CHAPTER IV.

Howbeit the sun shone cheerfully over the Bar the next morning and the

next; the breath of life and activity was in the air; the settlement

never had been more prosperous, and the yield from the opened placers

on the drained river-bed that week was enormous. The Brothers Wayne

were said to be “rolling in gold.” It was thought to be consistent with

Madison Wayne's nature that there was no trace of good fortune in his

face or manner--rather that he had become more nervous, restless, and

gloomy. This was attributed to the joylessness of avarice as contrasted

with the spendthrift gayety of the more liberal Arthur, and he was

feared and RESPECTED as a miser. His long, solitary walks around the

promontory, his incessant watchfulness, his reticence when questioned,

were all recognized as the indications of a man whose soul was absorbed

in money-getting. The reverence they failed to yield to his religious

isolation they were willing to freely accord to his financial

abstraction. But Mr. McGee was not so deceived. Overtaking him one

day under the fringe of willows, he characteristically chided him

with absenting himself from Mrs. McGee and her house since their last

interview.

“I reckon you did not harbor malice in your Christianity,” he said;

“but it looks mighty like ez if ye was throwing off on Safie and me on

account of what I said.”

In vain Madison gloomily and almost sternly protested.

McGee looked him all over with his clear measuring eye, and for some

minutes was singularly silent. At last he said slowly: “I've been

thinkin' suthin' o' goin' down to 'Frisco, and I'd be a heap easier in

my mind ef you'd promise to look arter Safie now and then.”

“You surely are not going to leave her here ALONE?” said Wayne roughly.

“Why not?”

For an instant Wayne hesitated. Then he burst out. “For a hundred

reasons! If she ever wanted your protection, before, she surely does

now. Do you suppose the Bar is any less heathen or more regenerated than

it was when you thought it necessary to guard her with your revolver?

Man! It is a hundred times worse than then! The new claims have

filled it with spying adventurers--with wolves like Hamlin and his

friends--idolaters who would set up Baal and Ashteroth here--and fill

your tents with the curses of Sodom!”

Perhaps it was owing to the Scriptural phrasing, perhaps it was from

some unusual authority of the man's manner, but a look of approving

relief and admiration came into McGee's clear eyes.

“And YOU'RE just the man to tackle 'em,” he said, clapping his hand on

Wayne's shoulder. “That's your gait--keep it up! But,” he added, in

a lower voice, “me and my revolver are played out.” There was a

strangeness in the tone that arrested Wayne's attention. “Yes,”

continued McGee, stroking his beard slowly, “men like me has their day,

and revolvers has theirs; the world turns round and the Bar fills up,

and this yer river changes its course--and it's all in the day's work.

You understand what I mean--you follow me? And if anything should happen

to me--not that it's like to; but it's in the way o' men--I want you

to look arter Safie. It ain't every woman ez has two men, ez like and

unlike, to guard her. You follow me--you understand what I mean, don't

you?” With these words he parted somewhat abruptly from Wayne, turning

into the steep path to the promontory crest and leaving his companion

lost in gloomy abstraction. The next day Alexander McGee had departed on

a business trip to San Francisco.

In his present frame of mind, with his new responsibility and the

carrying out of a plan which he had vaguely conceived might remove the

terrible idea that had taken possession of him, Madison Wayne was even

relieved when his brother also announced his intention of going to

Angel's for a few days.

For since his memorable interview with McGee he had been convinced that

Safie had been clandestinely visited by some one. Whether it was the

thoughtless and momentary indiscretion of a willful woman, or the sequel

to some deliberately planned intrigue, did not concern him so much as

the falsity of his own position, and the conniving lie by which he had

saved her and her lover. That at this crucial moment he had failed to

“testify” to guilt and wickedness; that he firmly believed--such is the

inordinate vanity of the religious zealot--that he had denied Him in his

effort to shield HER; and that he had broken faith with the husband who

had entrusted to him the custody of his wife's honor, seemed to him more

terrible than her faithlessness. In his first horror he had dreaded

to see her, lest her very confession--he knew her reckless frankness

towards himself--should reveal to him the extent of his complicity. But

since then, and during her husband's absence, he had convinced himself

that it was his duty to wrestle and strive with her weak spirit, to

implore her to reveal her new intrigue to her husband, and then he would

help her to sue for his forgiveness. It was a part of the inconsistency

of his religious convictions; in his human passion he was perfectly

unselfish, and had already forgiven her the offense against himself. He

would see her at once!

But it happened to be a quiet, intense night, with the tremulous

opulence of a full moon that threw quivering shafts of light like summer

lightning over the blue river, and laid a wonderful carpet of intricate

lace along the path that wound through the willows to the crest. There

was the dry, stimulating dust and spice of heated pines from below; the

languorous odors of syringa; the faint, feminine smell of southernwood,

and the infinite mystery of silence. This silence was at times softly

broken with the tender inarticulate whisper of falling leaves, broken

sighs from the tree-tops, and the languid stretching of wakened and

unclasping boughs. Madison Wayne had not, alas! taken into account this

subtle conspiracy of Night and Nature, and as he climbed higher, his

steps began to falter with new and strange sensations. The rigidity

of purpose which had guided the hard religious convictions that always

sustained him, began to relax. A tender sympathy stole over him; a

loving mercy to himself as well as others stole into his heart. He

thought of HER as she had nestled at his side, hand in hand, upon the

moonlit veranda of her father's house, before his hard convictions had

chilled and affrighted her. He thought of her fresh simplicity, and what

had seemed to him her wonderful girlish beauty, and lo! in a quick turn

of the path he stood breathless and tremulous before the house. The

moonbeams lay tenderly upon the peaceful eaves; the long blossoms of the

Madeira vine seemed sleeping also. The pink flush of the Cherokee rose

in the unreal light had become chastely white.

But he was evidently too late for an interview. The windows were blank

in the white light; only one--her bedroom--showed a light behind the

lowered muslin blind. Her draped shadow once or twice passed across it.

He was turning away with soft steps and even bated breath when suddenly

he stopped. The exaggerated but unmistakable shadow of a man stood

beside her on the blind.

With a fierce leap as of a maniac, he was at the door, pounding,

rattling, and uttering hoarse and furious outcries. Even through his

fury he heard quickened footsteps--her light, reckless, half-hysterical

laugh--a bound upon the staircase--the hurried unbolting and opening of

distant doors, as the lighter one with which he was struggling at last

yielded to his blind rage, and threw him crashing into the sitting-room.

The back door was wide open. He could hear the rustling and crackling of

twigs and branches in different directions down the hillside, where the

fugitives had separated as they escaped. And yet he stood there for an

instant, dazed and wondering, “What next?”

His eyes fell upon McGee's rifle standing upright in the corner. It was

a clean, beautiful, precise weapon, even to the unprofessional eye,

its long, laminated hexagonal barrel taking a tenderer blue in the

moonlight. He snatched it up. It was capped and loaded. Without a pause

he dashed down the hill.

Only one thought was in his mind now--the crudest, simplest duty. He

was there in McGee's place; he should do what McGee would do. God had

abandoned him, but McGee's rifle remained.

In a few minutes' downward plunging he had reached the river bank. The

tranquil silver surface quivered and glittered before him. He saw what

he knew he would see, the black target of a man's head above it, making

for the Bar. He took deliberate aim and fired. There was no echo to that

sharp detonation; a distant dog barked, there was a slight whisper

in the trees beside him, that was all! But the head of the man was no

longer visible, and the liquid silver filmed over again, without a speck

or stain.

He shouldered the rifle, and with the automatic action of men in great

crises returned slowly and deliberately to the house and carefully

replaced the rifle in its old position. He had no concern for the

miserable woman who had fled; had she appeared before him at the moment,

he would not have noticed her. Yet a strange instinct--it seemed to him

the vaguest curiosity--made him ascend the stairs and enter her

chamber. The candle was still burning on the table with that awful

unconsciousness and simplicity of detail which makes the scene of real

tragedy so terrible. Beside it lay a belt and leather pouch. Madison

Wayne suddenly dashed forward and seized it, with a wild, inarticulate

cry; staggered, fell over the chair, rose to his feet, blindly groped

his way down the staircase, burst into the road, and, hugging the pouch

to his bosom, fled like a madman down the hill.

*****

The body of Arthur Wayne was picked up two days later a dozen miles down

the river. Nothing could be more evident and prosaic than the manner

in which he had met his fate. His body was only partly clothed, and

the money pouch and belt, which had been securely locked next his skin,

after the fashion of all miners, was gone. He was known to have left the

Bar with a considerable sum of money; he was undoubtedly dogged, robbed,

and murdered during his journey on the river bank by the desperadoes who

were beginning to infest the vicinity. The grief and agony of his only

brother, sole survivor of that fraternal and religious partnership so

well known to the camp, although shown only by a grim and speechless

melancholy,--broken by unintelligible outbursts of religious

raving,--was so real, that it affected even the callous camp. But

scarcely had it regained its feverish distraction, before it was

thrilled by another sensation. Alexander McGee had fallen from the deck

of a Sacramento steamboat in the Straits of Carquinez, and his body had

been swept out to sea. The news had apparently been first to reach the

ears of his devoted wife, for when the camp--at this lapse of the old

prohibition--climbed to her bower with their rude consolations, the

house was found locked and deserted. The fateful influence of the

promontory had again prevailed, the grim record of its seclusion was

once more unbroken.

For with it, too, drooped and faded the fortunes of the Bar. Madison

Wayne sold out his claim, endowed the church at the Cross Roads with the

proceeds, and the pulpit with his grim, hopeless, denunciatory presence.

The first rains brought a freshet to the Bar. The river leaped the

light barriers that had taken the place of Wayne's peaceful engines,

and regained the old channel. The curse that the Rev. Madison Wayne had

launched on this riverside Sodom seemed to have been fulfilled. But even

this brought no satisfaction to the gloomy prophet, for it was presently

known that he had abandoned his terror-stricken flock to take the

circuit as revivalist preacher and camp-meeting exhorter, in the rudest

and most lawless of gatherings. Desperate ruffians writhed at his feet

in impotent terror or more impotent rage; murderers and thieves listened

to him with blanched faces and set teeth, restrained only by a more

awful fear. Over and over again he took his life with his Bible into his

own hands when he rose above the excited multitude; he was shot at, he

was rail-ridden, he was deported, but never silenced. And so, sweeping

over the country, carrying fear and frenzy with him, scouting life and

mercy, and crushing alike the guilty and innocent, he came one Sabbath

to a rocky crest of the Sierras--the last tattered and frayed and soiled

fringe of civilization on the opened tract of a great highway. And here

he was to “testify,” as was his wont.

But not as he expected. For as he stood up on a boulder above the thirty

or forty men sitting or lying upon other rocks and boulders around him,

on the craggy mountain shelf where they had gathered, a man also rose,

elbowed past them, and with a hurried impulse tried to descend

the declivity. But a cry was suddenly heard from others, quick and

clamoring, which called the whole assembly to its feet, and it was seen

that the fugitive had in some blundering way fallen from the precipice.

He was brought up cruelly maimed and mangled, his ribs crushed, and one

lung perforated, but still breathing and conscious. He had asked to see

the preacher. Death impending, and even then struggling with his breath,

made this request imperative. Madison Wayne stopped the service, and

stalked grimly and inflexibly to where the dying man lay. But there he

started.

“McGee!” he said breathlessly.

“Send these men away,” said McGee faintly. “I've got suthin' to tell

you.”

The men drew back without a word. “You thought I was dead,” said McGee,

with eyes still undimmed and marvelously clear. “I orter bin, but it

don't need no doctor to say it ain't far off now. I left the Bar to get

killed; I tried to in a row, but the fellows were skeert to close with

me, thinkin' I'd shoot. My reputation was agin me, there! You follow me?

You understand what I mean?”

Kneeling beside him now and grasping both his hands, the changed and

horror-stricken Wayne gasped, “But”--

“Hold on! I jumped off the Sacramento boat--I was goin' down the third

time--they thought on the boat I was gone--they think so now! But a

passin' fisherman dived for me. I grappled him--he was clear grit and

would have gone down with me, but I couldn't let him die too--havin' so

to speak no cause. You follow me--you understand me? I let him save me.

But it was all the same, for when I got to 'Frisco I read as how I was

drowned. And then I reckoned it was all right, and I wandered HERE,

where I wasn't known--until I saw you.”

“But why should you want to die?” said Wayne, almost fiercely. “What

right have you to die while others--double-dyed and blood-stained, are

condemned to live, 'testify,' and suffer?”

The dying man feebly waved a deprecation with his maimed hand, and even

smiled faintly. “I knew you'd say that. I knew what you'd think about

it, but it's all the same now. I did it for you and Safie! I knew I was

in the way; I knew you was the man she orter had; I knew you was the man

who had dragged her outer the mire and clay where I was leavin' her, as

you did when she fell in the water. I knew that every day I lived I was

makin' YOU suffer and breakin' HER heart--for all she tried to be gentle

and gay.”

“Great God in heaven! Will you stop!” said Wayne, springing to his feet

in agony. A frightened look--the first that any one had ever seen in

the clear eyes of the Bell-ringer of Angel's--passed over them, and he

murmured tremulously: “All right--I'm stoppin'!”

So, too, was his heart, for the wonderful eyes were now slowly glazing.

Yet he rallied once more--coming up again the third time as it seemed

to Wayne--and his lips moved slowly. The preacher threw himself

despairingly on the ground beside him.

“Speak, brother! For God's sake, speak!”

It was his last whisper--so faint it might have been the first of his

freed soul. But he only said:--

“You're--followin'--me? You--understand--what--I--mean?”

JOHNNYBOY.

The vast dining-room of the Crustacean Hotel at Greyport, U. S., was

empty and desolate. It was so early in the morning that there was a

bedroom deshabille in the tucked-up skirts and bare legs of the

little oval breakfast-tables as they had just been left by the dusting

servants. The most stirring of travelers was yet abed, the most

enterprising of first-train catchers had not yet come down; there was

a breath of midsummer sleep still in the air; through the half-opened

windows that seemed to be yawning, the pinkish blue Atlantic beyond

heaved gently and slumberously, and drowsy early bathers crept into it

as to bed. Yet as I entered the room I saw that one of the little

tables in the corner was in reality occupied by a very small and very

extraordinary child. Seated in a high chair, attended by a dreamily

abstracted nurse on one side, an utterly perfunctory negro waiter on the

other, and an incongruous assortment of disregarded viands before

him, he was taking--or, rather, declining--his solitary breakfast. He

appeared to be a pale, frail, but rather pretty boy, with a singularly

pathetic combination of infant delicacy of outline and maturity of

expression. His heavily fringed eyes expressed an already weary and

discontented intelligence, and his willful, resolute little mouth was, I

fancied, marked with lines of pain at either corner. He struck me as not

only being physically dyspeptic, but as morally loathing his attendants

and surroundings.

My entrance did not disturb the waiter, with whom I had no financial

relations; he simply concealed an exaggerated yawn professionally behind

his napkin until my own servitor should appear. The nurse slightly awoke

from her abstraction, shoved the child mechanically,--as if starting

up some clogged machinery,--said, “Eat your breakfast, Johnnyboy,” and

subsided into her dream. I think the child had at first some faint hope

of me, and when my waiter appeared with my breakfast he betrayed some

interest in my selection, with a view of possible later appropriation,

but, as my repast was simple, that hope died out of his infant mind.

Then there was a silence, broken at last by the languid voice of the

nurse:--

“Try some milk then--nice milk.”

“No! No mik! Mik makes me sick--mik does!”

In spite of the hurried infantine accent the protest was so emphatic,

and, above all, fraught with such pent-up reproach and disgust, that I

turned about sympathetically. But Johnnyboy had already thrown down his

spoon, slipped from his high chair, and was marching out of the room as

fast as his little sandals would carry him, with indignation bristling

in every line of the crisp bows of his sash.

I, however, gathered from Mr. Johnson, my waiter, that the unfortunate

child owned a fashionable father and mother, one or two blocks of

houses in New York, and a villa at Greyport, which he consistently and

intelligently despised. That he had imperiously brought his parents

here on account of his health, and had demanded that he should breakfast

alone in the big dining-room. That, however, he was not happy. “Nuffin

peahs to agree wid him, Sah, but he doan' cry, and he speaks his mind,

Sah; he speaks his mind.”

Unfortunately, I did not keep Johnnyboy's secret, but related the scene

I had witnessed to some of the lighter-hearted Crustaceans of either

sex, with the result that his alliterative protest became a sort of

catchword among them, and that for the next few mornings he had a large

audience of early breakfasters, who fondly hoped for a repetition of

his performance. I think that Johnnyboy for the time enjoyed

this companionship, yet without the least affectation or

self-consciousness--so long as it was unobtrusive. It so chanced,

however, that the Rev. Mr. Belcher, a gentleman with bovine lightness

of touch, and a singular misunderstanding of childhood, chose to

presume upon his paternal functions. Approaching the high chair in which

Johnnyboy was dyspeptically reflecting, with a ponderous wink at the

other guests, and a fat thumb and forefinger on Johnnyboy's table, he

leaned over him, and with slow, elephantine playfulness said:--

“And so, my dear young friend, I understand that 'mik makes you

sick--mik does.'”

Anything approaching to the absolute likeness of this imitation of

Johnnyboy's accents it is impossible to conceive. Possibly Johnnyboy

felt it. But he simply lifted his lovely lashes, and said with great

distinctness:--

“Mik don't--you devil!”

After this, closely as it had knitted us together, Johnnyboy's morning

presence was mysteriously withdrawn. It was later pointed out to us by

Mr. Belcher, upon the veranda, that, although Wealth had its privileges,

it was held in trust for the welfare of Mankind, and that the children

of the Rich could not too early learn the advantages of Self-restraint

and the vanity of a mere gratification of the Senses. Early and frequent

morning ablutions, brisk morning toweling, half of a Graham biscuit in

a teacup of milk, exercise with the dumb-bells, and a little

rough-and-tumble play in a straw hat, check apron, and overalls would

eventually improve that stamina necessary for his future Position, and

repress a dangerous cerebral activity and tendency to give way to--He

suddenly stopped, coughed, and absolutely looked embarrassed. Johnnyboy,

a moving cloud of white pique, silk, and embroidery, had just turned

the corner of the veranda. He did not speak, but as he passed raised

his blue-veined lids to the orator. The look of ineffable scorn and

superiority in those beautiful eyes surpassed anything I had ever seen.

At the next veranda column he paused, and, with his baby thumbs inserted

in his silk sash, again regarded him under his half-dropped lashes as

if he were some curious animal, and then passed on. But Belcher was

silenced for the second time.

I think I have said enough to show that Johnnyboy was hopelessly

worshiped by an impressible and illogical sex. I say HOPELESSLY, for

he slipped equally from the proudest silken lap and the humblest one

of calico, and carried his eyelashes and small aches elsewhere. I think

that a secret fear of his alarming frankness, and his steady rejection

of the various tempting cates they offered him, had much to do with

their passion. “It won't hurt you, dear,” said Miss Circe, “and it's so

awfully nice. See!” she continued, putting one of the delicacies in

her own pretty mouth with every assumption of delight. “It's SO good!”

Johnnyboy rested his elbows on her knees, and watched her with a grieved

and commiserating superiority. “Bimeby, you'll have pains in youse

tommick, and you'll be tookt to bed,” he said sadly, “and then

you'll--have to dit up and”--But as it was found necessary here to

repress further details, he escaped other temptation.

Two hours later, as Miss Circe was seated in the drawing-room with her

usual circle of enthusiastic admirers around her, Johnnyboy--who was

issued from his room for circulation, two or three times a day, as a

genteel advertisement of his parents--floated into the apartment in a

new dress and a serious demeanor. Sidling up to Miss Circe he laid a

phial--evidently his own pet medicine--on her lap, said, “For youse

tommikake to-night,” and vanished. Yet I have reason to believe that

this slight evidence of unusual remembrance on Johnnyboy's part more

than compensated for its publicity, and for a few days Miss Circe was

quite “set up” by it.

It was through some sympathy of this kind that I first gained

Johnnyboy's good graces. I had been presented with a small pocket case

of homoeopathic medicines, and one day on the beach I took out one of

the tiny phials and, dropping two or three of the still tinier pellets

in my hand, swallowed them. To my embarrassment, a small hand presently

grasped my trouser-leg. I looked down; it was Johnnyboy, in a new and

ravishing smuggler suit, with his questioning eyes fixed on mine.

“Howjer do dat?”

“Eh?”

“Wajer do dat for?”

“That?--Oh, that's medicine. I've got a headache.”

He searched the inmost depths of my soul with his wonderful eyes. Then,

after a pause, he held out his baby palm.

“You kin give Johnny some.”

“But you haven't got headache--have you?”

“Me alluz has.”

“Not ALWAYS.”

He nodded his head rapidly. Then added slowly, and with great

elaboration, “Et mo'nins, et affernoons, et nights, 'nd mo'nins adain.

'N et becker” (i. e., breakfast).

There was no doubt it was the truth. Those eyes did not seem to be in

the habit of lying. After all, the medicine could not hurt him. His

nurse was at a little distance gazing absently at the sea. I sat down

on a bench, and dropped a few of the pellets into his palm. He ate

them seriously, and then turned around and backed--after the well-known

appealing fashion of childhood--against my knees. I understood the

movement--although it was unlike my idea of Johnnyboy. However, I

raised him to my lap--with the sensation of lifting a dozen lace-edged

handkerchiefs, and with very little more effort--where he sat silently

for a moment, with his sandals crossed pensively before him.

“Wouldn't you like to go and play with those children?” I asked,

pointing to a group of noisy sand levelers not far away.

“No!” After a pause, “You wouldn't neither.”

“Why?”

“Hediks.”

“But,” I said, “perhaps if you went and played with them and ran up and

down as they do, you wouldn't have headache.”

Johnnyboy did not answer for a moment; then there was a perceptible

gentle movement of his small frame. I confess I felt brutally like

Belcher. He was getting down.

Once down he faced me, lifted his frank eyes, said, “Do way and play

den,” smoothed down his smuggler frock, and rejoined his nurse.

But although Johnnyboy afterwards forgave my moral defection, he did not

seem to have forgotten my practical medical ministration, and our brief

interview had a surprising result. From that moment he confounded his

parents and doctors by resolutely and positively refusing to take any

more of their pills, tonics, or drops. Whether from a sense of

loyalty to me, or whether he was not yet convinced of the efficacy of

homoeopathy, he did not suggest a substitute, declare his preferences,

or even give his reasons, but firmly and peremptorily declined his

present treatment. And, to everybody's astonishment, he did not seem a

bit the worse for it.

Still he was not strong, and his continual aversion to childish sports

and youthful exercise provoked the easy criticism of that large part

of humanity who are ready to confound cause and effect, and such brief

moments as the Sluysdaels could spare him from their fashionable duties

were made miserable to them by gratuitous suggestions and plans for

their child's improvement. It was noticeable, however, that few of them

were ever offered to Johnnyboy personally. He had a singularly direct

way of dealing with them, and a precision of statement that was

embarrassing.

One afternoon, Jack Bracy drove up to the veranda of the Crustacean

with a smart buggy and spirited thoroughbred for Miss Circe's especial

driving, and his own saddle-horse on which he was to accompany her.

Jack had dismounted, a groom held his saddle-horse until the young lady

should appear, and he himself stood at the head of the thoroughbred. As

Johnnyboy, leaning against the railing, was regarding the turnout

with ill-concealed disdain, Jack, in the pride of his triumph over his

rivals, good-humoredly offered to put him in the buggy, and allow him to

take the reins. Johnnyboy did not reply.

“Come along!” continued Jack, “it will do you a heap of good! It's

better than lazing there like a girl! Rouse up, old man!”

“Me don't like that geegee,” said Johnnyboy calmly. “He's a silly fool.”

“You're afraid,” said Jack.

Johnnyboy lifted his proud lashes, and toddled to the steps. Jack

received him in his arms, swung him into the seat, and placed the slim

yellow reins in his baby hands.

“Now you feel like a man, and not like a girl!” said Jack. “Eh, what?

Oh, I beg your pardon.”

For Miss Circe had appeared--had absolutely been obliged to wait a

whole half-minute unobserved--and now stood there a dazzling but pouting

apparition. In eagerly turning to receive her, Jack's foot slipped on

the step, and he fell. The thoroughbred started, gave a sickening plunge

forward, and was off! But so, too, was Jack, the next moment, on his own

horse, and before Miss Circe's screams had died away.

For two blocks on Ocean Avenue, passersby that afternoon saw a strange

vision. A galloping horse careering before a light buggy, in which a

small child, seated upright, was grasping the tightened reins. But so

erect and composed was the little face and figure--albeit as white

as its own frock--that for an instant they did not grasp its awful

significance. Those further along, however, read the whole awful story

in the drawn face and blazing eyes of Jack Bracy as he, at last, swung

into the Avenue. For Jack had the brains as well as the nerve of your

true hero, and, knowing the dangerous stimulus of a stern chase to

a frightened horse, had kept a side road until it branched into the

Avenue. So furious had been his pace, and so correct his calculation,

that he ranged alongside of the runaway even as it passed, grasped the

reins, and, in half a block, pulled up on even wheels.

“I never saw such pluck in a mite like that,” he whispered afterwards to

his anxious auditory. “He never dropped those ribbons, by G--, until I

got alongside, and then he just hopped down and said, as short and cool

as you please, 'Dank you!'”

“Me didn't,” uttered a small voice reproachfully.

“Didn't you, dear! What DID you say then, darling?” exclaimed a

sympathizing chorus.

“Me said: 'Damn you!' Me don't like silly fool geegees. Silly fool

geegees make me sick--silly fool geegees do!”

Nevertheless, in spite of this incident, the attempts at Johnnyboy's

physical reformation still went on. More than that, it was argued by

some complacent casuists that the pluck displayed by the child was the

actual result of this somewhat heroic method of taking exercise, and NOT

an inherent manliness distinct from his physical tastes. So he was made

to run when he didn't want to--to dance when he frankly loathed his

partners--to play at games that he despised. His books and pictures were

taken away; he was hurried past hoardings and theatrical posters that

engaged his fancy; the public was warned against telling him fairy

tales, except those constructed on strictly hygienic principles.

His fastidious cleanliness was rebuked, and his best frocks taken

away--albeit at a terrible sacrifice of his parents' vanity--to suit

the theories of his critics. How long this might have continued is not

known--for the theory and practice were suddenly arrested by another

sensation.

One morning a children's picnic party was given on a rocky point only

accessible at certain states of the tide, whither they were taken in a

small boat under the charge of a few hotel servants, and, possibly as

part of his heroic treatment, Johnnyboy, who was included in the party,

was not allowed to be attended by his regular nurse.

Whether this circumstance added to his general disgust of the whole

affair, and his unwillingness to go, I cannot say, but it is to be

regretted, since the omission deprived Johnnyboy of any impartial

witness to what subsequently occurred. That he was somewhat roughly

handled by several of the larger children appeared to be beyond doubt,

although there was conflicting evidence as to the sequel. Enough that

at noon screams were heard in the direction of certain detached rocks

on the point, and the whole party proceeding thither found three of the

larger boys on the rocks, alone and cut off by the tide, having been

left there, as they alleged, by Johnnyboy, WHO HAD RUN AWAY WITH THE

BOAT. They subsequently admitted that THEY had first taken the boat and

brought Johnnyboy with them, “just to frighten him,” but they adhered to

the rest. And certainly Johnnyboy and the boat were nowhere to be found.

The shore was communicated with, the alarm was given, the telegraph,

up and down the coast trilled with excitement, other boats were

manned--consternation prevailed.

But that afternoon the captain of the “Saucy Jane,” mackerel fisher,

lying off the point, perceived a derelict “Whitehall” boat drifting

lazily towards the Gulf Stream. On boarding it he was chagrined to find

the expected flotsam already in the possession of a very small child,

who received him with a scornful reticence as regarded himself and his

intentions, and some objurgation of a person or persons unknown. It was

Johnnyboy. But whether he had attempted the destruction of the three

other boys by “marooning” them upon the rocks--as their parents firmly

believed--or whether he had himself withdrawn from their company simply

because he did not like them, was never known. Any further attempt to

improve his education by the roughing gregarious process was, however,

abandoned. The very critics who had counseled it now clamored for

restraint and perfect isolation. It was ably pointed out by the Rev.

Mr. Belcher that the autocratic habits begotten by wealth and pampering

should be restricted, and all intercourse with their possessor promptly

withheld.

But the season presently passed with much of this and other criticism,

and the Sluysdaels passed too, carrying Johnnyboy and his small aches

and long eyelashes beyond these Crustacean voices, where it was to be

hoped there was peace. I did not hear of him again for five years,

and then, oddly enough, from the lips of Mr. Belcher on the deck of

a transatlantic steamer, as he was being wafted to Europe for his

recreation by the prayers and purses of a grateful and enduring flock.

“Master John Jacob Astor Sluysdael,” said Mr. Belcher, speaking

slowly, with great precision of retrospect, “was taken from his private

governess--I may say by my advice--and sent to an admirable school in

New York, fashioned upon the English system of Eton and Harrow, and

conducted by English masters from Oxford and Cambridge. Here--I may

also say at my suggestion--he was subjected to the wholesome discipline

equally of his schoolmates and his masters; in fact, sir, as you are

probably aware, the most perfect democracy that we have yet known,

in which the mere accidents of wealth, position, luxury, effeminacy,

physical degeneration, and over-civilized stimulation, are not

recognized. He was put into compulsory cricket, football, and rounders.

As an undersized boy he was subjected to that ingenious preparation for

future mastership by the pupillary state of servitude known, I think,

as 'fagging.' His physical inertia was stimulated and quickened, and his

intellectual precocity repressed, from time to time, by the exuberant

playfulness of his fellow-students, which occasionally took the form

of forced ablutions and corporal discomfort, and was called, I am

told, 'hazing.' It is but fair to state that our young friend had some

singular mental endowments, which, however, were promptly checked to

repress the vanity and presumption that would follow.” The Rev. Mr.

Belcher paused, closed his eyes resignedly, and added, “Of course, you

know the rest.”

“Indeed, I do not,” I said anxiously.

“A most deplorable affair--indeed, a most shocking incident! It was

hushed up, I believe, on account of the position of his parents.” He

glanced furtively around, and in a lower and more impressive voice said,

“I am not myself a believer in heredity, and I am not personally aware

that there was a MURDERER among the Sluysdael ancestry, but it seems

that this monstrous child, in some clandestine way, possessed himself of

a huge bowie-knife, sir, and on one of those occasions actually rushed

furiously at the larger boys--his innocent play-fellows--and absolutely

forced them to flee in fear of their lives. More than that, sir, a

LOADED REVOLVER was found in his desk, and he boldly and shamelessly

avowed his intention to eviscerate, or--to use his own revolting

language--'to cut the heart out' of the first one who again 'laid a

finger on him.'” He paused again, and, joining his two hands together

with the fingers pointing to the deck, breathed hard and said, “His

instantaneous withdrawal from the school was a matter of public

necessity. He was afterwards taken, in the charge of a private tutor, to

Europe, where, I trust, we shall NOT meet.”

I could not resist saying cheerfully that, at least, Johnnyboy had for a

short time made it lively for the big boys.

The Rev. Mr. Belcher rose slowly, but painfully, said with a deeply

grieved expression, “I don't think that I entirely follow you,” and

moved gently away.

The changes of youth are apt to be more bewildering than those of age,

and a decade scarcely perceptible in an old civilization often means

utter revolution to the new. It did not seem strange to me, therefore,

on meeting Jack Bracy twelve years after, to find that he had forgotten

Miss Circe, or that SHE had married, and was living unhappily with a

middle-aged adventurer by the name of Jason, who was reputed to have had

domestic relations elsewhere. But although subjugated and exorcised,

she at least was reminiscent. To my inquiries about the Sluysdaels, she

answered with a slight return of her old vivacity:--

“Ah, yes, dear fellow, he was one of my greatest admirers.”

“He was about four years old when you knew him, wasn't he?” suggested

Jason meanly. “Yes, they usually WERE young, but so kind of you to

recollect them. Young Sluysdael,” he continued, turning to me, “is--but

of course you know that disgraceful story.”

I felt that I could stand this no longer. “Yes,” I said indignantly,

“I know all about the school, and I don't call his conduct disgraceful

either.”

Jason stared. “I don't know what you mean about the school,” he

returned. “I am speaking of his stepfather.”

“His STEPFATHER!”

“Yes; his father, Van Buren Sluysdael, died, you know--a year after they

left Greyport. The widow was left all the money in trust for Johnny,

except about twenty-five hundred a year which he was in receipt of as a

separate income, even as a boy. Well, a glib-tongued parson, a fellow by

the name of Belcher, got round the widow--she was a desperate fool--and,

by Jove! made her marry him. He made ducks and drakes of not only her

money, but Johnny's too, and had to skip to Spain to avoid the trustees.

And Johnny--for the Sluysdaels are all fools or lunatics--made over his

whole separate income to that wretched, fashionable fool of a mother,

and went into a stockbroker's office as a clerk.”

“And walks to business before eight every morning, and they say even

takes down the shutters and sweeps out,” broke in Circe impulsively.

“Works like a slave all day, wears out his old clothes, has given up his

clubs and amusements, and shuns society.”

“But how about his health?” I asked. “Is he better and stronger?”

“I don't know,” said Circe, “but he LOOKS as beautiful as Endymion.”

*****

At his bank, in Wall Street, Bracy that afternoon confirmed all that

Jason had told me of young Sluysdael. “But his temper?” I asked. “You

remember his temper--surely.”

“He's as sweet as a lamb, never quarrels, never whines, never alludes to

his lost fortune, and is never put out. For a youngster, he's the most

popular man in the street. Shall we nip round and see him?”

“By all means.”

“Come. It isn't far.”

A few steps down the crowded street we dived into a den of plate-glass

windows, of scraps of paper, of rattling, ticking machines, more voluble

and excited than the careworn, abstracted men who leaned over them. But

“Johnnyboy”--I started at the familiar name again--was not there. He was

at luncheon.

“Let us join him,” I said, as we gained the street again and turned

mechanically into Delmonico's.

“Not there,” said Bracy with a laugh. “You forget! That's not

Johnnyboy's gait just now. Come here.” He was descending a few steps

that led to a humble cake-shop. As we entered I noticed a young fellow

standing before the plain wooden counter with a cake of gingerbread in

one hand and a glass of milk in the other. His profile was before me;

I at once recognized the long lashes. But the happy, boyish, careless

laugh that greeted Bracy, as he presented me, was a revelation.

Yet he was pleased to remember me. And then--it may have been

embarrassment that led me to such tactlessness, but as I glanced at him

and the glass of milk he was holding, I could not help reminding him of

the first words I had ever heard him utter.

He tossed off the glass, colored slightly, as I thought, and said with a

light laugh:--

“I suppose I have changed a good deal since then, sir.”

I looked at his demure and resolute mouth, and wondered if he had.

YOUNG ROBIN GRAY.

The good American barque Skyscraper was swinging at her moorings in

the Clyde, off Bannock, ready for sea. But that good American

barque--although owned in Baltimore--had not a plank of American timber

in her hulk, nor a native American in her crew, and even her nautical

“goodness” had been called into serious question by divers of that

crew during her voyage, and answered more or less inconclusively

with belaying-pins, marlin-spikes, and ropes' ends at the hands of an

Irish-American captain and a Dutch and Danish mate. So much so, that

the mysterious powers of the American consul at St. Kentigern had been

evoked to punish mutiny on the one hand, and battery and starvation

on the other; both equally attested by manifestly false witness and

subornation on each side. In the exercise of his functions the consul

had opened and shut some jail doors, and otherwise effected the usual

sullen and deceitful compromise, and his flag was now flying, on a final

visit, from the stern sheets of a smart boat alongside. It was with a

feeling of relief at the end of the interview that he at last lifted his

head above an atmosphere of perjury and bilge-water and came on deck.

The sun and wind were ruffling and glinting on the broadening river

beyond the “measured mile”; a few gulls were wavering and dipping near

the lee scuppers, and the sound of Sabbath bells, mellowed by a distance

that secured immunity of conscience, came peacefully to his ear.

“Now that job's over ye'll be takin' a partin' dhrink,” suggested the

captain.

The consul thought not. Certain incidents of “the job” were fresh in his

memory, and he proposed to limit himself to his strict duty.

“You have some passengers, I see,” he said, pointing to a group of two

men and a young girl, who had apparently just come aboard.

“Only wan; an engineer going out to Rio. Them's just his friends seein'

him off, I'm thinkin',” returned the captain, surveying them somewhat

contemptuously.

The consul was a little disturbed. He wondered if the passenger knew

anything of the quality and reputation of the ship to which he was

entrusting his fortunes. But he was only a PASSENGER, and the consul's

functions--like those of the aloft-sitting cherub of nautical song--were

restricted exclusively to looking after “Poor Jack.” However, he asked a

few further questions, eliciting the fact that the stranger had already

visited the ship with letters from the eminently respectable consignees

at St. Kentigern, and contented himself with lingering near them. The

young girl was accompanied by her father, a respectably rigid-looking

middle-class tradesman, who, however, seemed to be more interested in

the novelty of his surroundings than in the movements of his daughter

and their departing friend. So it chanced that the consul re-entered

the cabin--ostensibly in search of a missing glove, but really with the

intention of seeing how the passenger was bestowed--just behind them.

But to his great embarrassment he at once perceived that, owing to the

obscurity of the apartment, they had not noticed him, and before he

could withdraw, the man had passed his arm around the young girl's half

stiffened, yet half yielding figure.

“Only one, Ailsa,” he pleaded in a slow, serious voice, pathetic from

the very absence of any youthful passion in it; “just one now. It'll be

gey lang before we meet again. Ye'll not refuse me now.”

The young girl's lips seemed to murmur some protest that, however, was

lost in the beginning of a long and silent kiss.

The consul slipped out softly. His smile had died away. That

unlooked-for touch of human weakness seemed to purify the stuffy and

evil-reeking cabin, and the recollection of its brutal past to drop with

a deck-load of iniquity behind him to the bottom of the Clyde. It is

to be feared that in his unofficial moments he was inclined to be

sentimental, and it seemed to him that the good ship Skyscraper

henceforward carried an innocent freight not mentioned in her manifest,

and that a gentle, ever-smiling figure, not entered on her books, had

invisibly taken a place at her wheel.

But he was recalled to himself by a slight altercation on deck. The

young girl and the passenger had just returned from the cabin. The

consul, after a discreetly careless pause, had lifted his eyes to the

young girl's face, and saw that it was singularly pretty in color and

outline, but perfectly self-composed and serenely unconscious. And he

was a little troubled to observe that the passenger was a middle-aged

man, whose hard features were already considerably worn with trial and

experience.

Both he and the girl were listening with sympathizing but cautious

interest to her father's contention with the boatman who had brought

them from shore, and who was now inclined to demand an extra fee for

returning with them. The boatman alleged that he had been detained

beyond “kirk time,” and that this imperiling of his salvation could

only be compensated by another shilling. To the consul's surprise,

this extraordinary argument was recognized by the father, who, however,

contented himself by simply contending that it had not been stipulated

in the bargain. The issue was, therefore, limited, and the discussion

progressed slowly and deliberately, with a certain calm dignity and

argumentative satisfaction on both sides that exalted the subject,

though it irritated the captain.

“If ye accept the premisses that I've just laid down, that it's a

contract”---began the boatman.

“Dry up! and haul off,” said the captain.

“One moment,” interposed the consul, with a rapid glance at the slight

trouble in the young girl's face. Turning to the father, he went on:

“Will you allow me to offer you and your daughter a seat in my boat?”

It was an unlooked-for and tempting proposal. The boatman was lazily

lying on his oars, secure in self-righteousness and the conscious

possession of the only available boat to shore; on the other hand, the

smart gig of the consul, with its four oars, was not only a providential

escape from a difficulty, but even to some extent a quasi-official

endorsement of his contention. Yet he hesitated.

“It'll be costin' ye no more?” he said interrogatively, glancing at the

consul's boat crew, “or ye'll be askin' me a fair proportion.”

“It will be the gentleman's own boat,” said the girl, with a certain shy

assurance, “and he'll be paying his boatmen by the day.”

The consul hastened to explain that their passage would involve no

additional expense to anybody, and added, tactfully, that he was glad to

enable them to oppose extortion.

“Ay, but it's a preencipel,” said the father proudly, “and I'm pleased,

sir, to see ye recognize it.”

He proceeded to help his daughter into the boat without any further

leave-taking of the passenger, to the consul's great surprise, and with

only a parting nod from the young girl. It was as if this momentous

incident were a sufficient reason for the absence of any further trivial

sentiment.

Unfortunately the father chose to add an exordium for the benefit of the

astonished boatsman still lying on his oars.

“Let this be a lesson to ye, ma frien', when ye're ower sure! Ye'll

ne'er say a herrin' is dry until it be reestit an' reekit.”

“Ay,” said the boatman, with a lazy, significant glance at the consul,

“it wull be a lesson to me not to trust to a lassie's GANGIN' jo, when

thair's anither yin comin'.”

“Give way,” said the consul sharply.

Yet his was the only irritated face in the boat as the men bent over

their oars. The young girl and her father looked placidly at the

receding ship, and waved their hands to the grave, resigned face over

the taffrail. The consul examined them more attentively. The father's

face showed intelligence and a certain probity in its otherwise

commonplace features. The young girl had more distinction, with,

perhaps, more delicacy of outline than of texture. Her hair was dark,

with a burnished copper tint at its roots, and eyes that had the same

burnished metallic lustre in their brown pupils. Both sat respectfully

erect, as if anxious to record the fact that the boat was not their

own to take their ease in; and both were silently reserved, answering

briefly to the consul's remarks as if to indicate the formality of

their presence there. But a distant railway whistle startled them into

emotion.

“We've lost the train, father!” said the young girl.

The consul followed the direction of her anxious eyes; the train was

just quitting the station at Bannock.

“If ye had not lingered below with Jamie, we'd have been away in time,

ay, and in our own boat,” said the father, with marked severity.

The consul glanced quickly at the girl. But her face betrayed no

consciousness, except of their present disappointment.

“There's an excursion boat coming round the Point,” he said, pointing

to the black smoke trail of a steamer at the entrance of a loch, “and it

will be returning to St. Kentigern shortly. If you like, we'll pull over

and put you aboard.”

“Eh! but it's the Sabbath-breaker!” said the old man harshly.

The consul suddenly remembered that that was the name which the

righteous St. Kentigerners had given to the solitary bold, bad

pleasure-boat that defied their Sabbatical observances.

“Perhaps you won't find very pleasant company on board,” said the consul

smiling; “but, then, you're not seeking THAT. And as you would be only

using the boat to get back to your home, and not for Sunday recreation,

I don't think your conscience should trouble you.”

“Ay, that's a fine argument, Mr. Consul, but I'm thinkin' it's none the

less sopheestry for a' that,” said the father grimly. “No; if ye'll just

land us yonder at Bannock pier, we'll be ay thankin' ye the same.”

“But what will you do there? There's no other train to-day.”

“Ay, we'll walk on a bit.”

The consul was silent. After a pause the young girl lifted her clear

eyes, and with a half pathetic, half childish politeness, said: “We'll

be doing very well--my father and me. You're far too kind.”

Nothing further was said as they began to thread their way between a

few large ships and an ocean steamer at anchor, from whose decks a few

Sunday-clothed mariners gazed down admiringly on the smart gig and the

pretty girl in a Tam o' Shanter in its stern sheets. But here a new

idea struck the consul. A cable's length ahead lay a yacht, owned by an

American friend, and at her stern a steam launch swung to its painter.

Without intimating his intention to his passengers he steered for it.

“Bow!--way enough,” he called out as the boat glided under the yacht's

counter, and, grasping the companion-ladder ropes, he leaped aboard. In

a few hurried words he explained the situation to Mr. Robert Gray, her

owner, and suggested that he should send the belated passengers to St.

Kentigern by the launch. Gray assented with the easy good-nature of

youth, wealth, and indolence, and lounged from his cabin to the side.

The consul followed. Looking down upon the boat he could not help

observing that his fair young passenger, sitting in her demure stillness

at her father's side, made a very pretty picture. It was possible that

“Bob Gray” had made the same observation, for he presently swung himself

over the gangway into the gig, hat in hand. The launch could easily take

them; in fact, he added unblushingly, it was even then getting up steam

to go to St. Kentigern. Would they kindly come on board until it was

ready? At an added word or two of explanation from the consul, the

father accepted, preserving the same formal pride and stiffness, and the

transfer was made. The consul, looking back as his gig swept round again

towards Bannock pier, received their parting salutations, and the first

smile he had seen on the face of his grave little passenger. He thought

it very sweet and sad.

He did not return to the Consulate at St. Kentigern until the next day.

But he was somewhat surprised to find Mr. Robert Gray awaiting him, and

upon some business which the young millionaire could have easily deputed

to his captain or steward. As he still lingered, the consul pleasantly

referred to his generosity on the previous day, and hoped the passengers

had given him no trouble.

“No,” said Gray with a slight simulation of carelessness. “In fact I

came up with them myself. I had nothing to do; it was Sunday, you know.”

The consul lifted his eyebrows slightly.

“Yes, I saw them home,” continued Gray lightly. “In one of those

by-streets not far from here; neat-looking house outside; inside,

corkscrew stone staircase like a lighthouse; fourth floor, no lift, but

SHE circled up like a swallow! Flat--sitting-room, two bedrooms, and

a kitchen--mighty snug and shipshape and pretty as a pink. They OWN it

too--fancy OWNING part of a house! Seems to be a way they have here in

St. Kentigern.” He paused and then added: “Stayed there to a kind of

high tea!”

“Indeed,” said the consul.

“Why not? The old man wanted to return my 'hospitality' and square the

account! He wasn't going to lie under any obligation to a stranger, and,

by Jove! he made it a special point of honor! A Spanish grandee couldn't

have been more punctilious. And with an accent, Jerusalem! like a

northeaster off the Banks! But the feed was in good taste, and he only a

mathematical instrument maker, on about twelve hundred dollars a year!”

“You seem to know all about him,” said the consul smilingly.

“Not so much as he does about me,” returned Gray, with a half perplexed

face; “for he saw enough to admonish me about my extravagance, and even

to intimate that that rascal Saunderson, my steward, was imposing on me.

SHE took me to task, too, for not laying the yacht up on Sunday that the

men could go 'to kirk,' and for swearing at a bargeman who ran across

our bows. It's their perfect simplicity and sincerity in all this that

gets me! You'd have thought that the old man was my guardian, and the

daughter my aunt.” After a pause he uttered a reminiscent laugh. “She

thought we ate and drank too much on the yacht, and wondered what we

could find to do all day. All this, you know, in the gentlest, caressing

sort of voice, as if she was really concerned, like one's own sister.

Well, not exactly like mine”--he interrupted himself grimly--“but, hang

it all, you know what I mean. You know that our girls over there haven't

got THAT trick of voice. Too much self-assertion, I reckon; things made

too easy for them by us men. Habit of race, I dare say.” He laughed a

little. “Why, I mislaid my glove when I was coming away, and it was as

good as a play to hear her commiserating and sympathizing, and hunting

for it as if it were a lost baby.”

“But you've seen Scotch girls before this,” said the consul. “There were

Lady Glairn's daughters, whom you took on a cruise.”

“Yes, but the swell Scotch all imitate the English, as everybody else

does, for the matter of that, our girls included; and they're all alike.

Society makes 'em fit in together like tongued and grooved planks that

will take any amount of holy-stoning and polish. It's like dropping into

a dead calm, with every rope and spar that you know already reflected

back from the smooth water upon you. It's mighty pretty, but it isn't

getting on, you know.” After a pause he added: “I asked them to take a

little holiday cruise with me.”

“And they declined,” interrupted the consul.

Gray glanced at him quickly.

“Well, yes; that's all right enough. They don't know me, you see, but

they do know you; and the fact is, I was thinking that as you're our

consul here, don't you see, and sort of responsible for me, you might

say that it was all right, you know. Quite the customary thing with us

over there. And you might say, generally, who I am.”

“I see,” said the consul deliberately. “Tell them you're Bob Gray, with

more money and time than you know what to do with; that you have a

fine taste for yachting and shooting and racing, and amusing yourself

generally; that you find that THEY amuse you, and you would like your

luxury and your dollars to stand as an equivalent to their independence

and originality; that, being a good republican yourself, and recognizing

no distinction of class, you don't care what this may mean to them, who

are brought up differently; that after their cruise with you you don't

care what life, what friends, or what jealousies they return to; that

you know no ties, no responsibilities beyond the present, and that you

are not a marrying man.”

“Look here, I say, aren't you making a little too much of this?” said

Gray stiffly.

The consul laughed. “I should be glad to know that I am.”

Gray rose. “We'll be dropping down the river to-morrow,” he said, with

a return of his usual lightness, “and I reckon I'll be toddling down to

the wharf. Good-bye, if I don't see you again.”

He passed out. As the consul glanced from the window he observed,

however, that Mr. Gray was “toddling” in quite another direction than

the wharf. For an instant he half regretted that he had not suggested,

in some discreet way, the conclusion he had arrived at after witnessing

the girl's parting with the middle-aged passenger the day before. But he

reflected that this was something he had only accidentally overseen, and

was the girl's own secret.

II.

When the summer had so waxed in its fullness that the smoke of factory

chimneys drifted high, permitting glimpses of fairly blue sky; when the

grass in St. Kentigern's proudest park took on a less sober green in the

comfortable sun, and even in the thickest shade there was no chilliness,

the good St. Kentigerners recognized that the season had arrived to go

“down the river,” and that it was time for them to betake themselves,

with rugs, mackintoshes, and umbrellas, to the breezy lochs and misty

hillsides for which the neighborhood of St. Kentigern is justly famous.

So when it came to pass that the blinds were down in the highest places,

and the most exclusive pavements of St. Kentigern were echoless and

desolate, the consul heroically tore himself from the weak delight of

basking in the sunshine, and followed the others.

He soon found himself settled at the furthest end of a long narrow loch,

made longer and narrower by the steep hillside of rock and heather which

flanked its chilly surface on either side, and whose inequalities were

lost in the firs and larches that filled ravine and chasm. The fragrant

road which ran sinuously through their shadowy depths was invisible from

the loch; no protuberance broke the seemingly sheer declivity; the even

sky-line was indented in two places--one where it was cracked into a

fanciful resemblance to a human profile, the other where it was curved

like a bowl. Need it be said that one was distinctly recognized as

the silhouette of a prehistoric giant, and that the other was his

drinking-cup; need it be added that neither lent the slightest human

suggestion to the solitude? A toy-like pier extending into the loch,

midway from the barren shore, only heightened the desolation. And when

the little steamboat that occasionally entered the loch took away a

solitary passenger from the pier-head, the simplest parting was invested

with a dreary loneliness that might have brought tears to the most

hardened eye.

Still, when the shadow of either hillside was not reaching across the

loch, the meridian sun, chancing upon this coy mirror, made the most of

it. Then it was that, seen from above, it flashed like a falchion lying

between the hills; then its reflected glory, striking up, transfigured

the two acclivities, tipped the cold heather with fire, gladdened the

funereal pines, and warmed the ascetic rocks. And it was in one of those

rare, passionate intervals that the consul, riding along the wooded

track and turning his eyes from their splendors, came upon a little

house.

It had once been a sturdy cottage, with a grim endurance and

inflexibility which even some later and lighter additions had softened

rather than changed. On either side of the door, against the bleak

whitewashed wall, two tall fuchsias relieved the rigid blankness with a

show of color. The windows were prettily draped with curtains caught up

with gay ribbons. In a stony pound-like enclosure there was some attempt

at floral cultivation, but all quite recent. So, too, were a wicker

garden seat, a bright Japanese umbrella, and a tropical hammock

suspended between two arctic-looking bushes, which the rude and rigid

forefathers of the hamlet would have probably resented.

He had just passed the house when a charming figure slipped across the

road before him. To his surprise it was the young girl he had met a few

months before on the Skyscraper. But the Tam o' Shanter was replaced by

a little straw hat; and a light dress, summery in color and texture,

but more in keeping with her rustic surroundings, seemed as grateful and

rare as the sunshine. Without knowing why, he had an impression that

it was of her own making--a gentle plagiarism of the style of her more

fortunate sisters, but with a demure restraint all her own. As she

recognized him a faint color came to her cheek, partly from surprise,

partly from some association. To his delighted greeting she responded by

informing him that her father had taken the cottage he had just passed,

where they were spending a three weeks' vacation from his business. It

was not so far from St. Kentigern but that he could run up for a day to

look after the shop. Did the consul not think it was wise?

Quite ready to assent to any sagacity in those clear brown eyes, the

consul thought it was. But was it not, like wisdom, sometimes lonely?

Ah! no. There was the loch and the hills and the heather; there were her

flowers; did he not think they were growing well? and at the head of the

loch there was the old tomb of the McHulishes, and some of the coffins

were still to be seen.

Perhaps emboldened by the consul's smile, she added, with a more serious

precision which was, however, lost in the sympathizing caress of her

voice, “And would you not be getting off and coming in and resting a wee

bit before you go further? It would be so good of you, and father would

think it so kind. And he will be there now, if you're looking.”

The consul looked. The old man was standing in the doorway of the

cottage, as respectably uncompromising as ever, with the slight

concession to his rural surroundings of wearing a Tam o' Shanter and

easy slippers. The consul dismounted and entered. The interior was

simply, but tastefully furnished. It struck him that the Scotch prudence

and economy, which practically excluded display and meretricious

glitter, had reached the simplicity of the truest art and the most

refined wealth. He felt he could understand Gray's enthusiasm, and by an

odd association of ideas he found himself thinking of the resigned face

of the lonely passenger on the Skyscraper.

“Have you heard any news of your friend who went to Rio?” he asked

pleasantly, but without addressing himself particularly to either.

There was a perceptible pause; doubtless of deference to her father

on the part of the young girl, and of the usual native conscientious

caution on the part of the father, but neither betrayed any

embarrassment or emotion. “No; he would not be writing yet,” she at

length said simply, “he would be waiting until he was settled to his

business. Jamie would be waiting until he could say how he was doing,

father?” she appealed interrogatively to the old man.

“Ay, James Gow would not fash himself to write compliments and gossip

till he knew his position and work,” corroborated the old man. “He'll

not be going two thousand miles to send us what we can read in the

'St. Kentigern Herald.' But,” he added, suddenly, with a recall of

cautiousness, “perhaps YOU will be hearing of the ship?”

“The consul will not be remembering what he hears of all the ships,”

interposed the young girl, with the same gentle affectation of superior

worldly knowledge which had before amused him. “We'll be wearying him,

father,” and the subject dropped.

The consul, glancing around the room again, but always returning to the

sweet and patient seriousness of the young girl's face and the grave

decorum of her father, would have liked to ask another question, but it

was presently anticipated; for when he had exhausted the current topics,

in which both father and daughter displayed a quiet sagacity, and he had

gathered a sufficient knowledge of their character to seem to justify

Gray's enthusiasm, and was rising to take his leave, the young girl said

timidly:--

“Would ye not let Bessie take your horse to the grass field over yonder,

and yourself stay with us to dinner? It would be most kind, and you

would meet a great friend of yours who will be here.”

“Mr. Gray?” suggested the consul audaciously. Yet he was greatly

surprised when the young girl said quietly, “Ay.”

“He'll be coming in the loch with his yacht,” said the old man. “It's

not so expensive lying here as at Bannock, I'm thinking; and the men

cannot gang ashore for drink. Eh, but it's an awful waste o' pounds,

shillings, and pence, keeping these gowks in idleness with no feeshin'

nor carrying of passengers.”

“Ay, but it's better Mr. Gray should pay them for being decent and

well-behaved on board his ship, than that they should be out of work

and rioting in taverns and lodging-houses. And you yourself, father,

remember the herrin' fishers that come ashore at Ardie, and the deck

hands of the excursion boat, and the language they'll be using.”

“Have you had a cruise in the yacht?” asked the consul quickly.

“Ay,” said the father, “we have been up and down the loch, and around

the far point, but not for boardin' or lodgin' the night, nor otherwise

conteenuing or parteecipating. I have explained to Mr. Gray that we

must return to our own home and our own porridge at evening, and he has

agreed, and even come with us. He's a decent enough lad, and not above

instructin', but extraordinar' extravagant.”

“Ye know, father,” interposed the young girl, “he talks of fitting up

the yacht for the fishing, and taking some of his most decent men on

shares. He says he was very fond of fishing off the Massachusetts coast,

in America. It will be, I'm thinking,” she said, suddenly turning to the

consul with an almost pathetic appeal in her voice, “a great occupation

for the rich young men over there.”

The consul, desperately struggling with a fanciful picture of Mr. Robert

Gray as a herring fisher, thought gravely that it “might be.” But he

thought still more gravely, though silently, of this singular companion

ship, and was somewhat anxious to confront his friend with his new

acquaintances. He had not long to wait. The sun was just dipping behind

the hill when the yacht glided into the lonely loch. A boat was put off,

and in a few moments Robert Gray was climbing the little path from the

loch.

Had the consul expected any embarrassment or lover-like consciousness

on the face of Mr. Gray at their unexpected meeting, he would have been

disappointed. Nor was the young man's greeting of father and daughter,

whom he addressed as Mr. and Miss Callender, marked by any tenderness or

hesitation. On the contrary, a certain seriousness and quiet reticence,

unlike Gray, which might have been borrowed from his new friends,

characterized his speech and demeanor. Beyond this freemasonry of sad

repression there was no significance of look or word passed between

these two young people. The girl's voice retained its even pathos.

Gray's grave politeness was equally divided between her and her father.

He corroborated what Callender had said of his previous visits without

affectation or demonstration; he spoke of the possibilities of his

fitting up the yacht for the fishing season with a practical detail and

economy that left the consul's raillery ineffective. Even when, after

dinner, the consul purposely walked out in the garden with the father,

Gray and Ailsa presently followed them without lingering or undue

precipitation, and with no change of voice or manner. The consul was

perplexed. Had the girl already told Gray of her lover across the sea,

and was this singular restraint their joint acceptance of their fate;

or was he mistaken in supposing that their relations were anything more

than the simple friendship of patron and protegee? Gray was rich enough

to indulge in such a fancy, and the father and daughter were too proud

to ever allow it to influence their own independence. In any event the

consul's right to divulge the secret he was accidentally possessed

of seemed more questionable than ever. Nor did there appear to be any

opportunity for a confidential talk with Gray, since it was proposed

that the whole party should return to the yacht for supper, after

which the consul should be dropped at the pier-head, distant only a few

minutes from his hotel, and his horse sent to him the next day.

A faint moon was shimmering along the surface of Loch Dour in icy little

ripples when they pulled out from the shadows of the hillside. By the

accident of position, Gray, who was steering, sat beside Ailsa in the

stern, while the consul and Mr. Callender were further forward, although

within hearing. The faces of the young people were turned towards each

other, yet in the cold moonlight the consul fancied they looked as

impassive and unemotional as statues. The few distant, far-spaced lights

that trembled on the fading shore, the lonely glitter of the water,

the blackness of the pine-clad ravines seemed to be a part of this

repression, until the vast melancholy of the lake appeared to meet and

overflow them like an advancing tide. Added to this, there came from

time to time the faint sound and smell of the distant, desolate sea.

The consul, struggling manfully to keep up a spasmodic discussion on

Scotch diminutives in names, found himself mechanically saying:

“And James you call Jamie?”

“Ay; but ye would say, to be pure Scotch, 'Hamish,'” said Mr. Callender

precisely. The girl, however, had not spoken; but Gray turned to her

with something of his old gayety.

“And I suppose you would call me 'Robbie'?”

“Ah, no!”

“What then?”

“Robin.”

Her voice was low yet distinct, but she had thrown into the two

syllables such infinite tenderness, that the consul was for an instant

struck with an embarrassment akin to that he had felt in the cabin of

the Skyscraper, and half expected the father to utter a shocked protest.

And to save what he thought would be an appalling silence, he said with

a quiet laugh:--

“That's the fellow who 'made the assembly shine' in the song, isn't it?”

“That was Robin Adair,” said Gray quietly; “unfortunately I would only

be 'Robin Gray,' and that's quite another song.”

“AULD Robin Gray, sir, deestinctly 'auld' in the song,” interrupted Mr.

Callender with stern precision; “and I'm thinking he was not so very

unfortunate either.”

The discussion of Scotch diminutives halting here, the boat sped on

silently to the yacht. But although Robert Gray, as host, recovered some

of his usual lightheartedness, the consul failed to discover anything

in his manner to indicate the lover, nor did Miss Ailsa after her single

lapse of tender accent exhibit the least consciousness. It was true that

their occasional frank allusions to previous conversations seemed to

show that their opportunities had not been restricted, but nothing more.

He began again to think he was mistaken.

As he wished to return early, and yet not hasten the Callenders, he

prevailed upon Gray to send him to the pier-head first, and not disturb

the party. As he stepped into the boat, something in the appearance

of the coxswain awoke an old association in his mind. The man at first

seemed to avoid his scrutiny, but when they were well away from the

yacht, he said hesitatingly:--

“I see you remember me, sir. But if it's all the same to you, I've got a

good berth here and would like to keep it.”

The consul had a flash of memory. It was the boatswain of the

Skyscraper, one of the least objectionable of the crew. “But what are

you doing here? you shipped for the voyage,” he said sharply.

“Yes, but I got away at Key West, when I knew what was coming. I wasn't

on her when she was abandoned.”

“Abandoned!” repeated the consul. “What the d---l! Do you mean to say she

was wrecked?”

“Well, yes--you know what I mean, sir. It was an understood thing. She

was over-insured and scuttled in the Bahamas. It was a put-up job, and I

reckoned I was well out of it.”

“But there was a passenger! What of him?” demanded the consul anxiously.

“Dnnno! But I reckon he got away. There wasn't any of the crew lost that

I know of. Let's see, he was an engineer, wasn't he? I reckon he had to

take a hand at the pumps, and his chances with the rest.”

“Does Mr. Gray know of this?” asked the consul after a pause.

The man stared.

“Not from me, sir. You see it was nothin' to him, and I didn't care

talking much about the Skyscraper. It was hushed up in the papers. You

won't go back on me, sir?”

“You don't know what became of the passenger?”

“No! But he was a Scotchman, and they're bound to fall on their feet

somehow!”

III.

The December fog that overhung St. Kentigern had thinned sufficiently to

permit the passage of a few large snowflakes, soiled in their descent,

until in color and consistency they spotted the steps of the Consulate

and the umbrellas of the passers-by like sprinklings of gray mortar.

Nevertheless the consul thought the streets preferable to the persistent

gloom of his office, and sallied out. Youthful mercantile St. Kentigern

strode sturdily past him in the lightest covert coats; collegiate St.

Kentigern fluttered by in the scantiest of red gowns, shaming the furs

that defended his more exotic blood; and the bare red feet of a few

factory girls, albeit their heads and shoulders were draped and hooded

in thick shawls, filled him with a keen sense of his effeminacy.

Everything of earth, air, and sky, and even the faces of those he looked

upon, seemed to be set in the hard, patient endurance of the race.

Everywhere on that dismal day, he fancied he could see this energy

without restlessness, this earnestness without geniality, all grimly set

against the hard environment of circumstance and weather.

The consul turned into one of the main arteries of St. Kentigern, a wide

street that, however, began and ended inconsequently, and with half a

dozen social phases in as many blocks. Here the snow ceased, the fog

thickened suddenly with the waning day, and the consul found himself

isolated and cut off on a block which he did not remember, with the

clatter of an invisible tramway in his ears. It was a block of small

houses with smaller shop-fronts. The one immediately before him seemed

to be an optician's, but the dimly lighted windows also displayed the

pathetic reinforcement of a few watches, cheap jewelry on cards, and

several cairngorm brooches and pins set in silver. It occurred to him

that he wanted a new watch crystal, and that he would procure it here

and inquire his way. Opening the door he perceived that there was no one

in the shop, but from behind the counter another open door disclosed

a neat sitting-room, so close to the street that it gave the casual

customer the sensation of having intruded upon domestic privacy. The

consul's entrance tinkled a small bell which brought a figure to the

door. It was Ailsa Callender.

The consul was startled. He had not seen her since he had brought to

their cottage the news of the shipwreck with a precaution and delicacy

that their calm self-control and patient resignation, however, seemed to

make almost an impertinence. But this was no longer the handsome shop in

the chief thoroughfare with its two shopmen, which he previously knew as

“Callender's.” And Ailsa here! What misfortune had befallen them?

Whatever it was, there was no shadow of it in her clear eyes and frank

yet timid recognition of him. Falling in with her stoical and reticent

acceptance of it, he nevertheless gathered that the Callenders had lost

money in some invention which James Gow had taken with him to Rio, but

which was sunk in the ship. With this revelation of a business interest

in what he had believed was only a sentimental relation, the consul

ventured to continue his inquiries. Mr. Gow had escaped with his life

and had reached Honduras, where he expected to try his fortunes anew.

It might be a year or two longer before there were any results. Did the

consul know anything of Honduras? There was coffee there--so she and her

father understood. All this with little hopefulness, no irritation,

but a divine patience in her eyes. The consul, who found that his watch

required extensive repairing, and had suddenly developed an inordinate

passion for cairngorms, watched her as she opened the show-case with no

affectation of unfamiliarity with her occupation, but with all her old

serious concern. Surely she would have made as thorough a shop-girl as

she would--His half-formulated thought took the shape of a question.

“Have you seen Mr. Gray since his return from the Mediterranean?”

Ah! one of the brooches had slipped from her fingers to the bottom of

the case. There was an interval or two of pathetic murmuring, with her

fair head under the glass, before she could find it; then she lifted

her eyes to the consul. They were still slightly suffused with her

sympathetic concern. The stone, which was set in a thistle--the national

emblem--did he not know it?--had dropped out. But she could put it in.

It was pretty and not expensive. It was marked twelve shillings on the

card, but he could have it for ten shillings. No, she had not seen Mr.

Gray since they had lost their fortune. (It struck the consul as none

the less pathetic that she seemed really to believe in their former

opulence.) They could not be seeing him there in a small shop, and they

could not see him elsewhere. It was far better as it was. Yet she

paused a moment when she had wrapped up the brooch. “You'd be seeing him

yourself some time?” she added gently.

“Perhaps.”

“Then you'll not mind saying how my father and myself are sometimes

thinking of his goodness and kindness,” she went on, in a voice whose

tenderness seemed to increase with the formal precision of her speech.

“Certainly.”

“And you'll say we're not forgetting him.”

“I promise.”

As she handed him the parcel her lips softly parted in what might have

been equally a smile or a sigh.

He was able to keep his promise sooner than he had imagined. It was only

a few weeks later that, arriving in London, he found Gray's hatbox and

bag in the vestibule of his club, and that gentleman himself in the

smoking-room. He looked tanned and older.

“I only came from Southampton an hour ago, where I left the yacht. And,”

shaking the consul's hand cordially, “how's everything and everybody up

at old St. Kentigern?”

The consul thought fit to include his news of the Callenders in

reference to that query, and with his eyes fixed on Gray dwelt at some

length on their change of fortune. Gray took his cigar from his mouth,

but did not lift his eyes from the fire. Presently he said, “I suppose

that's why Callender declined to take the shares I offered him in the

fishing scheme. You know I meant it, and would have done it.”

“Perhaps he had other reasons.”

“What do you mean?” said Gray, facing the consul suddenly.

“Look here, Gray,” said the consul, “did Miss Callender or her father

ever tell you she was engaged?”

“Yes; but what's that to do with it?”

“A good deal. Engagements, you know, are sometimes forced, unsuitable,

or unequal, and are broken by circumstances. Callender is proud.”

Gray turned upon the consul the same look of gravity that he had worn

on the yacht--the same look that the consul even fancied he had seen

in Ailsa's eyes. “That's exactly where you're mistaken in her,” he said

slowly. “A girl like that gives her word and keeps it. She waits, hopes,

accepts what may come--breaks her heart, if you will, but not her word.

Come, let's talk of something else. How did he--that man Gow--lose

Callender's money?”

The consul did not see the Callenders again on his return, and perhaps

did not think it necessary to report the meeting. But one morning he

was delighted to find an official document from New York upon his desk,

asking him to communicate with David Callender of St. Kentigern, and,

on proof of his identity, giving him authority to draw the sum of five

thousand dollars damages awarded for the loss of certain property on

the Skyscraper, at the request of James Gow. Yet it was with mixed

sensations that the consul sought the little shop of the optician with

this convincing proof of Gow's faithfulness and the indissolubility of

Ailsa's engagement. That there was some sad understanding between the

girl and Gray he did not doubt, and perhaps it was not strange that he

felt a slight partisanship for his friend, whose nature had so strangely

changed. Miss Ailsa was not there. Her father explained that her health

had required a change, and she was visiting some friends on the river.

“I'm thinkin' that the atmosphere is not so pure here. It is deficient

in ozone. I noticed it myself in the early morning. No! it was not the

confinement of the shop, for she never cared to go out.”

He received the announcement of his good fortune with unshaken calm and

great practical consideration of detail. He would guarantee his identity

to the consul. As for James Gow, it was no more than fair; and what he

had expected of him. As to its being an equivalent of his loss, he could

not tell until the facts were before him.

“Miss Ailsa,” suggested the consul venturously, “will be pleased to hear

again from her old friend, and know that he is succeeding.”

“I'm not so sure that ye could call it 'succeeding,'” returned the old

man, carefully wiping the glasses of a pair of spectacles that he held

critically to the light, “when ye consider that, saying nothing of the

waste of valuable time, it only puts James Gow back where he was when he

went away.”

“But any man who has had the pleasure of knowing Mr. and Miss Callender

would be glad to be on that footing,” said the consul, with polite

significance.

“I'm not agreeing with you there,” said Mr. Callender quietly; “and I'm

observing in ye of late a tendency to combine business wi'

compleement. But it was kind of ye to call; and I'll be sending ye the

authorization.”

Which he did. But the consul, passing through the locality a few weeks

later, was somewhat concerned to find the shop closed, with others

on the same block, behind a hoarding that indicated rebuilding and

improvement. Further inquiry elicited the fact that the small leases

had been bought up by some capitalist, and that Mr. Callender, with the

others, had benefited thereby. But there was no trace nor clew to his

present locality. He and his daughter seemed to have again vanished with

this second change in their fortunes.

It was a late March morning when the streets were dumb with snow, and

the air was filled with flying granulations that tinkled against the

windows of the Consulate like fairy sleigh-bells, when there was the

stamping of snow-clogged feet in the outer hall, and the door was opened

to Mr. and Miss Callender. For an instant the consul was startled. The

old man appeared as usual--erect, and as frigidly respectable as one

of the icicles that fringed the window, but Miss Ailsa was, to his

astonishment, brilliant with a new-found color, and sparkling with

health and only half-repressed animation. The snow-flakes, scarcely

melting on the brown head of this true daughter of the North, still

crowned her hood; and, as she threw back her brown cloak and disclosed a

plump little scarlet jacket and brown skirt, the consul could not resist

her suggested likeness to some bright-eyed robin redbreast, to whom the

inclement weather had given a charming audacity. And shy and demure as

she still was, it was evident that some change had been wrought in her

other than that evoked by the stimulus of her native sky and air.

To his eager questioning, the old man replied briefly that he had bought

the old cottage at Loch Dour, where they were living, and where he

had erected a small manufactory and laboratory for the making of his

inventions, which had become profitable. The consul reiterated his

delight at meeting them again.

“I'm not so sure of that, sir, when you know the business on which I

come,” said Mr. Callender, dropping rigidly into a chair, and clasping

his hands over the crutch of a shepherd-like staff. “Ye mind, perhaps,

that ye conveyed to me, osteensibly at the request of James Gow,

a certain sum of money, for which I gave ye a good and sufficient

guarantee. I thought at the time that it was a most feckless and

unbusiness-like proceeding on the part of James, as it was without

corroboration or advice by letter; but I took the money.”

“Do you mean to say that he made no allusion to it in his other

letters?” interrupted the consul, glancing at Ailsa.

“There were no other letters at the time,” said Callender dryly. “But

about a month afterwards we DID receive a letter from him enclosing a

draft and a full return of the profits of the invention, which HE HAD

SOLD IN HONDURAS. Ye'll observe the deescrepancy! I then wrote to the

bank on which I had drawn as you authorized me, and I found that they

knew nothing of any damages awarded, but that the sum I had drawn had

been placed to my credit by Mr. Robert Gray.”

In a flash the consul recalled the one or two questions that Gray had

asked him, and saw it all. For an instant he felt the whole bitterness

of Gray's misplaced generosity--its exposure and defeat. He glanced

again hopelessly at Ailsa. In the eye of that fresh, glowing, yet

demure, young goddess, unhallowed as the thought might be, there was

certainly a distinctly tremulous wink.

The consul took heart. “I believe I need not say, Mr. Callender,” he

began with some stiffness, “that this is as great a surprise to me as

to you. I had no reason to believe the transaction other than bona

fide, and acted accordingly. If my friend, deeply sympathizing with your

previous misfortune, has hit upon a delicate, but unbusiness-like way of

assisting you temporarily--I say TEMPORARILY, because it must have

been as patent to him as to you, that you would eventually find out his

generous deceit--you surely can forgive him for the sake of his kind

intention. Nay, more; may I point out to you that you have no right to

assume that this benefaction was intended exclusively for you; if Mr.

Gray, in his broader sympathy with you and your daughter, has in this

way chosen to assist and strengthen the position of a gentleman so

closely connected with you, but still struggling with hard fortune”--

“I'd have ye know, sir,” interrupted the old man, rising to his feet,

“that ma frien' Mr. James Gow is as independent of yours as he is of

me and mine. He has married, sir, a Mrs. Hernandez, the rich widow of

a coffee-planter, and now is the owner of the whole estate, minus the

encumbrance of three children. And now, sir, you'll take this,”--he drew

from his pocket an envelope. “It's a draft for five thousand dollars,

with the ruling rate of interest computed from the day I received it

till this day, and ye'll give it to your frien' when ye see him. And

ye'll just say to him from me”--

But Miss Ailsa, with a spirit and independence that challenged her

father's, here suddenly fluttered between them with sparkling eyes and

outstretched hands.

“And ye'll say to him from ME that a more honorable, noble, and generous

man, and a kinder, truer, and better friend than he, cannot be found

anywhere! And that the foolishest and most extravagant thing he ever did

is better than the wisest and most prudent thing that anybody else ever

did, could, or would do! And if he was a bit overproud--it was only

because those about him were overproud and foolish. And you'll tell him

that we're wearying for him! And when you give him that daft letter from

father you'll give him this bit line from me,” she went on rapidly as

she laid a tiny note in his hand. “And,” with wicked dancing eyes that

seemed to snap the last bond of repression, “ye'll give him THAT too,

and say I sent it!”

There was a stir in the official apartment! The portraits of Lincoln and

Washington rattled uneasily in their frames; but it was no doubt only a

discreet blast of the north wind that drowned the echo of a kiss.

“Ailsa!” gasped the shocked Mr. Callender.

“Ah! but, father, if it had not been for HIM we would not have known

Robin.”

*****

It was the last that the consul saw of Ailsa Callender; for the next

summer when he called at Loch Dour she was Mrs. Gray.

THE SHERIFF OF SISKYOU.

I.

On the fifteenth of August, 1854, what seemed to be the entire

population of Wynyard's Bar was collected upon a little bluff which

overlooked the rude wagon road that was the only approach to the

settlement. In general appearance the men differed but little from

ordinary miners, although the foreign element, shown in certain Spanish

peculiarities of dress and color, predominated, and some of the men

were further distinguished by the delicacy of education and sedentary

pursuits. Yet Wynyard's Bar was a city of refuge, comprised among its

inhabitants a number who were “wanted” by the State authorities, and

its actual attitude at that moment was one of open rebellion against the

legal power, and of particular resistance to the apprehension by warrant

of one of its prominent members. This gentleman, Major Overstone, then

astride of a gray mustang, and directing the movements of the crowd,

had, a few days before, killed the sheriff of Siskyou county, who had

attempted to arrest him for the double offense of misappropriating

certain corporate funds of the State and the shooting of the editor who

had imprudently exposed him. The lesser crime of homicide might have

been overlooked by the authorities, but its repetition upon the body

of their own over-zealous and misguided official could not pass

unchallenged if they expected to arrest Overstone for the more serious

offense against property. So it was known that a new sheriff had been

appointed and was coming to Wynyard's Bar with an armed posse. But it

was also understood that this invasion would be resisted by the Bar to

its last man.

All eyes were turned upon a fringe of laurel and butternut that

encroached upon the road half a mile away, where it seemed that such

of the inhabitants who were missing from the bluff were hidden to give

warning or retard the approach of the posse. A gray haze, slowly rising

between the fringe and the distant hillside, was recognized as the

dust of a cavalcade passing along the invisible highway. In the hush

of expectancy that followed, the irregular clatter of hoofs, the sharp

crack of a rifle, and a sudden halt were faintly audible. The

men, scattered in groups on the bluff, exchanged a smile of grim

satisfaction.

Not so their leader! A quick start and an oath attracted attention to

him. To their surprise he was looking in another direction, but as

they looked too they saw and understood the cause. A file of horsemen,

hitherto undetected, were slowly passing along the little ridge on their

right. Their compact accoutrements and the yellow braid on their

blue jackets, distinctly seen at that distance, showed them to be a

detachment of United States cavalry.

Before the assemblage could realize this new invasion, a nearer clatter

of hoofs was heard along the high road, and one of the ambuscading party

dashed up from the fringe of woods below. His face was flushed, but

triumphant.

“A reg'lar skunk--by the living hokey!” he panted, pointing to the faint

haze that was again slowly rising above the invisible road. “They backed

down as soon as they saw our hand, and got a hole through their new

sheriff's hat. But what are you lookin' at? What's up?”

The leader impatiently pointed with a darkening face to the distant

file.

“Reg'lars, by gum!” ejaculated the other. “But Uncle Sam ain't in this

game. Wot right have THEY”--

“Dry up!” said the leader.

The detachment was now moving at right angles with the camp, but

suddenly halted, almost doubling upon itself in some evident commotion.

A dismounted figure was seen momentarily flying down the hillside

dodging from bush to bush until lost in the underbrush. A dozen shots

were fired over its head, and then the whole detachment wheeled and

came clattering down the trail in the direction of the camp. A single

riderless horse, evidently that of the fugitive, followed.

“Spread yourselves along the ridge, every man of you, and cover them as

they enter the gulch!” shouted the leader. “But not a shot until I give

the word. Scatter!”

The assemblage dispersed like a startled village of prairie dogs,

squatting behind every available bush and rock along the line of bluff.

The leader alone trotted quietly to the head of the gulch.

The nine cavalrymen came smartly up in twos, a young officer leading.

The single figure of Major Overstone opposed them with a command to

halt. Looking up, the young officer drew rein, said a word to his file

leader, and the four files closed in a compact square motionless on the

road. The young officer's unsworded hand hung quietly at his thigh,

the men's unslung carbines rested easily on their saddles. Yet at that

moment every man of them knew that they were covered by a hundred

rifles and shot guns leveled from every bush, and that they were caught

helplessly in a trap.

“Since when,” said Major Overstone with an affectation of tone and

manner different from that in which he had addressed his previous

companions, “have the Ninth United States Cavalry helped to serve a

State court's pettifogging process?”

“We are hunting a deserter--a half-breed agent--who has just escaped

us,” returned the officer. His voice was boyish--so, too, was his figure

in its slim, cadet-like smartness of belted tunic--but very quiet and

level, although his face was still flushed with the shock and shame of

his surprise.

The relaxation of relief went through the wrought and waiting camp. The

soldiers were not seeking THEM. Ready as these desperate men had been to

do their leader's bidding, they were well aware that a momentary victory

over the troopers would not pass unpunished, and meant the ultimate

dispersion of the camp. And quiet as these innocent invaders seemed

to be they would no doubt sell their lives dearly. The embattled

desperadoes glanced anxiously at their leader; the soldiers, on the

contrary, looked straight before them.

“Process or no process,” said Major Overstone with a sneer, “you've

come to the last place to recover your deserter. We don't give up men in

Wynyard's Bar. And they didn't teach you at the Academy, sir, to stop to

take prisoners when you were outflanked and outnumbered.”

“Bedad! They didn't teach YOU, Captain Overstone, to engage a battery at

Cerro Gordo with a half company, but you did it; more shame to you now,

sorr, commandin' the thayves and ruffians you do.”

“Silence!” said the young officer.

The sleeve of the sergeant who had spoken--with the chevrons of long

service upon it--went up to a salute, and dropped again over his carbine

as he stared stolidly before him. But his shot had told. A flush of

mingled pride and shame passed over Overstone's face.

“Oh! it's YOU, Murphy,” he said with an affected laugh, “and you haven't

improved with your stripes.”

The young officer turned his head slightly.

“Attention!”

“One moment more,” said Overstone coming forward. “I have told you that

we don't give up any man who seeks our protection. But,” he added with

a half-careless, half-contemptuous wave of his hand, and a significant

glance at his followers, “we don't prevent you from seeking him. The

road is clear; the camp is before you.”

The young officer continued without looking at him. “Forward--in two

files--open order. Ma-arch!”

The little troop moved forward, passed Major Overstone at the head of

the gully, and spread out on the hillside. The assembled camp, still

armed, lounging out of ambush here and there, ironically made way for

them to pass. A few moments of this farcical quest, and a glance at

the impenetrably wooded heights around, apparently satisfied the young

officer, and he turned his files again into the gully. Major Overstone

was still lingering there.

“I hope you are satisfied,” he said grimly. He then paused, and in a

changed and more hesitating voice added: “I am an older soldier than

you, sir, but I am always glad to make the acquaintance of West Point.”

He paused and held out his hand.

West Point, still red and rigid, glanced at him with bright clear eyes

under light lashes and the peak of a smartly cocked cap, looked coolly

at the proffered hand, raised his own to a stiff salute, said, “Good

afternoon, sir,” and rode away.

Major Overstone wheeled angrily, but in doing so came sharply upon his

coadjutor--the leader of the ambushed party.

“Well, Dawson,” he said impatiently. “Who was it?”

“Only one of them d----d half-breed Injin agents. He's just over there

in the brush with Simpson, lying low till the soldiers clear out.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Not much!” returned Dawson scornfully. “He ain't my style.”

“Fetch him up to my cabin; he may be of some use to us.”

Dawson looked skeptical. “I reckon he ain't no more gain here than he

was over there,” he said, and turned away.

II.

The cabin of Major Overstone differed outwardly but little from those of

his companions. It was the usual structure of logs, laid lengthwise, and

rudely plastered at each point of contact with adobe, the material from

which the chimney, which entirely occupied one gable, was built. It

was pierced with two windows and a door, roofed with smaller logs, and

thatched with long half cylinders of spruce bark. But the interior

gave certain indications of the distinction as well as the peculiar

experiences of its occupant. In place of the usual bunk or berth built

against the wall stood a small folding camp bedstead, and upon a rude

deal table that held a tin wash-basin and pail lay two ivory-handled

brushes, combs, and other elegant toilet articles, evidently the

contents of the major's dressing-bag. A handsome leather trunk occupied

one corner, with a richly caparisoned silver-mounted Mexican saddle,

a mahogany case of dueling pistols, a leather hat-box, locked and

strapped, and a gorgeous gold and quartz handled ebony “presentation”

walking stick. There was a certain dramatic suggestion in this

revelation of the sudden and hurried transition from a life of

ostentatious luxury to one of hidden toil and privation, and a further

significance in the slow and gradual distribution and degradation of

these elegant souvenirs. A pair of silver boot-hooks had been used

for raking the hearth and lifting the coffee kettle; the ivory of the

brushes was stained with coffee; the cut-glass bottles had lost their

stoppers, and had been utilized for vinegar and salt; a silver-framed

hand mirror hung against the blackened wall. For the major's occupancy

was the sequel of a hurried flight from his luxurious hotel at

Sacramento--a transfer that he believed was only temporary until

the affair blew over, and he could return in safety to brow-beat his

accusers, as was his wont. But this had not been so easy as he had

imagined; his prosecutors were bitter, and his enforced seclusion had

been prolonged week by week until the fracas which ended in the shooting

of the sheriff had apparently closed the door upon his return to

civilization forever. Only here was his life and person secure. For

Wynyard's Bar had quickly succumbed to the domination of his reckless

courage, and the eminence of his double crime had made him respected

among spendthrifts, gamblers, and gentlemen whose performances had

never risen above a stage-coach robbery or a single assassination. Even

criticism of his faded luxuries had been delicately withheld.

He was leaning over his open trunk--which the camp popularly supposed

to contain State bonds and securities of fabulous amount--and had taken

some letters from it, when a figure darkened the doorway. He looked up,

laying his papers carelessly aside. WITHIN Wynyard's Bar property was

sacred.