cover at one moment he seemed to perceive a delicate the next the sound was gone nor could his it he laughed at himself but still the gloom continued and it was with more than the common relief of an arrival that he leaped from the cab before the station probably enough on purpose had named an hour some thirty minutes earlier than needful and when harry had given the box into the charge of a porter who sat it on a he proceeded briskly to pace the platform presently the opened and the young man was looking at the books when he was seized by the arm he turned and though she was closely veiled at once recognized the pair where is it she asked and the sound of her voice surprised him it he said what the box have it put on a cab instantly i am in fearful haste he hurried to obey at these the brown box changes bnt not daring to trouble her with questions and when the cab had been brought round and the box mounted on the front she passed a little way off upon the pavement and beckoned him to follow now said she still in those mechanical and hushed tones that had at first affected him you must go on to alone go on board the steamer and if you see a man in and a pink say to him that all has been put oflf if not she added with a sobbing sigh it does not matter so good by said harry get into your cab and i will go along with you you are in some distress perhaps some danger and till i know the whole not even you can make me leave you you wiu not she asked oh harry it were better i will not said harry stoutly she looked at him for a moment through her veil took his hand suddenly and sharply but more as if in fear than tenderness and still holding him walked to the cab door where are we to drive asked harry home quickly she answered double fare and as soon as they had both mounted to their places the vehicle from the station the wn box leaned back in a comer the whole way harry could perceive her tears to her veil but she vouchsafed no explanation at the door of the house in queen square both alighted and the lowered the box which harry glad to display his strength received upon his shoulders let the man take it she whispered let the man take it i will do no such thing said harry cheerfully and having paid the fare he followed through the door which she had opened with her key the landlady and maid were gone upon their morning errands the house was empty and still and as the rattling of the cab died away down street and harry continued to ascend the stair with his burden he heard close against his shoulders the same faint and muffled as before the lady still preceding him opened the door of her room and helped him to lower the box tenderly in the comer by the window and now said harry what is wrong you will not go away she cried with a sudden break in her voice and beating her hands together in the very agony of impatience oh harry harry go away oh go and leave me to the fate that i deserve i the fate repeated harry what is the wn box no fate she resumed i do not know what i am saying but i wish to be alone you may come back this evening harry come again when you like but leave me now only leave me now and then suddenly i have an errand she exclaimed you cannot refuse me that no replied harry you have no errand you are in grief or danger lift your veil and tell me what it is then she said with a sudden composure you leave but one course open to me and raising the she showed him a countenance from which every trace of color had fled eyes with weeping and a brow on which resolve had conquered fear harry she began i am not what i seem you have told me that before said harry several times	38
oh harry harry she cried how you shame me but this is the god s truth i am a dangerous and wicked girl my name is i was never nearer than first to last i have cheated and played with you and what i am i dare not even name to you in words indeed until to day until the sleepless watches of last night i never grasped the depth and of my guilt the young man looked upon her aghast the wn box then a generous current poured along his veins that is all one he said if you be all you say you have the greater need of me is it possible she exclaimed that i have in vain and will nothing drive you from this house of death of death he echoed death she cried death in that box that you have dragged about london and carried on your shoulders sleeps at the s mercy the destroying energies of my god cried harry ah she continued wildly will you flee now at any moment you may hear the click that sounds the ruin of this building i was sure m was wrong this morning before day i flew to he my fears i beheld you my beloved harry fall a victim to my own i knew then i loved you harry will you go now will you not spare me this unwilling crime harry remained speechless his eyes upon the box at last he turned to her is it he asked hoarsely an infernal machine her lips formed the word yes which her voice refused to utter with fearful curiosity he drew near and bent above the box in that still chamber the the brown box was distinctly audible and at the measured sound the blood flowed back upon his heart for whom he asked what matters it she cried seizing him by the arm if you may be saved what matters questions god in heaven cried harry and the children s hospital at whatever cost this damned contrivance must be stopped it can not she gasped the power of man can not the blow but you harry you my beloved you may still and then from the box that lay so quietly in the comer a sudden catch was audible like the catch of a clock before it strikes the hour for one second the two stared at each other with lifted brows and stony eyes then harry throwing one arm over his face with the other clutched the girl to his breast and staggered against the wall a dull and startling through the room their eyes against the coming horror and still clinging together like drowning people they fell to the floor then followed a prolonged and hissing as from the indignant pit an offensive seized them by the throat the room was filled with dense and choking presently these began a little to the superfluous mansion and when at length they drew themselves all limp and shaken to a sitting posture the first object that greeted their vision was the box in its comer but still little wreaths of round the lid oh poor cried the girl with a strange sobbing laugh alas poor this will break his heart mansion ran straight up stairs the door of the drawing room contrary to all custom was unlocked and bursting in the young man found seated on a sofa in an attitude of singular close beside him stood an the mark of strong the room besides was in confusion boxes had been tumbled to and fro the floor was strewn with keys and other implements and in the midst of this disorder lay a lady s glove i have come cried to make an end of this either you will instantly abandon all your schemes or cost what it may i will you to the police ah replied slowly shaking his head tou are too late dear fellow i am already t th end of all my hopes and fallen to b a the us ma laughing stock and mockery my reading lie added with a gentle despondency of manner has not been much among yet i recall from one a phrase that my present state with critical and you behold me sitting here like a burst drum what has befallen you cried my last returned the wearily like all the others is a hollow mockery and a fraud in vain do i combine the elements in vain the springs and i have now arrived at such a pitch of that except yourself dear fellow i do not know a soul that i can face my themselves have turned upon me what language have i heard to day what of sentiment what of expression she came once i could have that for she was moved but she returned returned to announce to me this crushing blow and she was very yes dear fellow i have drunk a bitter cup the si of females is remarkable for well well i me if you will you but the dead i am extinct it is strange how at this supreme crisis of my life i should be haunted by from works of an and even fanciful description but here he added is another s occupation s gone yes dear it is gone i am no more a the us ma and how i ask you after having tasted of these joys am i to condescend to a less glorious life i can not describe how you relieve me returned sitting down on one of the several boxes that had been drawn out into the middle of the floor i had conceived a sort of for your character i have a great besides for any thing in the nature of a duty and upon both grounds your news delights me but i seem to perceive he added a certain sound of in this box yes replied with	38
the same slow weariness of manner i have set several of them going my god cried bounding to his feet machines machines returned the bitterly machines indeed i blush to be their author alas he said burying his face in his hands that i should live to say it madman cried shaking him by the arm what am i to understand have you indeed set these in motion and do we stay here to be blown up with his own returned the one more quotation strange but indeed my brain is struck with the superfluous mansion i yes dear boy i have as you say put my contrivance in motion the one on which you are sitting i have timed for half an hour yon other half an hour echoed dancing with merciful heavens in half an hour dear fellow why so much excitement inquired my is not more dangerous than had i an only i would give it him to play with you see this brick he continued lifting a cake of the infernal compound from the table at a touch it should and that with such energy as should the square with ruins well now behold i dash it on the floor sprang forward and with the strength of the very ecstasy of terror the brick from his possession heavens i he cried wiping his brow and then with more care than ever mother handled her withal transported the to the far end of the apartment the his arms once more fallen to his side watching him it was entirely harmless he sighed they describe it as burning like tobacco in the name of fortune cried what have i done to you or what have you the superfluous mansion done to yourself that you should persist in this insane behavior if not for your own sake then for mine let us depart from this doomed house where i profess i have not the heart to leave you and then if you will take my advice and if your determination be sincere you will instantly quit this city where no further occupation can detain you such dear fellow was my own design replied the as you observe no further business here and once i have packed a little bag i shall ask you to share a meal to go with me as far as to the station and see the last of a broken hearted man and yet he added looking on the boxes with a lingering regret i should have liked to make quite certain i can not but suspect my of some it may be fond but yet i cherish that idea it may be the weakness of a man of science but yet he cried rising into some energy i will never i can not if i try believe that my poor has had fair usage five minutes said glancing with horror at the if you do not instantly to your bag i leave you a few necessaries returned only a few necessaries dear and you behold me ready he passed into the bedroom and after an the superfluous mansion interval which seemed to draw out into eternity for his unfortunate companion he returned bearing in his hand an open bag his movements were still horribly deliberate and his eyes lingered on his dear boxes as he moved to and fro about the drawing room gathering a few small trifles last of all he lifted one of the squares of put that down cried if what you say be true you have no to load yourself with that merely a curiosity dear boy he said i and slipped the brick into his bag merely a of the past ah happy past bright past you will not take a touch of spirits no i find you very well he added if you have really no curiosity to await the event i cried my blood to get away well then said i am ready i would i could say willing but thus to leave the scene of my sublime without further seized him by the arm and dragged him down stairs the hall door shut with a on the deserted mansion and still his companion the young man sped across the square in the oxford street direction they had not the superfluous mansion yet passed the comer of the garden when they were arrested by a dull of an extraordinary of sound accompanied and followed by a turned in time to see the mansion in twain forth flames and smoke and instantly into its at the same moment he was thrown violently to the ground his first glance was towards the had but against the garden rail he stood there the bag clasped tight upon his heart his whole face radiant with relief and gratitude and the young man heard him murmur to himself the consternation of the was indescribable the whole of golden square was alive with men women and children running wildly to and fro and like in a dashing in and out of the house doors and under favor of this confusion dragged away the it was grand he continued to murmur it was grand ah green green what a day of glory i and oh my how triumphantly hast thou prevailed suddenly a shade crossed his face and pausing in the middle of the he consulted the dial of his watch good god he cried how the superfluous mansion seven minutes too early the surpassed my hopes but the has once more betrayed me alas can there be no success with failure and must even this red letter day be by a shadow ass said what have you done blown up the house of an old lady and the whole property of the only person who is fool enough to you you do not understand these n replied with an air of great dignity this will shake england to the heart the old	38
man will before the pointing finger of revenge and now that my is proved effective heavens you remind me i ejaculated that brick in your bag must be instantly disposed of but how if we could throw it in the river a cried brightening a in the thames superb dear fellow i recognize in you the marks of an accomplished true returned it can not so be done and there is no help but you must carry it away with you come on then and let me at once you to a train nay nay dear boy protested o the superfluous mansion there is now no call for me to leave my character is now my fame this is the best thing i have done yet and i see from here the that await the author of the golden square my young friend returned the other i give you your choice i will either see you safe on board a train or safe in this is unlike you said the you surprise me i shall considerably more surprise you at the next police office returned with something on rage for on one point my mind is settled either i see you packed oflf to america brick and all or else you dine in prison you have perhaps neglected one point returned the for speaking as a philosopher i fail to see what means you can employ to force me the will my dear fellow now see here interrupted you are ignorant of any thing but science which i can never regard as being truly knowledge i sir have studied life and allow me to inform you that i have but to raise my hand and voice here in this street and the mob good god in heaven cried turning deadly white and stopping in his walk great god in heaven what words are the superfluous mansion these oh not in jest not even in jest should they be used lie brutal mob the savage passions for god s sake a public house considered him with awakened curiosity this is very interesting said he you from such a death who would not asked the and to be blown up by inquired the young man doubtless strikes you as a form of pardon me returned i own and since i have it daily in my professional career i own it even with pride it is a death unusually distasteful to the mind of man one more question said you object to law why it is said the calmly but with eyebrows a little lifted as in wonder at the question shake hands with me cried thank god i have now no ill feeling left and though you can not conceive how i bum to see you on the gallows i can quite assist at your departure i do not very clearly take your meaning said but i am sure you mean kindly as to my departure there is another point to be considered i have neglected to supply with funds my little all has perished the superfluous mansion in what history will love to relate under the name of the golden square and without what is if vigorously called you must be weu aware it is impossible for me to pass the ocean for me said you have now ceased to be a man you have no more claim upon me than a door but the touching confusion of your mind me from until to day i always thought stupidity was funny i now know otherwise and when i look upon your idiot face laughter rises within me like a deadly sickness and the tears spring up into my eyes as bitter as blood what should this i begin to doubt i am losing faith in is it possible he cried in a kind of horror of himself is it conceivable that i believe in right and wrong already i have found myself with incredulous surprise to be the victim of a prejudice of personal honor and must this change proceed have you robbed me of my youth must i fall at my time of life into the common banker but why should i address that head of wood let this suffice i dare not let you stay among women and children i lack the courage to you if by any means i may avoid it you have no money well then take mine and go and if ever i behold your face after to day that day will be your last the us mansion under the circumstances replied i scarce see my way to refuse your offer your expressions may pain they can not surprise me i am aware our point of view requires a little training a uttle moral if i may so express it and one of the points that has always charmed me in your character is this delightful frankness as for the small advance it shall be you from philadelphia it shall not said dear fellow you do not understand returned the i shall now be received with fresh confidence by my and my experiments will be no longer by pitiful conditions of the purse what i am now about sir is a crime replied and were you to roll in wealth like i should scorn to be of money i had so take it and keep it by george sir three days of you have transformed me to an ancient roman with these words hailed a passing and the pair were driven rapidly to the railway there an oath having been the money changed hands and now said i have bought back my honor with every penny i possess and i thank god though there is nothing before me but starvation i am free from all the us mansion with mr jones to starve cried dear fellow i cannot endure the thought take your ticket returned i think you display temper said	38
take your ticket the young man well said the as he returned ticket in hand your attitude is so strange and painful that i scarce know if i should ask you to shake hands as a man no replied but i have no objection to shake hands with you as i might with a pump well that ran poison or hell fire this is a very cold parting sighed the and still followed by he began to descend the platform this was now bustling with passengers the train for liverpool was just about to start another had but recently arrived and the double tide made movement difficult as the pair reached the neighborhood of the however they came into an open space and here the attention of the was attracted by a standard bearing the words second edition explosion in golden square his eye lighted groping in his pocket for the necessary coin he sprang forward his bag the superfluous mansion knocked sharply on the comer of the stall and instantly with a formidable report the exploded when the smoke cleared away the stall was seen much shattered and the stall keeper running forth in terror from the ruins but of the irish or the bag no adequate remains were to be found in the first scramble of the alarm made good his escape and came out upon the road his head spinning his body sick with hunger and his pockets destitute of coin yet as he continued to walk the he wondered to find in his heart a sort of peaceful exultation a great content a sense as it were of divine presence and the of fate and he was able to tell himself that even if the worst he could now starve with a certain comfort since was late in the afternoon he found himself at the door of mr s shop and being quite by his long fast and scarce considering what he did he opened the glass door and entered ha said mr mr i weu have you met with an adventure have you the promised story sit down if you please me to choose you a cigar of my own special brand and reward me with a narrative in your best style of the cigar i must not take a cigar said indeed said mr but now i come to look at you more closely i perceive that you are changed my poor boy i e there is nothing wrong burst into tears of the on a certain day of rain in the december of last year and between the hours of nine and ten in the morning mr edward himself under an umbrella to the door of the cigar in street it was a place he had visited but once before the memory of what had followed on that visit and the fear of having prevented his return even now he looked in before he entered but the shop was free of customers the young man behind the counter was so intently writing in a penny version book that he paid no heed to s arrival on a second glance it seemed to the latter that he recognized him by jove he thought unquestionably i and though this was the very man he had been so careful to his of the cigar position at the receipt of custom changed to curiosity or strike the sky said the to himself in the tone of one considering a verse i suppose it would be too much to say and yet how noble it were or strike the sky but that is the bitterness of arts you see a good effect and some nonsense about sense continually my dear fellow said is this a what i cried the i am delighted to see you one moment till i finish the of my only the and with a friendly of the hand he once more buried himself in the commerce of the i say he said presently looking up you seem in wonderful preservation how about the hundred pounds i have made a small inheritance from a great aunt in wales replied modestly ah said i very much doubt the of inheritance the state in my view should collar it i am now going through a stage of and poetry he added as one who spoke of a course of waters and are you really the person of th of the cigar establishment inquired the word shop a sir a returned the other his i help old happy and glorious can i offer you a weed well i scarcely like began nonsense my dear fellow cried the we are very proud of the business and the old man let me inform you besides being the most e of created beings from the point of view of is literally sprung from the of kings de je there is only one by the way he added as lit his cigar how did you get on with the trade i did not try said ah well i did returned and made the most mess of it lost all my money and fairly covered with and ridicule there is more in that business than meets the eye there is more in fact in all you must believe in them or get up the belief that you believe hence he added the recognized inferiority of the for no one could believe in a asked do you stiu paint of the cigar not now replied paul but i think of taking up the s eye which had been somewhat restless since the trade of the had been named now rested for a moment on the columns of the morning paper where it lay spread upon the counter by jove he cried that s odd i what is odd asked paul oh nothing returned the other only i once met a person called m so did ii cried is there any thing	38
a barbarous war i speak with some severity and yet i pick my terms tell myself continually that you are a woman and a voice reminds me of the children whose lives and limbs you have a woman he repeated solemnly and children possibly madam when you are yourself a mother you will feel the bite of that possibly when you kneel at night beside a cradle a fear will fall upon you heavier than any shame and when your child lies in the pain and danger of disease you shall hesitate to kneel before your maker you look at the fault she said and not at the excuse has your own heart never leaped within you at some story of oppression but alas no for you were bom upon a throne i was bom of woman said the prince i came forth from my mother s agony helpless as a like other this which you forgot i have still faithfully remembered is it not one of your english poets that looked abroad upon the earth and saw vast of the cigar troops war ships at sea and a great dust of battles on shore and casting anxiously about for what should be the cause of so many and painful preparations at last in the of all a mother and her babe these madam are my politics and the verses which are by mr i have caused to be translated into the tongue yes these are my politics to change what we can to better what we can but still to bear in mind that man is but a devil weakly by some generous and and for no word however nobly sounding and no cause however just and pious to the of these bonds there was a silence of a moment i fear madam resumed the prince that i but weary you my views are formal like myself and like myself they also begin to grow old but i must still trouble you for some reply i can say but one thing said mrs i love my husband it is a good answer returned the prince and you name a good influence but one that need not be with life i will not play at pride with such a man as yon she answered what do you ask of me not i am sure what i of the cigar shall i say i have done much that i can not defend and that i would not do again can i say more yes i can say this i never abused myself with the headed fairy tales of politics i was at least prepared to meet while i was war myself or murder if you choose the term i never accused my of i never felt or feigned a righteous horror when a price was put upon my life by those whom i attacked i never called the policeman a i may have been a criminal in short but never was a fool enough madam returned the prince more than enough your words are most to my spirits for in this age when even the is a there is no virtue greater in my eyes than intellectual me then to ask you to retire for by the signal of that bell i perceive my old friend your mother to be close at hand with her i promise you to do my utmost and as mrs returned to the the prince opening a door upon the other side admitted mrs madam and my very good friend said he s my face so much changed that you no longer recognize prince in mr to be sure she cried looking at him through her glasses i have always regarded of the cigar your as a perfect man and in your altered circumstances of which i have already heard with deep regret i will beg you to consider my respect increased instead of lessened i have found it so returned the prince with every class of my acquaintance but madam i pray you to be seated my business is of a delicate order and regards your daughter in that case said mrs you may save yourself the trouble of speaking for i have fully made up my mind to have nothing to do with her i will not hear one word in her but as i value nothing so particularly as the virtue of justice i think it my duty to explain to you the grounds of my complaint she deserted me her natural protector for years she has with the most persons and to fill the cup of her she has recently married i refuse to see her or the being to whom she has linked herself one hundred and twenty pounds a year i have always her i offer it again it is what i had myself when i was her age very well madam said the prince and be that so i but to touch ui on another what was the income of the of the cigar my father r asked the spirited old lady i believe he had seven hundred pounds in the year you were one i think of several pursued the prince of four was the reply we were four daughters and painful as the admission is to make a more detestable family could scarce be found in england dear me i said the prince and you madam have an income of eight thousand not more than five returned the old lady but where on earth are you conducting me to an allowance of one thousand pounds a year replied smiling for i must not you to take your father for a rule he was poor you are rich he had many calls upon his poverty there are none upon your wealth and indeed madam if you wiu let me touch this matter with a needle there is but one point in common to your two	38
f to do better another time a story that will always touch a brave heart and a dying speech worthy of a more fortunate commander i try to be of s mind i still mean to get my health again i still purpose by hook or this book or the next to a and i still intend somehow some time or other to see your face and to hold your hand meanwhile this little paper traveller goes forth instead crosses the great seas and the long plains and the dark mountains and comes at last to your door in charged with tender greetings pray you take him in he comes from a house where even as in your own there are gathered together some of the of our company of a house for all its name and distant station where you are well beloved r li s contents book i prince page l in which the on an adventure in which the prince plays al iii in which the prince comforts age and beauty and a lecture on discretion in love ly in which the prince opinions hy the way book ii of love and politics l what happened in the library on the court of being a portion of the traveller s manuscript iii the prince and the english traveller iv while the prince is in the room v is in my lady s chamber vi the prince a lecture on marriage with practical illustrations of divorce vii the prince the council viii the party of war takes action ix the price of the river farm in which goes before a fall contents x opinion and the fall completed xi providence yon act the first she the baron xii providence ton i second she the prince providence yon act the third she relates the cause and outbreak of the revolution book m fortunate i princess il treats of a christian iii providence yon act the last in which she off i y in the wood to complete the story book i prince v chapter l in which thb on an adventure you shall seek in vain upon the map of europe for the state of an independent an member of the german empire she played for several centuries her part in the discord of europe and at last in the of time and at the of several bald vanished like a morning ghost less fortunate than she left not a regret behind her and the very memory of her boundaries has faded it was a patch of country covered with thick wood many streams took their beginning in the of turning mills for the inhabitants there was one town and many brown wooden climbing roof above roof along the steep bottom of and communicating by covered bridges over the larger of the torrents the hum of the splash of running water the clean of pine the sound and the smell of the pleasant wind among the innumerable army of the mountain pine the dropping fire of the dull stroke of the wood axe intolerable roads fresh for supper in prince the clean bare chamber of an inn r ic song of birds and the music of the village b se were the recollections of the t north and east the of t sank with varying into a vast pi q these sides many small states bordered an extinct grand among the number on the south it marched with the comparatively powerful kingdom of celebrated for its flowers and mountain bears and inhabited by a people of singular simplicity and tenderness of heart several had in the course of centuries united the crowned families of and and the last prince of whose history i purpose to relate drew bis descent through the only daughter of king the first of that these had in some degree the rough manly stock of the first was an opinion widely held within the borders of the the the mountain the of the axe among the pines of proud of their hard hands proud of their shrewd ignorance and almost savage lore looked with an contempt on the soft character and manners of the sovereign race the precise year of grace in this tale begins shall be left to the conjecture of she reader but for the season of the year which in such a story is the more important of the two it was already so a romance far forward in the spring that when mountain people heard horns echoing all day about the corner of the they told themselves that prince and his hunt were up and out for the last time till the return of autumn at this point the borders of descend somewhat here and there breaking into and this shaggy and country stands in a bold contrast to the cultivated plain below it was traversed at that period by two roads alone one the imperial highway bound to in descended the slope and by the easiest the other ran like a across the very forehead of the hills dipping into savage and by the spray of tiny once it passed beside a certain tower or castle built sheer the margin of a formidable cliff and commanding a vast prospect of the skirts of and the busy plains of the so this tower was called served now as a prison now as a hunting seat and for all it stood so to the naked eye with the aid of a good glass the of could count its windows from the lime tree terrace where they walked at night in the of forest enclosed between the roads the horns continued all day long to scatter tumult and at length as the sun began to draw near to the horizon of the plain a rousing triumph announced the slaughter of the the first and second had drawn somewhat aside prince and from the summit	38
of a gazed down before them on the drooping shoulders of the hill and across the expanse of plain they covered their eyes for the sun was in their faces the glory of its going down was somewhat pale through the confused of many thousands of naked the smoke of so many houses and the evening steam ascending from the fields the sails of a on a gentle eminence moved very like a donkey s ears and bard by like an open the imperial ran straight an of travel there is one of nature s spiritual that has not yet been set to words or human music the invitation to the road an air continually sounding in the ears of and to whose inspiration our fathers all their days the hour the season and the scene all were in delicate accordance the air was full of birds of passage westward and northward over an army of to the up looking eye and below the great practicable road was bound for the same quarter but to the two on the this spiritual was unheard they were indeed in some concern of mind every fold of the forest and betraying both anger and dismay in their impatient gestures i do not see him said the first nowhere not a trace not a hair of the mare s tail no sir he s off broke cover and got away a why for i would hunt him with the dogs he s gone home said bat without conviction home sneered the other i give him twelve days to get home no it s begun again it s as it was three years ago before he married a disgrace hereditary prince hereditary fool there goes the government over the borders on a gray mare what s that no o i tell you on my word i set more store by a good or an english dog that for your i he s not my growled then i don t know whose he is was the retort you would put your hand in the fire for him to morrow said facing round me cried the i would see him hanged i m a and have my too and i would help a prince i m for liberty and well it s all one said if anybody said what you said you would have his blood and you know it you have him on the brain retorted his companion there he goes he cried the next moment and sure enough about a mile down the mountain a rider on a white horse was seen to rapidly across a open and vanish among the trees on the farther side in ten he u be oyer the border into j said it s past cure well if he that mare fu never forgive him added the other gathering his reins and as they tamed down from the to their comrades the son dipped and disappeared and the woods fell instantly into the gravity and of the early night a ij chapter il int which the plays al the night fell upon the prince while he was green tracks in the lower valleys of the wood and though the stars came out overhead and displayed the order of the regular and dark like their light was of small service to a traveller in such lonely paths and from he rode at random the austere face of nature the uncertain issue of his course the open sky and the free air delighted him like wine and the hoarse of a river on his left sounded in his ears agreeably it was past eight at night before his toil was rewarded and he issued at last out of the forest on the firm white it lay before him with a sweeping eastward faintly bright between the and paused and gazed upon it so it ran league after league still joining to the farthest ends of europe there the sea here gleaming in the lights of cities and the innumerable army of and travellers moved upon it in all lands as by a common impulse and were now in all places drawing near to the inn door and the night s rest the pictures and vanished in his brain a y of temptation a beat of all his blood went over him to set spur to the mare and to go on into the unknown forever and then it passed away hunger and fatigue and that habit of actions which we call common sense resumed their empire and in that changed mood his eye lighted upon two bright windows on his left hand between the road and river he turned off by a by road and in a few minutes he was knocking with his whip on the door of a large and a chorus of dogs from the were making angry answer a very tall old white man came a candle at the summons he had been of great strength in his time and of a handsome countenance but now he was fallen away his teeth were quite gone and his voice when he spoke was broken and you will pardon me said i am a traveller and have entirely lost my way sir said the old man in a very stately manner you are at the river farm and i am at your disposal we are here sir at about an equal distance from in and in six to either and the road excellent but there is not a wine bush not a s anywhere between you will have to accept my hospitality for the night rough hospitality to which i make you freely welcome for sir he added with a bow it is god who sends the guest a amen and i most heartily thank you replied bowing in his said the old man turning towards the interior lead round this gentleman s horse and you sir	38
condescend to enter entered a chamber occupying the greater part of the ground floor of the building it had probably once been divided for the farther end was raised by a long step above the nearer and the blazing fire and white supper table seemed to stand upon a all around were dark brass mounted and dark shelves carrying ancient country guns and and on the wall a tall old clock with roses on the dial and down in one corner the comfortable promise of a wine barrel it was homely elegant and quaint a powerful youth hurried out to attend on the gray mare and when mr had presented him to his daughter followed to the stable as became not perhaps the prince but the good when he returned a smoking and some of home cured ham were waiting him these were followed by a and a cheese and it was not until his guest had entirely satisfied his hunger and the whole party drew about the fire over the wine that s elaborate courtesy permitted him to address a question to the prince you have perhaps ridden far sir he inquired i have as you say ridden far replied prince and as you have se n i was prepared to do justice to your daughter s s possibly sir from the direction of continued precisely and i should have slept to night had i not wandered in answered the prince weaving in a patch of truth according to the habit of all business leads you to was the next question mere curiosity said i have never yet visited the of a pleasant state sir the old man nodding a very pleasant state and a fine race both pines aud people we reckon ourselves part here lying so near the borders and the river there is all good water every drop of it yes sir a fine state a man of now will swing me an axe over his head that many a man of could hardly lift and the pines why me there must be more pines in that little state sir than people in this whole big world tis twenty years now since i crossed the for we grow home in old age but i mind it as if it was yesterday up and down the road keeps right on from here to and nothing all the way but the good green pine trees big and little and ter power water power at every step sir we once sold a bit of forest up there beside the and the sight of money that we got for it has set me ever a since what all the pines of would amount to i suppose you see nothing of the prince inquired no said the young man speaking for the first time nor want to why so is he so much disliked asked not what you might call disliked replied the old gentleman but despised sir indeed said the prince somewhat faintly yes sir despised nodded filling a long pipe and to my way of thinking justly despised here is a man with great and what does he do with them he and he dresses very prettily which is a thing to be ashamed of in a man and he acts plays and if he does aught else the news of it has not come here yet these are all innocent said what would you have him do make war no sir replied the old man but here it is i hav been fifty years upon this river farm and wrought in it day in day out i have and and and risen early and late and this is the that all these years it has ted me and my family and been the best friend that ever i had set aside my wife and now when my time comes i leave it a better farm than when i found it so it is if a man works hearty in the order of nature he gets bread and he receives comfort and whatever he touches and it humbly appears to me if that prince was to labor on his throne as i have labored and wrought in my farm he would find both an increase and a blessing i believe with you sir said and yet the parallel is for the farmer s life is natural and simple but the prince s is both artificial and complicated it is easy to do right in the one and exceedingly difficult not to do wrong in the other if your crop is you can take off your bonnet and say god s will be done but if the prince meets with a reverse he may have to blame himself for the attempt and perhaps if all the kings in europe were to confine themselves to innocent amusement the subjects would be the better off ay said the young man you are in the right of it there that was a true word spoken and i see you are like me a good and an enemy to princes was somewhat abashed at this and he made haste to change his ground but said he you surprise me by what you say of this prince i have heard him i must own more painted i was told he was in his heart a good fellow and the enemy of no one but himself and so he is sir said the girl a very hand some pleasant prince and we know some who would shed their blood for him o said an ay to be sure the old farmer a romance well since this is a stranger to these parts and curious about the prince i do believe that story might divert him this you must know sir is one of the hunt servants and a most ignorant man a right as we say in we know him well in	38
this house for he has come as far as here after his stray dogs and i make all welcome sir without account of state or nation and indeed between and the peace has held so long that the roads stand open like my door and a man will make no more of the frontier than the very birds themselves ay said it has been a long peace a peace of centuries centuries as you say returned the more the pity that it should not be forever well sir this was one day in fault and who has a quick temper up with his whip and him they do say soundly took it as best he could but at last he broke out and dared the prince to throw his whip away and like a man for we are all great at in these parts and it s so that we generally settle our well sir the prince did so and being a weakly creature found the tables turned for the man whom he had just been like a negro slave lifted him with a back grip and threw him heels over head he broke his bridle arm cried and some say his nose serve him right say i man to man which is the better at that and then asked o then carried home and they were the best of friends from that day forth i don t say it s a story you observe continued mr but it s droll and that s the fact a man should think before he strikes for as my nephew says man to man was the old if you were to ask me said i should perhaps surprise you i think it was the prince that conquered and sir you would be right replied seriously in the eyes of god i do not question but you would be right but men sir look at these things differently and they laugh they made a song of it observed how does it go ta ta ra well who had no great anxiety to hear the song the prince is young he may yet mend not so young by your leave cried a man of forty thirty six corrected mr p cried in obvious a man of middle age and they said he was so handsome when he was young and bald too added passed his hand among his locks at that moment he was far from happy and even the tedious evenings at palace began to smile upon him by comparison o six and thirty he protested a man is a not yet old at six and thirty i am that age myself i should have taken you for more sir the old farmer but if that be so you are of an age with master as people call him and i would a crown have done more service in your time though it seems young by comparison with men pf a great age like me yet it s some way through life for all that and the mere fools and are beginning to grow weary and to look old yes sir by six and thirty if a man be a of god s laws he should have made himself a home and a good name to live by he should have got a wife and a blessing on his marriage and his works as the word says should begin to follow him ah well the prince is married cried with a coarse burst of laughter that seems to entertain you sir said ay said the young did you not know that i thought all europe knew it i and he added a of a nature to explain his accusation to the jf ah sir said mr it is very plain that you are not from but the truth is that the whole family and are and not one to mend another they live sir in idleness and what most commonly follows it corruption the princess has a lover a baron as he calls himself from east and the prince is so little of a man sir that he holds the candle nor is that the worst of it for this foreigner and his are to the state while the prince takes the salary and leaves all things to go to there will follow upon this some manifest judgment which though i am old i may survive to see good man yon are in the wrong about said showing a greatly increased animation but for all the rest you speak the god s truth like a good as for the prince if he would take and his wife i would forgive him yet nay said the old man that would be to add to evil for you perceive sir he continued once more addressing himself to the unfortunate prince this has himself to thank for these he has his young wife and his and he has sworn to cherish both at the altar echoed but put your faith in princes well sir he leaves them both to an adventurer from east pursued the farmer leaves the girl to be and to go on from bad to worse till her name s become a by word and she not yet twenty leaves the country to be and with and into war war cried so they say sir those that watch their say to war well sir that is very sad it is a sad thing for this poor a romance wicked girl to go down to hell with people s curses it s a sad thing for a tight little happy country to be but whoever may complain i humbly conceive sir that this cannot what he has worked for that he has got and may god have pity on his soul for a great and a silly sinner s i he has broke his oath then he is a lie takes the	38
money and leaves the work why then plainly he s a thief a he was before and a fool by birth better me that cried and snapped his fingers and now sir you will see a little continued the farmer why we think so poorly of this prince there s such a thing as a man being pious and honest in the private way and there is such a thing sir as a public virtue but when a man has neither the lord him even this that here thinks so much ay interrupted s the man for me i would we had his like in he is a bad man said the old farmer shaking his head and there was never good begun by the breach of god s but so far i will go with you he is a man that works for what he has i tell you he s the hope of cried he doesn t suit some of your high and dry old ancient ideas but he s a downright modern man a man of the new lights and the progress of the age he does some things wrong so they all prince of to do but he has the people s interests next his heart and you mark me you sir who are a liberal and the enemy of all their you please to mark my words the day will come in when they take out that yellow headed of a prince and that faced of a princess march em back foremost over the and proclaim the baron first president i ve heard them say it in a speech i was at a meeting once at and the spoke up for fifteen thousand fifteen thousand all and each man with h round his neck to rally by that s all ay sir you see what it leads to wild talk today and doings to said the old man for there is one thing certain that this has one foot in the court and the other in the he gives himself out sir for what nowadays they call a a man from east give himself out cried he is he is to lay by his title as soon as the republic is declared i heard it in a speech lay by baron to take up president returned king log king but you ll live longer than i and you ll see the fruits of it father whispered pulling at the speaker s coat surely the gentleman is ill i beg your pardon cried the farmer to hospitable thoughts can i you anything i a i thank you i am very weary answered i have presumed upon my strength if you would show me to a bed i should be grateful a candle said the old man indeed sir you look a little cordial water no then follow me i you and i will bring you to the stranger s bed you are not the first by many who has slept well beneath my roof continued the old gentleman mounting the stairs before his guest for good food honest wine a grateful conscience and a little pleasant chat before a man are worth all the and s see sir and here he opened a door and ushered into a little sleeping room here you are in port it is small but it is airy and the sheets are clean and kept in the window too looks out above the river and there s no music like a little river s it plays the same and that s the favorite over and over again and yet does not weary of it like men it takes the mind out of doors and though we should be grateful for good houses there is after all no house like god s out of doors and lastly sir it a man down like saying his prayers so here sir i take my kind leave of you until to morrow and it is my wish that you may slumber like a prince and the old man with the twentieth courteous inclination left his guest alone prince chapter iii in which the age and beauty and a lecture on discretion in love the prince was early abroad in the time of the first chorus of birds of the pure and quiet air of the sunlight and the mile long shadows to one who had passed a miserable night the freshness of the hour was and to steal a march upon his fellows to be the adam of the coming day composed and fortified his spirits and the prince breathing deep and pausing as he went walked in the wet fields beside his shadow and was glad a path led down into the valley of the brook and he turned to follow it the stream was a break neck boiling river hard by the farm it leaped a little precipice in a thick gray mare s tail of twisted and then lay and worked and in a into the middle of this pool a rock to a cape and thither scrambled and sat down to soon the sun struck through the screen of branches and thin early leaves that made a hang a romance ing bower above the fall and the golden lights and flitting shadows fell upon and the surface of that pot and rays plunged deep among the turning waters and a spark as bright as a diamond lit upon the it began to grow warm where lingered warm and the lights swam weaving their across the shaken pool on the impending rock reflections danced like and the air was by the as by a swinging curtain who was weary with tossing and beset with horrid of remorse and jealousy instantly fell dead in love with that sun echoing corner holding his feet he stared out of a drowsy trance wondering admiring musing losing his way among uncertain thoughts	38
there is nothing that so the external bearing of free will as that unconscious bustle following liquid laws with which a river among it seems the very play of man and destiny and as on these changes he grew by equal steps the and the more profound and prince were alike in their purpose alike by influences in one corner of the world and prince were alike useless useless in the of men and prince prince and it is probable he had been some while asleep when a voice recalled him from oblivion sir it was saying and looking round he saw mr s daughter terrified by her boldness and making prince from the shore she was a plain honest healthy and happy and good and with that sort of beauty that comes of happiness and health but her confusion lent her for the moment an additional charm good morning said rising and moving towards her i arose early and was in a dream o sir i she cried i wish to beg of you to spare my father for i assure your if he had known who you was he would have bitten bis tongue out sooner and too how he went on i but i had a notion and this morning i went straight down into the stable and there was your crown upon the irons but oh sir i made certain you would spare them for they were as innocent as my dear said both amused and gratified you do not understand it is i who am in the wrong for i had no business to conceal my name and lead on these gentlemen to speak of me and it is i who have to beg of you that you will keep my secret and not betray the of which i was guilty as for any fear of me your friends are safe in and even in my own territory you must be well aware i have no power o sir she said i would not say that the would all die for you happy prince i said but you are too courteous to the knowledge you have had many opportunities of learning that i am a vain show only last night we heard it very clearly a romance stated you see the shadow flitting on this hard rock prince i am afraid is but the moving shadow and the name of the rock is ah if your friends had fallen foul of i but happily the younger of the two him and as for the old gentleman your father he is a wise man and an excellent and i would take a long he is honest o for honest your that he is exclaimed the girl and is as honest as he and as for all they said it was just talk and nonsense when get they go on i do assure you for the fun they don t as much as think of what they say if you went to the next farm it s my belief you would hear as much against my father nay nay said there you go too fast for all that was said against prince o it was shameful cried the girl not shameful true returned oh yes true i am all they said of me all that and worse i never i cried is that how you well you would never be a soldier now if any one me i get up and give it them o i defend myself i wouldn t take a fault at another person s hands no not if i had it on my forehead and that s what you must do if you mean to live it out but indeed i never heard such nonsense i should think you was ashamed of yourself you re bald then i suppose o no said fairly there i myself not bald well and good pursued the girl come now you know you are good and i ll make you say so your i beg your humble pardon but there s no intended and anyhow you know you are why now what am i to say replied tou are a cook and well you do it i embrace the chance of thanking you for the well now have you not seen good food so by that no one could be brought to eat the that is me my dear i am full of good but the dish is worthless i am i give it you in one word sugar in the well i don t care you re good a little flushed by having failed to understand i will tell you one thing replied you are ah well that s what they all said of you the girl such a tongue to come a flattering tongue o you forget i am a man of middle age the prince chuckled well to speak to you i should think you was a boy and prince or no prince if you worrying where i was cooking i would pin a to your tails and o lord i declare i hope your will for give me the girl added i can t keep it in my mind a no more can i cried that is just what they complain of i they made a looking couple only the heavy pouring of that horse tail of water made them raise their voices above lovers pitch but to a jealous from above their mirth and close might easily give and a rough voice out of a of began calling on by name she changed color at that it is she said i must go go my dear and i need not bid you go in peace for i think you have discovered that i am not formidable at close quarters said the prince and made her a fine gesture of dismissal so up the bank	38
and disappeared into the thicket stopping once for a single blushing bob blushing because she had in the interval once more forgotten and remembered the stranger s quality returned to his rock but his humor had in the meantime changed the sun now shone more fairly on the pool and over its brown surface the blue of heaven and the golden green of the spring foliage danced in fleeting the laughed and brightened with essential color and the beauty of the began to in the prince s mind it was so near to his own borders yet without he had never had much of the joy of in any of the thousand and one beautiful and curious things that were his and now he was conscious of envy for prince what was another s it was indeed a smiling sort of envy but yet there it was the passion of for the done in little and he was relieved when mr appeared upon the scene i hope sir that you have slept well under my plain roof said the old farmer i am admiring this sweet spot that you are privileged to dwell in replied the inquiry it is rustic returned mr looking around him with complacency a very corner and some of the land to the west is most excellent fat land excellent deep soil you should see my wheat in the ten acre field there is not a farm in no nor many in to match the river some sixty i keep thinking when i sow some sixty and some seventy and some a and my own place six score but that sir is partly the farming and the stream has fish asked a fish pond said the farmer ay it is a pleasant bit it is pleasant even here if one had time with the brook in that black pool and the green things hanging all about the rocks and dear heart to see the very pebbles all turned to gold and precious but you have come to that time of life sir when if you will excuse me you must look to have the set in thirty to forty is as one may say their and this is a damp cold corner for the early a romance ing and an empty stomach if i might humbly advise you sir i would be moving with all my heart said gravely and so you have lived your life here he added as they turned to go here i was born replied the farmer and here i wish i could say i was to die but fortune sir fortune turns the wheel they say she is blind but we will hope she only sees a little farther on my grandfather and my father and i we have all these acres my following theirs all the three names are on the garden bench two and one yes sir good men have prepared themselves for the great change in my old garden well do i mind my father in a night cap the good soul going round and round to see the last of it said he do you see the smoke of my tobacco why said he that is man s life it was his last pipe and i believe he knew it and it was a strange thing without doubt to leave the trees that he had planted and the son that he had ay sir and even the old pipe with the s head that he had smoked since he was a lad and went a but here we have no continuing city and as for the eternal it s a comfortable thought that we have other merits than our own and yet you would hardly think how sore it goes against the grain with me to die in a strange bed and must you do so for what reason asked the reason the place is to be sold three thousand crowns replied mr had it been a third of that i may say without that what with my credit and my i could have met the sum but at three thousand unless i have singular good fortune and the new proprietor continues me in office there is nothing left me but to s fancy for the place at the news and became joined with other feelings if all he heard were true was growing very hot for a sovereign prince it might be well to have a refuge and if so what more delightful could man imagine mr besides had touched his sympathies every man loves in his soul to play the part of the stage deity and to step down to the aid of the old farmer who had so roughly handled him in talk was the ideal of a fair revenge s thoughts brightened at the prospect and he began to regard himself with a renewed respect i can find you i believe a he said and one who would continue to avail himself of your skill can you sir indeed said the old man well i shall be heartily obliged for i begin to find a man may practise resignation all his days as he takes and not come to like it in the end if you will have the papers drawn you may even the purchase with your interest said let it be assured to you through life a romance s your friend sir would not perhaps care to make the interest is a good lad is young said the prince he must earn consideration not inherit he has long worked upon the place sir insisted mr and at my great age for am seventy eight come harvest it would be a troublesome thought to the proprietor how to fill shoes it would be a care spared to assure yourself of and i believe he might be tempted by a the young man has unsettled views returned possibly the	38
began a little spot of anger burned in s cheek i am the he said it was what i might have guessed replied the farmer bowing with an aged dignity you have made an old man very happy and i may say indeed that i have entertained an angel unawares sir the great people of this world and by that i mean those who are in great station if they had only hearts like yours how they would make th fires bum and the poor sing i i would not judge them hardly sir said we all have our truly sir said mr with and by what name sir am i to address my generous landlord the double recollection of an english traveller prince whom he had received the week before at court and of an old english rogue called whom he had known in youth came to the prince s help he answered is my name i am an english traveller it is today tuesday on thursday before noon the money shall be ready let us meet if you please in at the morning star i am in all things lawful your to command replied the farmer an englishman you are a great race of travellers and has your lord ship some experience of land i have had some interest of the kind before returned the prince not in indeed but fortune as you say turns the wheel and i desire to be beforehand with her very right sir i am sure said mr they had been strolling with deliberation but they were now drawing near to the mounting by the pathway to the level of the meadow a little before them the of voices had been while audible and now grew louder and more distinct with every p of their advance presently when they emerged upon the top of the bank they beheld and some way o e he very black and his hoarse speech with the of his fist against his palm she standing a little way in distress dear me i said mr and made as if he would turn aside a romance but went straight towards the lovers in whose he believed himself to have a share and indeed as soon as he had seen the prince had stood tragic as if awaiting and his approach o here you are i he cried soon as they were near enough for easy speech you are a man at least and must reply what were you after why were you two in the bush god he broke out turning again upon to think that i should waste my heart on you i i beg your pardon cut in you were addressing me in virtue of what circumstance am i to render you an account of this young lady s conduct are you her father her brother her husband sir you know as well as i returned the peasant we keep company she and i i love her and she is by way of loving me but all shall be above board i would have her to know i have a good pride of my own why i perceive i must explain to you what love is said its measure is kindness it is very possible that you are proud but she too may have some self esteem i do not speak for myself and perhaps if your own doings were so curiously examined you might find it inconvenient to reply these are all set said the young man you know very well that a man is a man and a woman only a woman that holds good all over prince up and down i ask you a question i ask it again and here i stand he drew a mark and it when you have studied liberal doctrines somewhat deeper said the prince you will perhaps change your note tou are a man of false and measures my young friend you have one scale for women another for men one tor and one for farmer folk on the prince who his wife you can be most severe but what of the lover who his mistress you use the name of love i should think this lady might very fairly ask to be delivered from love of such a nature for if i a stranger had been one tenth part so gross and so you would most have broke my head it would have been in your part as lover to protect her from such insolence protect her first then from yourself ay mr who had been looking on with his hands behind his tall old back ay that s scripture truth was staggered not only by the prince s of manner but by a glimmering consciousness that he himself was in the wrong the appeal to liberal doctrines had besides him well said he if i was rude own to it i meant no ill and did nothing out of my just rights but i am above all these old vulgar notions too and if i spoke sharp i ll ask her pardon freely granted said but all this doesn t answer me cried a romance i ask what you two spoke about she says she promised not to tell well then i mean to know civility is civility but i ll be no man s i have a right to common justice il do keep company if you will ask mr replied you will find i have not spent my hours in idleness i have since i arose this morning agreed to buy the farm so far i will go to satisfy a curiosity which i condemn well if there was business that s another matter returned though it beats me why you could not tell but of course if the gentleman is to buy the farm i suppose there would naturally be an end to be sure said mr with a	38
strong accent of conviction but was much there now i she cried in triumph what did i tell you i told you i was fighting your battles now you see i think shame of your suspicious temper i tou should go down upon your knees both to that gentleman and me fringe chapter iv which the opinions by the way a little before noon by a triumph of effected his escape he was quit in this way of the gratitude of mr and of the confidential gratitude of poor but of he was not quit so readily that young with mysterious glances offered to lend his as far as to the and in fear of some jealousy and for the girl s sake had not the courage to him but he regarded his companion with uneasy glances and devoutly wished the business at an end for some time walked by the mare in silence and they had already ti more than half the proposed distance when with something of a blush he looked up and opened fire are you not he asked what they call a why no returned not precisely what they call so why do you ask i will tell you why said the young man i saw from the first that you were a red and nothing but the fear of old kept you a back and there sir you were right old men are always but nowadays you see there are so many groups you can never tell how far the kind of man may be prepared to go and i was never sure you were one of the strong till you hinted about women and free love indeed cried i never said a word of such a thing not you cried never a word to compromise you was seed our president calls it but it s hard to deceive me for i know all the and their ways and all the doctrines and between you and me lowering his voice i am myself o yes i am a secret society man and here is my and drawing out a green ribbon that he wore about his neck he held up for s inspection a bearing the of a and the legend and so now you see you may trust me added i am none of your i am a convinced and he looked upon i see replied the prince that is very gratifying well sir the great thing for the good of one s country is first of all to be a good man all springs from there for my part although you are right in thinking that i have to do with politics i am unfit by intellect and temper for a leading r le i was intended i fear for a yet we have all something to command mr if it be oar own temper and a man about to many must look closely to himself the husband s like the prince s is a very artificial standing and it is hard to be kind in either do you follow that o yes i follow that replied the young man sadly chop fallen over the nature of the information he had and then brightening up is it he ventured is it for an that you have bought the farm we ll see about that the prince answered laughing you must not be too zealous and in the meantime if i were you i would say nothing on the subject trust me sir for that cried as he a crown and you ve let nothing out for i suspected i might say i knew it from the first and mind you when a guide is required he added i know all the forest paths rode away this talk with had vastly entertained him nor was he altogether discontented with his bearing at the farm men he was able to tell himself had behaved worse un der smaller provocation and to all the road and the april air were both delightful to his soul up and down and to and fro ever mounting through the wooded the broad white wound into on either hand the pines stood coolly rooted green moss springs forth between their spurs and though some were broad a romance and and others and slender yet all stood firm in the same attitude and with the same expression like a silent army presenting arms the road lay all the way apart from towns and villages which it left on either hand here and there indeed in the bottom of gi een the prince could spy a few roofs or perhaps above him on a shoulder the solitary cabin of a but the highway was an undertaking and with its face set for distant cities scorned the little life of hence it exceeding solitary near the frontier met a of his own troops marching in the hot dust and he was recognized and somewhat feebly cheered as he rode by but from that time forth and for a long while he was alone with the great woods gradually the spell of pleasure relaxed his own thoughts returned like insects in a cloud and the talk of the night before like a shower of fell upon hie memory he looked east and west for any and presently he was aware of a cross road coming down hill and a cautiously descending a human voice or presence like a spring in the desert was now welcome in itself and drew bridle to await the coming of this stranger he proved to be a very red faced thick with a pair of fat saddle bags and a stone bottle at his waist who as soon as the prince hailed him if somewhat thickly answered at the prince same time he gave a in the saddle it was clear his bottle was no longer full do you ride towards asked the prince as far	38
as the cross road to the man replied will you bear company with pleasure i have even waited for you on the chance answered by this time they were close alongside and the man with the instinct turned his cloudy vision first of all on his companion s mount the devil he cried you ride a mare friend and then his curiosity being satisfied about the essential he turned his attention to that merely secondary matter his companion s face he started the prince he cried with another that came near him i beg your pardon your not to have recognized you at once the prince was vexed out of his self possession since you know me he said it is unnecessary we should ride together i will you if you please and he was about to set spur to the gray mare when the half drunken fellow reaching over laid his hand upon the rein hark you he said prince or no prince that is not how one man should conduct himself with another what i you ll ride with me and set me talking but if i know you you ll me if you please i spy and the fellow crimson a with drink and injured vanity almost the word into the prince s face a horrid confusion came over he perceived that he had acted rudely on his station and perhaps a little shiver of physical alarm mingled with his remorse for the fellow was very powerful and not more than half in the possession of his senses take your hand from my rein he said with a sufficient assumption of command and when the man rather to his wonder had obeyed tou should understand sir he added that while i might be glad to ride with you as one person of sagacity with another and so receive your true opinions it would amuse me very little to hear the empty compliments you would address to me as prince you think i would lie do you cried the man with the bottle deeper i know you would returned entering entirely into his self possession you would not even show me the you wear about your neck for he had caught a glimpse of a ribbon at the fellow s throat the change was the red face became with yellow a thick tottering hand made a clutch at the tell tale ribbon the man cried wonderfully i have no pardon me said the prince i will even tell you what that bears a burning with the word the remaining speechless yoa are a pretty fellow to complain of from the man whom you to murder murder i protested the man nay never that nothing criminal for me i you are strangely said conspiracy itself is criminal and the pain of death nay sir death it is i will my accuracy not that you need be so affected for i am no officer but those who mingle with politics should look at both sides of the your began the knight of the bottle nonsense i you are a republican cried what have you to do with but let us continue to ride forward since you so much desire it i cannot find it in my heart to deprive you of my company and for that matter i have a question to address to you why being so great a body of men for you are a great body fifteen thousand i have heard but that will be am i right the man in his throat why then being so considerable a party resumed do you not come before me boldly with your wants what do i say with your commands have i the name of being passionately devoted to my throne i can scarce suppose it come then show me your majority and i will instantly resign tell this to your friends a assure them from me of my assure them that however they of my they cannot suppose me more unfit to be a ruler than i do myself i am one of the worst princes in europe will they improve on that far be it from me the man began see now if you will not defend my government i cried k i were you i would leave tou are as little fit to be a as i to be a king one thing i will say out said the man it is not so much you that we complain of it s your lady not a word sir said the prince and then after a moment s pause and in tones of some anger and contempt i once more advise you to have done with politics he added and when next i see you let me see you sober a morning is the last man to sit in judgment even upon the worst of princes i have had a drop but i had not been drinking the man replied in a sound distinction and if i had what then nobody hangs by me but my mill is standing idle and i blame it on your wife am i alone in that go round and ask where are the mills where are the young men that should be working where is the all no sir it is not equal for i suffer for your faults i pay for them by george out of a poor man s pocket and what have you to do with mine drunk or sober i can prince see my country going to hell and i can see whose fault it is and so now i ve said my say and you may drag me to a what care i spoken the truth and so i ll hold hard and not intrude upon your society and the miller up and enough saluted you will observe i have not asked your name said i wish	38
books and statues was in practice s private cabinet on this particular wednesday morning however he had not been long about his manuscript when a door opened and the prince prince stepped into the apartment the doctor watched him as he drew near receiving from each of the windows in succession a flush of morning sun and looked so gay and walked so he was so well dressed and brushed and so point de vice and of such a sovereign elegance that the heart of his cousin the was rather moved against him good morning said dropping in a chair good morning returned the you are an early bird is this an accident or do you begin it is about time i fancy answered the prince i cannot imagine said the doctor i am too to be an adviser and as for good resolutions i believed in them when i was young they are the colors of hope s rainbow if you come to think of it said i am not a popular sovereign and with a look he changed his statement to a question popular well there i would distinguish answered leaning back and joining the tips of his fingers there are various kinds of popularity the which is perfectly as unreal as the nightmare the s a mixed variety and yours which is the most personal of all women take to you you it is as natural to like you as to pat a dog and were you a saw miller you would be the most popular citizen in as a prince well a romance yon are in the wrong trade it is perhaps philosophical to recognize it as you do perhaps philosophical repeated yes perhaps i would not be a an perhaps philosophical and certainly not ous resumed not of a roman virtue chuckled the drew his chair nearer to the table leaned upon it with his elbow and looked his cousin in the face in short he asked not manly well hesitated not manly if you will and then with a laugh i did not know that you gave yourself out to be manly he added it was one of the points that i inclined to like about you inclined i believe to admire the names of virtues exercise a charm on most of us we must lay claim to all of them however we must all be both daring and prudent we must all our pride and go to the stake for our humility not so you without compromise you were yourself a pretty sight i have always said it none so void of all pretence as pretence and effort both cried a dead dog in a canal is more alive and the question the question that i have to face is this can i not with effort and self denial can i not become a tolerable sovereign never replied dismiss the notion and besides dear child you would not try nay j am not to be put by said if i am unfit to be a sovereign am i doing witb this money with this palace with these guards and i a thief am to execute the law on others i the difficulty said well can i not try continued am i not bound to try and with the advice and help of such a man as you me i cried the now god forbid though he was in no very humor could not forbear to smile yet i was told last nigh he laughed tha wi h a man like me to and s man like you to touch the spring a yery possible government could be composed now i wonder in what imagination said that preposterous monster saw the light of day it was on of your own trade a writer one said i an ignorant cried the you are ungrateful said he is one of your professed admirers i he cried obviously impressed come that is a good account of the young man i must read his again it is the rather to his credit as our views are opposite the east and west are not more opposite can i have converted him but no the incident belongs to a you are not then asked the prince an i bless me no i said i am a red dear child that brings me then to my next point and by a natural transition if i am so clearly for my post the prince asked if my friends admit it if my subjects for my if revolution is preparing at this hour must i not go forth to meet the inevitable should i not save these horrors and be done with these iu a word should i not believe me i feel the ridicule the vast abuse of language he added but even a like me cannot resign he must make a great gesture and come forth and ay said or else stay where he is what has bitten you to day do you not know that you are touching with lay hands the very inward philosophy where madness dwells ay madness for in the serene temples of the wise the inmost shrine which we carefully keep locked is full of all men all are useless nature she does not need she does not use them flowers i down to the fellow in a whom fools point out for the are useless all ropes of sand or like a child that has breathed on the window write and write and idle words i talk of it no more that way i tell you madness lies prince the speaker rose from his chair and then sat down again he laughed a little laugh and then changing his tone resumed yes dear child we are not here to battle with giants we are here to be happy like the flowers if we can be it is because you could that	38
signal of i make a note of these words said the prince gravely you assure me your sovereign that since the date of my departure nothing has occurred of which you owe me an account i take your i take the doctor to witness cried that i have had no such expression halt said the prince and then after a pause you are an old man and you served my father before you served me he added it consists neither with your dignity nor mine that you should excuses and possibly upon collect your thoughts and then a inform me of all you have been charged to hide stooping very low over his desk appeared to have resumed his labors but his shoulders heaved with merriment the prince waited drawing his handkerchief quietly through his fingers tour in this manner said the old gentleman at lust and being deprived of documents it would be difficult it would be impossible to do justice to the somewhat grave which have i will not your attitude replied the prince i desire that between you and me all should be done gently for i have not forgotten my old friend that you were kind to me from the first and for a period of years a faithful servant i will thus dismiss the matters on which you immediate inquiry but you have certain papers actually in your hand come there is at least one point for which you have authority me on that on that cried the old gentleman o that is a trifle a matter your of police a detail of a purely order these are simply a selection of the papers seized upon the english traveller seized echoed in what sense explain yourself sir john interposed looking up was arrested yesterday evening i i is this so d i sternly it was judged right your protested the decree was in due form invested with your s authority by i but an agent i had no to prevent the measure this man my guest has been arrested said the prince oil what grounds sir with what color of pretence the stammered your will perhaps find th t in these documents said ith the tail of his pen thanked his cousin with look give them to me he said addressing the but that gentleman visibly to obey baron von he said has made the affair his own i am in this case a mere messenger and as such i am not clothed with any capacity to communicate the documents i carry doctor i am convinced you not fail to bear me out i have heard a great deal of and most of it from you but this all come sir said rising the ers i command instantly gave way with your s he said and laying at his feet my most apologies i i iq a hasten ta his ia do see this chair said there is where you shall attend my further orders o now more he cried with a gesture as the old man opened his lips you have marked your zeal to your employer and i begin to weary of a moderation you abuse the moved to the appointed chair and took his seat in silence and now said opening roll what is all this it looks like the manuscript of a book it is said the manuscript of a book of travels have read it doctor ke the prince nay i but saw the title j age replied but the roll was given to me open and i no i a any secrecy dealt the an angry glance i see he om the of an author seized at this date of the world s history in a state so petty and so ignorant here is indeed an folly sir to the i marvel to find you in so an employment j our conduct to your prince i will not dwell but to descend to be a spy for what else can it be called to seize the papers of this gentleman the private papers of a stranger the toil of a life perhaps to pen and to read them and what have we to do with books the hei r doctor prince perhaps be asked for his advice but we have no i in had we but that we should be the most absolute and farce upon this earth yet even while spoke he had to the roll and now when it lay fully open his eye rested on the title page written in red ink it ran thus of a visit to the various courts of europe sir john below was a list of chapters each bearing the name of one of the european courts and among these the nineteenth and the last upon the list was to ah the court of said that should be droll reading and his curiosity for it a dog this english said each chapter written and finished on the spot i shall look for his work when it appears it would be odd now just to glance at it said wavering s brow darkened and he looked out of the window but though the prince understood the reproof his weakness prevailed i will he said with an uneasy laugh i will i think just glance at it so saying he resumed his seat and spread the traveller s manuscript upon the table a romance chapter ii n the op being a tion of the s it may well be asked it was thus the english traveller began his nineteenth chapter why i should have chosen out of so many other states equally petty formal dull and corrupt accident indeed decided and not i but i have seen no reason to regret my visit the spectacle of this small society in its own was not perhaps instructive but i have found it exceedingly the prince a young man of imperfect education questionable and	38
no of capacity has fallen into entire public contempt it was with difficulty that i obtained an interview for he is frequently absent from a court where his presence is and where his only is to be a cloak for the of his wife at last however on the third occasion when i visited the palace i found this sovereign in the exercise of his function with the wife on one hand and the lover on the other he is not ill looking he has hair of a ruddy gold which naturally curls and his eyes are dark a com fo which i always regard as the mark of some deficiency physical or moral his features are irregular but pleasing the nose perhaps a little short and the mouth a little his address is excellent and he can express himself with point but to pierce below these is to come on a of any sterling quality a of the moral nature a and of purpose that mark the nearly perfect fruit of a ent age he has a worthless of many subjects but a grasp of none i soon weary of a pursuit he said to me laughing it would almost appear as if he a pride in his and lack of moral courage the results of his are to seen in every field he is a bad a second rate shot he sings i have heard him and he sings like a child he writes intolerable verses in more than doubtful french he acts like the common amateur and in short there no en to the number of the things that he does and does badly his one manly taste is for the chase in sum he is but a of weaknesses the singing of the stage out in man s apparel and mounted on a i have seen this poor phantom of a prince riding out alone or with a few disregarded by all and i have been even grieved for the bearer pf so futile and melancholy an existence the last may have looked not otherwise the princess a daughter of a tbe grand of be equally if were not a cutting instrument in tbe bands of an ambitious v m is younger tbe prince a girl p t and twenty sick witb clever and a fool a rolling eye too large for ber face and witb of levity and ferocity ber is nd narrow ber figure and a little stooping er ber conversation s witb be very and e alike assumed and the assumption is apparent playing i judge ber to be incapable of in private life a girl of this description tbe peace of families walks attended by a troop of and passes once at least through the divorce court it is a common and except to the an uninteresting type on the throne however and in the hands of a man like she ii ay become tbe of public evils the true ruler of this unfortunate country is a complex study his position in to which be is a foreigner is eminently and that he should maintain it as he does a very miracle of impudence and dexterity his speech his face bis policy are all double heads nd tails which of the two extremes be bis actual he were a bold man who should yet i will hazard the guess that be prince follows both and at the hand of destiny one of those directing hints of which she is so lavish to the wise on the one hand as de to the and using the love sick princess for a tool and he a policy of arbitrary power and he has called out the whole capable male population of the state to military service he has bought cannon he has tempted away promising officers from foreign armies and he now begins in his relations to assume the port and the vague language of a bully the idea of extending may appear absurd but the little state is placed its neighbors are all and if at any moment the of the greater courts should each other an active policy might double the both in population and extent certainly at least the scheme is entertained in the court of nor do i myself regard it as entirely desperate the of has grown from as small to a formidable power and though it is late in the day to try adventurous and the age of war seems ended fortune we must not forget still blindly turns her wheel for men and nations with and to these warlike preparations crushing taxes have been journals have been suppressed and the country which three years ago was prosperous and happy a romance now in a forced gold has become a curiosity and the mills stand idle on the mountain streams on the other hand in his second capacity of popular is the of the free and sits at the centre of an organized conspiracy against the state to any such movement my sympathies were early acquired and i would pot willingly let fall a word that might or the revolution but to show that i speak of knowledge and not as the of mere gossip i may mention that i have myself been present at a meeting where the details of a republican constitution were and arranged and i may add that was throughout referred to by the as their captain in action and the of their he has taught his for so i must regard them that his power of resistance to the princess is limited and at each fresh stretch of authority them with reasons to the hour of thus to give some instances of his he over the decree military service under the plea that to be well and exercised in was even a necessary preparation for revolt and the other day when it began to be abroad that a war was being	38
forced on a reluctant neighbor the grand duke of and i made sure it would be the signal for an instant rising i was struck dumb with wonder to find that even this bad been prepared and was to be accepted i went from one to another in the liberal camp and all were in tbe same story all bad been and and fitted out with argument the la had better see some real fighting thej said and besides it will be as well to capture we can then extend to our neighbors the blessing of liberty on the same day that we snatch it for ourselves and the republic will b all the stronger to resist if the kings of europe should band themselves together to reduce it i know not which of the two i should admire the more the simplicity of the multitude or the audacity of the adventurer but such are the such the reasons with which he blinds and this people how long a course so can be pursued with safety i am incapable of not long one would suppose and yet this singular man has been treading the for five years and his favor at court and his popularity among the still endure unbroken i have the privilege of slightly knowing him heavily and somewhat built of a vast rambling frame he can still pull himself together and figure not without admiration in the saloon or the ball room his hue and temperament are he has a eye his cheek is of a dark blue where he has been shaven essentially he is to be numbered among the ers a convinced of his fellows yet a he is himself of a ambition and greedy of applause in he is remarkable for a thirst of information loving rather to hear than to communicate for sound and views and judging by the extreme short of common for a remarkable of events all this however without grace or charm heavily set forth with a dull countenance in our numerous conversations although he has always heard me with deference i have been conscious throughout of a sort of ponderous hard to he produces none of the effect of a gentleman devoid not merely of but of all attention or warmth of bearing no gentleman besides would so parade his with the princess still less repay the prince for his long suffering with a studied insolence of and the of insulting such as prince which run from ear to ear and create a laugh throughout the country has thus some of the characters of the self made man combined with an almost a be pride of intellect and birth heavy selfish he sits upon this court and country like an but it is probable that he preserves softer gifts for necessary purposes indeed it is certain although he vouchsafed none of it to me that this cold md stolid possesses to a great degree the art of and can be all things to all s prince men hence there has probably sprung up the idle legend that in private life he is a gross nothing at least can well be more surprising than the terms of his connection with the princess older than her husband certainly and according to the feeble ideas common among women in every particular less pleasing he has not only seized the complete command of all her thought and action but has imposed on her in public a humiliating part i do not here refer to the complete sacrifice of every rag of her reputation for to women these are in themselves attractive but there is about the court a certain lady of a reputation a von wife or widow of a cloudy count no longer in her second youth and already of some of her attractions who the station of the baron s mistress i had thought at first that she was but a hired a mere blind or for the more important sinner a few hours acquaintance with madame von for ever the illusion she is one rather to make than to prevent a scandal and she none of those money honors or employment with which the situation might be gilded indeed as a person frankly bad she pleased me in the court of like a piece of nature the power of this man over the princess is therefore without bounds she has sacrificed to the adoration with which he has inspired her not only her marriage vow and every of public a romance decency but that vice of jealousy which is so much clearer to the female than either honor or outward consideration nay more a young although not a very attractive woman and a princess both by birth and fact she to the triumphant of one who might be her mother as to years and who is so her inferior in station this is one of the mysteries of the human heart but the rage of love when it is once indulged appears to grow by feeding and to a person of the character and temperament of this unfortunate young lady almost any depth of degradation is within the reach of possibility chapter iii the and the english so far read with indignation and here his fury he tossed the roll upon the table and stood up this man he said is a devil a filthy imagination an ear greedy of evil a ponderous of thought and language i grow like him by the reading where is this fellow lodged he was committed to the flag tower replied n the apartment lead me to him said the prince and then a thought striking him was it for that he asked i found so many in the garden your i am unaware answered true to his policy the disposition of the guards is a matter distinct from my functions turned upon the old man fiercely but ere he had	38
had reached the highest of tlie a garden here was a gate into the park and hard by under a of laurel a marble garden seat hence they looked down on the green tops of many elm trees where the were busy and beyond that upon the palace roof and the yellow banner flying in the blue i pray you to be seated sir said sir john complied without a word and for some seconds walked to and fro before him plunged in angry thought the birds were all singing for a sir said the prince at length turning towards the englishman you are to me except by the of society a perfect stranger of your character and wishes i am ignorant i have never you there is a difference in station which i desire to i would it you still think me entitled to so much consideration i would be regarded simply as a gentleman now sir i did wrong to glance at these papers which i here return to you but if curiosity be as i am free to own falsehood is both cowardly and cruel i opened your roll and what did i find what did i find about my wife lies f he broke out they are lies i there are not so help me i four words of truth in your intolerable tou are a man you are old and might be the father you are a gentleman you are a scholar and have learned refinement and you together all this vulgar scandal and propose to print it in a public book i such is your chivalry prince but thank gk d sir she has still a husband you say sir in that paper in your hand that i am a bad i have to request from you a lesson in the art the park is close behind yonder is the house where you will find your carriage should i fall you know sir you have written in your paper ho w little my movements are regarded i am in the custom of disappearing it will be one more disappearance and long before it has awakened a remark you may be safe across the border you will observe said sir john that what you ask is and if i struck you cried the prince with a sudden menacing flash it would be a cowardly blow returned the unmoved for it would make no change i cannot draw upon a sovereign and it is this man to whom you dare not offer satisfaction that you choose to insult cried pardon me said the traveller you are unjust it is because you are a sovereign that i cannot fight with you and it is for the same reason that i have a right to your action and your wife you are in everything a public creature you belong to the public body and bone you have with you the law the of the army and the eyes of the we on our side have but one weapon truth truth echoed the prince with a gesture a there was another silence your said sir john at last you must not expect grapes from a i am old and a nobody cares a rush for me and on the whole after the present interview i scarce know anybody that i like better than yourself you see i have changed my mind and have the uncommon virtue to the change i tear up this stuff before you here in your own garden i ask your pardon i ask the pardon of the and i give you my word of honor as a gentleman and an old man that when my book of travels shall appear it shall not contain so much as the name of and yet it was a chapter but had your only read about the other courts i am a crow but it is not my fault after all that the world is such a sir said is the eye not nay cried the traveller very likely i am one who goes i am no poet i believe in a better future for the world or at all accounts i do most in the present rotten eggs is the of my song but indeed your when i meet with any merit i do not think that i am slow to recognize it this is a day that i shall still recall with gratitude for i have found a sovereign with some manly virtues and for once old and old radical as i am it is from the heart and quite sincerely that i can request the honor of kissing your s hand nay sir said to my heart and the englishman taken at unawares was clasped for a moment in the s arms and now sir added there is the close behind it you will find my carriage which i pray you to accept god speed you to i in the of youth replied sir john your has overlooked one circumstance i am still well sir said smiling you are your own master you may go or stay but i warn you your friend may prove less powerful than your enemies the prince indeed is thoroughly on your side he has all the will to help but to whom do i speak you know better than i do he is not alone in there is a deal in position returned the traveller gravely nodding loves to his policy is below ground and he fears all open courses and now that i have seen you act with so much spirit i will cheerfully risk myself on your protection who knows you may be yet the better man do you indeed believe so cried the prince yon put life into my heart i i will give up portraits said the i am a blind owl i had yon strangely and yet	38
remember this a is one thing and to run all day i another for i still your constitution the short nose the hair a romance and eyes of several no they are and i must end i see as i began i am still a singing said nay your i pray you to forget what i had written said sir john i am not like and the chapter is no more bury it if you love me prince chapter iv while the is is the boom greatly comforted by the exploits of the morning the prince turned towards the princess s bent on a more difficult enterprise the curtains rose before him the called his name and he entered the room with an exaggeration of his usual and airy dignity there were about a score of persons waiting principally ladies it was one of the few societies in where knew himself to be popular and while a maid of honor made her exit by a side door to announce his arrival to the princess he moved round the apartment collecting homage and compliments with friendly grace had this been the sum of his duties he had been an admirable monarch lady after lady was honored by his attention madam he said to one how does this happen i find you daily more and your daily replied the lady we began equal o there i will be bold we have both beautiful but while i study mine your himself a perfect negro madam and what so i a being beauty s slave said madame when is our next play i have just heard that i am a bad actor o cried madame who could venture what a bear an excellent man i can assure you returned o never o is it possible the lady your plays like an angel you must be right madam who could speak and yet look so charming said the prince but this gentleman it seems would have preferred me playing like an actor a sort of hum a feminine greeted the tiny sally and expanded like a this warm atmosphere of women and flattery and idle chatter pleased him to the madame von your is delicious he remarked every one was saying so said one if i have pleased prince charming and madame von swept him a deep with a killing glance of adoration it is new he asked fashion new replied the lady for your s return i felt young this morning it was a but why prince do you ever leave us for the pleasure of the return said i am like a dog i must bury my bone and then come back to upon it prince o a bone what a comparison have brought back the manners of the wood returned the lady madam it is what the dog has dearest said the prince but i observe madame von and leaving the group to which he had been stepped towards the of a window where a lady stood the von had hitherto been silent and a thought depressed but on the approach of she began to she was tall slim as a and of a very airy carriage and her face which was already beautiful in repose lightened and changed flashed into smiles and glowed with lovely color at the touch of animation she was a good and even in speech her voice commanded a great range of changes the low notes rich with tenor quality the upper ringing on the brink of laughter into music a of many and hues of fire a woman who withheld the better portion of her beauty and then in a caressing second flashed it like a weapon full on the now merely a tall and a sallow handsome face with the evidences of a reckless temper anon opening like a flower to life and color mirth and tenderness madame von had always a dagger in reserve for the despatch of admirers she met with the dart of tender yon have come to me at last prince cruel she a said butterfly well and am i not to kiss your hand she added madam it is i who must kiss yours and bowed and kissed it you deny me every indulgence she said smiling and now what news in court inquired the prince i come to you for my ditch water she replied the world is all asleep grown gray in slumber i do not remember any waking movement since quite an eternity and the last thing in the nature of a sensation was the last time my was allowed to box my ears but yet i do myself and your unfortunate enchanted palace some injustice here is the last o positively and she told him the story from behind her fan with many glances many cunning strokes of the s art the others had drawn away for it was understood that madame von was in favor with the prince none the less however did the lower her voice at times to within a of whispering and the pair leaned together over the narrative do you know said laughing you are the only entertaining woman on this earth o you have found out so much she cried yes madam i grow wiser with advancing years he returned years she repeated do you name the i do not believe in years the is a delusion you must be right madam replied the prince for six years that we have been good friends i have observed you to grow younger she and then with a change but why should i say so she added when i protest i think the same a week ago i had a council with my father the glass and the glass replied not yet i confess my face in this way once a month o a very solemn moment do you know what i shall do when	38
there is no choice but to be bold like lions had the prince chosen to remain away it had been better but we have gone too far d to j delay a what can have brought him she cried today of all days the madam has the instinct of his nature returned but you the peril think madam how far we have and against what odds shall a but no and he blew upon his fingers lightly with a laugh she replied is still the prince of on your only and so long as you shall please to be indulgent said the baron there are rights of nature power to the powerful is the law if he shall think to cross your destiny well yon have heard of the brazen and the pot do you call me pot you are baron laughed the princess before we are done with your glory i shall have called you by many different titles he replied the girl flushed with pleasure v is still the prince le she said you do not propose a revolution you of all men dear madam when it is already made he cried the prince indeed in the but my princess and rules and he looked at her with a fond admiration that made the heart of swell looking on her huge slave she drank the joys of power meanwhile he continued with that sort of massive prince that so ill became him she has but one fault there is but one danger in the great career that i foresee for her may i name it may i be so it is in herself her heart is soft her courage is faint baron said the princess suppose we have judged ill suppose we were defeated defeated madam returned the baron with a touch of ill humor is the dog defeated by the hare our troops are all along the frontier in five hours the of five thousand shall be on the gates of and in all there are not fifteen hundred men who can it is as simple as a sum there can be no resistance it is no great she said is that what you call glory it is like beating a child the courage madam is he replied we take a grave step we fix the eyes of europe for the first time on and in the of the next three months mark me we stand or fall it is there madam that i shall have to depend upon your counsels he added almost gloomily if i had not seen you at work if i did f not know the of your mind i own i should tremble for the consequence but it is in this field that men must recognize their inability all the great when they have not been women have had women at their elbows madame de was ill served she had not found her but what a mighty a romance de too what justice of sight what readiness of means what against defeat but alas madam her were her own children and she had that one touch of that one trait of the good wife that she suffered family ties and affections to confine her liberty these singular views of history strictly did not their usual soothing spell over the princess it was plain that she had taken a momentary to her own resolutions for she continued to oppose her looking npon him out of half closed eyes and with the shadow of a sneer upon her lips what boys men are she said what lovers of big words courage indeed if you had to von you would call it i suppose domestic courage i would madam said the baron stoutly if i them well i would put a good name upon a virtue you will not it they are not so in themselves well but let me see she said i wish to understand your courage why we asked leave like children our in our uncle in the whole family have patted us on the head and sent us forward courage i wonder when i hear you my princess is unlike herself returned the baron she has forgotten where the peril lies true we have received encouragement on every hand but my princess knows too well on what prince conditions and she knows besides how in the of the diet these whispered are forgotten and the danger is very real he raged inwardly at having to blow the very coal he had been none the less real in that it is not precisely military but for that reason the easier to be faced had we to count upon your troops although i e your s expectations of the conduct of we cannot forget that he has not been proved in chief command but where is concerned the conduct lies with us and with your help i laugh at danger it may be so said sighing it is elsewhere that i see danger the people these abominable suppose they should instantly rebel what a figure we should make in the eyes of europe to have undertaken an invasion while my own throne was tottering to its fall nay madam said smiling here you are beneath yourself what is it that their discontent what but the taxes once we have the taxes are the sons return covered with renown the houses are adorned with each tastes his little share of military glory and behold us once again a happy family ay they will say in each other s long ears the princess knew what she was about she was in the right of it she has a head upon her shoulders and here we are you see better off than before but why should i say all this it a is what my princess pointed oat to me herself it was by reasons that she converted	38
me to this adventure i think von said somewhat you often attribute your own sagacity to your princess for a second staggered under the of the attack the next he had perfectly recovered do i he said it is very possible i have observed a similar tendency in your it was so openly spoken and appeared so just that breathed again her vanity liad been alarmed and the greatness of the relief improved her spirits well she said all this is little to the purpose we are keeping fr d without and i am still ignorant of our line of battle come co admiral let us consult how am i to receive him now and what are we to do if he should appear at the council now he answered i shall leave him to my princess for just now i have seen her at work send him off to his but in all gentleness he added would it for instance would it my sovereign to affect a headache never i said she the woman who can manage like the man who can fight must never shrink from an encounter the knight must not disgrace his weapons then let me pray my dame he returned to affect the only virtue that she be pitiful to the poor young man affect an inter i est in his hunting be weary of politics find in his society as it were a grateful repose from dry con does my princess the line of battle well that is a trifle answered the council there is the point the council cried permit me madam and he rose and proceeded to flutter about the room both in voice and gesture not unhappily what is there to day i von ah a j new wig i you cannot deceive me i know every wig in i have the sovereign s eye what are these papers about o i see o surely surely i none of you re marked that wig by all means i know nothing about that dear me are there as many as all that well you can sign them you have the you see i knew your wig and so concluded his own voice our sovereign by the particular grace of god and his i but when the baron turned to for approval he found her frozen you are pleased to be witty von she said and have perhaps forgotten where you are but these are apt to be your master the prince of is sometimes more exact i ing a hi cursed her in his of all injured that of the is the most savage and when grave issues are involved these petty become but was a man of iron he showed nothing he did not even like the common retreat because he had presumed but held to his point bravely madam he said if as you say he prove we must take the bull by the horns we shall see she said and she arranged her skirt like one about to rise temper scorn dis gust all the more feelings became her like jewels and she now looked her best pray god they quarrel thought the damned may fail me yet unless they quarrel it is time to let him in fight dogs consequent on these reflections he bent a stiff knee and kissed the princess s hand my princess he said must now dismiss her servant i have much to arrange against the hour of council go she said and rose and as tripped out of a private door she touched a bell and gave the order to admit the prince prince chapter vi thb a ov with of with what a world of excellent intentions entered his wife s cabinet i how how tender how morally affecting were the words he had prepared nor was inclined her usual fear of as a in her great designs was now swallowed up in a passing distrust of the designs themselves for besides she had conceived an angry horror in her heart she did not like the baron behind his impudent behind the devotion which with delicacy he still forced on her attention she divined the of his nature so a man may be proud of having tamed a bear and yet at his captive s and above all she had certain jealous that tiie man was false and the deception double true she with his love but he perhaps was only trifling with her vanity the insolence of his late and the of her own position as she sat and watched it lay besides like a load upon her conscience she met almost with a sense of i a guilty t she welcomed him s a from ugly things but the of an interview m e at the mercy of a thousand rats and even at s entrance the first occurred he saw was gone but there was the chair drawn close for consultation and it pained him not only that this man bad been received but that he should depart with such au air of secrecy struggling with this it was somewhat sharply that he dismissed the attendant who had brought him in you make yourself at home mm she said a little ruffled both by his tone of command and by the glance he had thrown upon the chair madam replied i so seldom that i have almost the rights of a stranger you choose your own associate id i am here to speak of it he returned it is years since we were married aiid these four ye s have not perhaps been happy either for you ch for me i am well aware i was to be your husband i was not young i had no ambition i was a and you despised me i dare not say but to do justice on both sides you must bear in mind how i have acted	38
when i found it amused you to play the part of princess on this little stage did i not immediately resign to you my box of toys this and when i found i was distasteful as a could any husband have been less you prince will tell me that i hay e no feelings no preference and thus no credit that i go before the wind that all this was in my character and indeed one thing is true that it is easy too easy to leave things undone bat i begin to learn it is not always wise if i were too old and too for year husband i should still have remembered that i was the prince of that country to which you came a visitor and a child in that relation also there were duties and these duties i have not performed to the advantage of superior age is to give offence duty laughed and on your lips fr d you make me laugh what fancy is this with the maids and be a prince in china as you look enjoy yourself man and leave duty and the state to us the on the prince i have enjoyed myself too much he said since enjoyment is the word and yet there were much to say upon the other side tou must suppose me desperately fond of hunting but indeed there were days when i found a great deal of interest in what it was courtesy to call my government and i have always had some claim to taste i could tell live happiness from dull routine and between hunting and the throne of and your society my choice had never wavered had the choice been mine you were a girl a bud when you were given heavens she cried is this to be a love scene i a romance i am never ridiculous he said it is my only merit and yon may be certain this shall be a scene of e d la mode but when i remember the y beginning it is bare courtesy to speak in sorrow e just madam you would think me strangely to recall these days without the decency of a regret be yet a little and own if only in that you yourself regret that past i have nothing to regret said the princess you surprise me i thought you were so happy happy and happy there are so many hundred said a man may be happy in revolt he may be happy in sleep wine change and travel make him happy virtue they say will do the like i have not tried and they say also that in old quiet and habitual marriages there is yet another happiness happy yes i am happy if you like but i will tell you frankly i was happier when i brought you home well said the princess not without it seems you changed your mind not i returned i never changed do you remember on our way home when you saw the roses in the lane and i got out and plucked them it was a narrow lane between great trees the sunset at the end was all gold and the were flying overhead there were nine nine red roses you gave me a kiss for each and i told myself that every rose and every kiss should stand for a year of love well in eighteen months there was an end but do you that my has altered i am sure i tell she said like an it has not the there is nothing ridiculous even from a husband in a that owns itself unhappy and that asks no more i built on sand pardon me i do not breathe a reproach i built i suppose upon my own but i put my heart in the building and it still lies among the ruins how very poetical she said with a little choking laugh unknown moving within her what would you be at she added her voice i would be at this he answered and hard it is to say i would be at this i am your husband after all and a poor fool that loves you understand he cried almost fiercely i am no husband what your love refuses i would scorn to receive from your pity i do not ask i would not take it and for jealousy what ground have i a dog in the jealousy is a thing the dogs may laugh at but at least in the world s eye i am your husband and i ask you if you treat me fairly i keep to myself i leave you free i have given you in everything your will what ao you in return i find that you have been too thoughtless but between persons such as we in our conspicuous station particular care a romance and sl are owing scandal is perhaps not easy to avoid but it is hard to bear scandal i she cried with a deep breath scandal it is for this you have been driving i have tried to tell you how i feel he replied i have told you that i love you love you in vain a bitter thing for a husband i have laid myself open that i might speak without offence and now that i have begun i will go on and finish i demand it she said what is this about flashed crimson i have to say what i would fain not he answered i counsel you to see less oi of and why she asked your intimacy is the ground of scandal madam said firmly enough of a scandal that is agony to me and would be crushing to your parents if they knew it you are the first to bring me word of it said i thank you you have perhaps cause he replied i am	38

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.