Two days after the death of Bangs, Mr. Wiley went for his wife, who was
visiting acquaintances a day’s journey from home.
He shrank from the task of telling her the story of the dreadful scenes
enacted in Prairieville during her absence, but the tidings had
preceded him, and he found her lying on a couch in strong hysterics.
She greeted him with bitter reproaches—“Why had he not exerted himself
to save poor, dear Avery from the fury of the mob?”
“I couldn’t,” he said; “you might just as reasonably ask me why I do
not prevent the lightning from striking where it will.”
“Don’t talk in that way to me!” she cried, in passionate tones; “you
didn’t try; you didn’t make the slightest effort; the papers would have
said so if you had; you were too great a coward to lift a finger to
save him.”
“Have it your own way,” he returned, gloomily; “it’s a thousand pities
you were not there to quell the fury of the mob, and turn them from so
many tigers, thirsting for blood, into lambs; you could have done it,
of course; there’s nothing you can’t do, except treat your husband
decently,” he added, with bitter emphasis.
It pleased her to ignore that last clause of his reply.
“I’d have tried, anyhow,” she said; “I’d have helped him to escape from
them. Where is he now?”
“You are as capable of deciding that question as I,” he answered,
turning away with a slight shudder.
“You misunderstand me wilfully,” she said, her eyes flashing with
anger. “I want to know what you have done with his body.”
“Buried it,” he returned, laconically.
“Buried it? without consulting me! without letting me know! without
giving me time to attend the funeral! How dared you, Amos Wiley!”
“I thought that, under the peculiar circumstances, the best thing to be
done was to put the body into the ground as quietly and with as little
fuss as possible; and he would not have been a pleasant sight for you
to look upon.”
“What do you mean, Amos Wiley?” she demanded, starting up to a sitting
posture and regarding him with looks of fury and indignation; “that you
had no funeral services, but gave him, my brother, the burial of a dog?”
“I had no thought of that,” he said; “I laid him away decently and
quietly, that was all. I did not suppose you would feel like having a
funeral, considering how the neighbors and all the townspeople must
have regarded his death, and—and the cause of it.”
“You mean that they thought him disgraced, and that I’d feel ashamed of
him and of—of what he did, and the way he lost his life? No such
thing! I consider him a martyr, and should have gloried in showing
everybody that I thought so.”
He gave her a look of utter astonishment.
“You needn’t look at me so!” she cried. “He killed that impudent
Irishman in self-defence; I know he did!”
“Self-defence! The man was doing nothing but walking peaceably along
the street behind him, attending to his own business.”
“Were you alongside? Did you see and hear it all?”
“No; but there were credible witnesses who did; and if the shooting had
not been so unprovoked, the bystanders would not have become the
furious mob that they instantly did. I tell you, Dora, you had best
keep quiet about the whole affair, and, in fact, I think it may be our
wisest course to move away to some distant part of the country, where
the story will not be likely to follow us.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” she said. “It would be a losing
business to sell out our property in Prairieville and go to a new
place. ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss.’ I’ll go home; we’ll start
directly, and I’ll let the neighbors see that I don’t feel myself in
the least disgraced by what has passed.”
They reached Prairieville in the evening of the same day that Belinda
arrived in the vicinity. Early the next morning Mr. Wiley went
down-town on some errand. Returning half an hour later, he appeared
before his wife with a ghastly and disturbed countenance.
“What are we coming to?” he sighed, wiping the perspiration from his
forehead. “There was—another lynching—last night; armed, masked
men—four wagon loads of them—broke into the jail, took Phelim
O’Rourke and hung him to a tree right there alongside of the building;
and his body’s swinging there yet, they say. I believe they are about
taking it down, however, and home to the old folks. They’ve held an
inquest, and the verdict is that he came to his death by the hands of
persons unknown.”
“Dreadful!” she cried. “But who did it?”
“Nobody seems to know or wants to know. I’ve told you what the verdict
of the coroner was; but it’s said the best citizens of this town and
Frederic, Riverside, and Fairfield had a hand in it. You see they knew
the law would never hang him, and were determined he should have his
deserts; not only to punish him, but to discourage other scoundrels
from following his example.”
“Well, I’m glad! He ought to have been hung; if it hadn’t been for him
Avery would be alive to-day; but my poor brother sacrificed himself to
save that miserable wretch from being sent to State prison.”
“Sacrificed himself by swearing to a lie,” was her husband’s inward
comment, but aloud he merely remarked that he pitied O’Rourke’s parents.
“Yes, of course you do,” snapped his wife; “you are always ready to
feel for anybody but those nearest to you. You have no sympathy to
waste upon May and me, but those low, vulgar Irish people are objects
of the deepest commiseration.”
“I have done my best to show sympathy with you and your niece, Dora,”
he returned; “but you are never just to your unfortunate husband.”
“Unfortunate because he has me for a wife, I presume you mean,” she
retorted, flashing an angry glance at him. “Breakfast has been waiting
for you till it must be completely spoiled. Come and eat, if you can
find an appetite after such heartless treatment of your wife.”
She led the way to the table, he following in silence, having learned
by past experience the utter uselessness of trying to have the last
word in a controversy with her.
“You don’t eat as if you relished your food the least bit,” she
remarked, after watching him furtively for a few minutes; “but if you
don’t find it palatable it’s your own fault for keeping it waiting so
long.”
“I have no complaint to make,” he answered, “but I am too sick at heart
over the awful doings we’ve had in this town of late to feel much
appetite for the daintiest of food.” With that he rose and left the
table and the house.
Coming in some hours later, he found his wife in what had been the
private office of her brother, looking over his papers.
“I’m not exactly sure that you have a right to be at those, Dora,” he
remarked, in a tone of mild expostulation.
“I’d like to know who has a better!” she retorted, straightening
herself with an angry, defiant look up into his face, as he came and
stood at her side. “I’m Avery’s nearest of kin, and therefore his heir.”
“But there may be a will.”
“No; there isn’t. I’ve hunted everywhere, and there’s nothing of the
kind to be found.”
“Still, even in that case you are not his only heir.”
“I am, though; for we two were the last of the family.”
“Yes; but you forget that May inherits her mother’s share.”
“She sha’n’t! I won’t hear of it! That chit of a child, indeed! She’ll
get it when I’m gone, if she outlives me, but I shall hold on to it
till then.”
“But you can’t, unless there’s a will leaving it all to you; for
otherwise the law will give her an equal share.”
“But if we don’t choose to let anybody know what he has left?” she
asked, frowningly, yet with some slight hesitation.
“There, now,” said her husband, “don’t you see why you have no right to
come here alone and examine his effects?”
She opened her hand, showing a roll of bank-notes.
“This ready money I ought to have a right to take, to use for May and
myself, and I’m going to do it; we need it at once to buy our mourning
and other things.”
He looked troubled, for though honest and upright in his dealings, he
yet dreaded to oppose her will.
“Let me see those notes,” he requested, holding out his hand.
She allowed him to take them, remarking as he did so, “It’s quite a
nice sum—considerably over a thousand dollars.”
“Yes,” he said, turning them about with careful scrutiny, “but—”
“What?” she asked, sharply.
“They’re all marked; they’re the missing notes stolen from Lakeside; I
know, for I’ve had a particular description of them from Sandy
McAllister.”
“Well?”
“Of course we must restore them to the rightful owners; we wouldn’t be
guilty of fraud, and we couldn’t use these bills without detection,
even if we didn’t care for the dishonesty of appropriating them.”
“But that girl!” she hissed through her clinched teeth; “she rejected
my brother, and I’m determined she shall be punished for it. Here’s a
mortgage on Lakeside,” laying her hand on the paper as she spoke;
“Avery bought it to have her in his power, and he told me he’d
foreclose and turn them out of house and home if the saucy minx held
out against his advances. Now it’s my property, and I mean to foreclose
without giving her any alternative; then the place will be mine, and
we’ll go there and live. I’ve always had a hankering after it; it’s the
prettiest place in all the region round, to my way of thinking.”
“But, Dora, you couldn’t really contemplate so mean, not to say
dishonest a procedure?” he exclaimed, in surprise and dismay.
“Dishonest!” she cried, with rising wrath; “where’s the dishonesty?
Haven’t I a right to foreclose and sell the property to get my money if
they don’t pay up their interest?”
“But they will when we hand them these bills, which we know to have
been stolen from them.”
“Hand them the notes and let them know they were found among Avery’s
possessions, and have them blackening his character—telling that he
was the thief or the receiver, that’s as bad as the thief?” she
exclaimed, with fury. “I’ll do no such thing; I’ll defend my brother’s
character to the last gasp!” she added, with virtuous indignation.
He turned away and paced the room back and forth for a few moments;
then, returning to her side, “Dora,” he said, with unwonted decision,
“to keep back these notes from the rightful owners would be as bad as
stealing, and I will be no party to any such dishonest dealing.”
“You’ve nothing whatever to do with it,” she interrupted, hotly.
“Unfortunately I have,” he responded, “and I insist on taking to the
Heaths this property, which is rightfully theirs. I shall tell them we
do not know or understand how these notes happened to be found here
among your brother’s papers, and shall try to exact from them a promise
not to reveal the fact to any one. I think I shall have no difficulty
in persuading them to that.”
“Then we’ll lose the place,” she said, grinding her teeth with rage.
“I’ll not consent.”
“We can’t lose what we never owned,” he returned; “and I for one could
never enjoy it if gained by means so unfair and cruel.”
She continued her opposition for some time longer, but to her unbounded
astonishment found him for once firm in his determination not to
surrender to her will.
He presently took the notes from her unwilling hand and forthwith
departed for Lakeside.
Great was the joy there when his errand was made known and
accomplished. The promise he asked for was readily given, accompanied
with hearty thanks for the restoration of the notes.
Then Miriam said, “Mr. Bangs told me he had bought the mortgage on our
place, and now we would like to buy it of his heirs; the money is ready
to be paid down at any time.”
“I am glad to hear it,” returned Mr. Wiley, emphatically, “and I think
the matter can be arranged very shortly.”
When he had taken his departure the grandmother, Miriam, and Ronald
exchanged looks and words of congratulation; their hearts were full of
joy.
“We must get Warren to attend to this business for us, grandmother and
Mirry,” Ronald said, giving his sister a mischievous, bantering look as
he concluded his sentence.
“I think we could not do better,” Mrs. Heath replied, turning an
inquiring glance upon her granddaughter.
“I entirely agree with you, grandma,” rejoined Miriam, quietly.
“Suppose you write him a note stating the facts, Ronald, of course
keeping back the one we have promised not to reveal.”
“Certainly; with all my heart,” returned the young man. “I shall urge
him to call at once and give us his opinion and advice. By the way, he
hasn’t been here since he came to tell you the good news in regard to
Himes’s will.”
Miriam did not seem to hear. She had caught sight of a carriage nearing
their gate, and hurried out to receive Dr. Jasper and Serena, who, she
perceived, were its occupants.
These good friends were soon told of the good fortune that had come to
the Lakeside family, and responded to the tidings with hearty
congratulations and good wishes.
A good deal of lively, cheery chat followed, and for a short space
Miriam seemed as gay as the rest, but erelong Serena noticed an
expression of deep sadness steal over her speaking countenance, when
for a moment the stream of talk had drifted past her, and she was
unaware that any eye was regarding her.
“Miriam, my dear, won’t you invite me into your garden to look at your
roses?” Serena asked, with one of her winsome smiles.
“Certainly; I shall be delighted to show them,” Miriam answered, a
bright, pleased look taking the place of the former sorrowful one, as
she rose and led the way. “The doctor may come, too, if he likes.”
“No, no, he mayn’t! I want you to myself for a little while,” said
Serena, laughingly. “Please just stay where you are, Alonzo, and do
your best to entertain Mrs. Heath and Mr. Ronald.”
Roses of many beautiful varieties formed a prominent feature of the
flower-garden at Lakeside. Serena went about among them exclaiming,
admiring, asking questions in regard to names and the proper treatment
for bringing them to perfection, but in the midst of it all turned
suddenly upon her friend with the query, “What’s the matter with you,
my dear? Why are you sad now, when delivered from your tormentor and
provided with a small fortune over and above what it will take to clear
off the mortgage that has given you so much anxiety and heartache?”
“Why do you think me sad, Mrs. Serena?” returned Miriam, with playful
look and tone, though a bright blush mantled her cheek.
“Oh, I have eyes,” was the laconic answer.
“And do they tell you I am sad?” asked Miriam, smiling brightly.
“Not at this moment, my sweet, pretty maid; but they caught a different
look a while ago from that presented to them now. Am I right in my
conjecture that the course of true love does not run smooth? Pray
believe, dear, that I do not ask from any vulgar curiosity, but from a
sincere desire and hope to be able to give both sympathy and help,” she
added, taking Miriam’s hand and pressing it affectionately in both of
hers. “That Warren Charlton is deeply enamored of you I am positively
certain, and as he, too, is looking woebegone without apparent reason,
to what other conclusion can I come than that the roughness of true
love’s course is making misery for you both?”
“Captain Charlton has never breathed a word of love to me,” Miriam
said, blushing more vividly than before, “so of course there has been
no lover’s quarrel between us; but surely the horrors of the last week
are enough to account for a feeling of depression, especially in one
who—Oh, Serena, I think you do not know that it was I who had put
Bangs into such a rage that he shot poor Barney Nolan, and was lynched
in consequence! Oh, I cannot yet get over the feeling that I—I am
partly to blame—partly responsible for it all!” she added, averting
her face, while the big tears rolled down her cheeks.
“And that was what made you look so overwhelmed when you heard the news
of that lynching!” cried Serena, catching her friend in her arms and
holding her close. “Ah! I knew very well it could not possibly be that
you cared in the very least for that double-dyed villain and cowardly
assassin; but I could not divest Warren Charlton of some slight
lingering suspicion or fear that you might have had some little liking
for him.”
“I knew it!” cried Miriam, her eyes filling with tears of mingled grief
and indignation; “I felt how grossly he misunderstood my emotion on
hearing of the awful fate of the man who was my worst enemy, and whom I
so thoroughly detested. But, oh, how could he, how could he for a
moment think that I could have any admiration for the man whose
character you have so truly described?”
“It’s a perfect shame that he should,” said Serena; “but I’ll set him
right on that point. Oh, you needn’t give me such a frightened,
beseeching look, my child; I’ve no notion of compromising you by
affording him the smallest excuse for imagining that you care for him
in the least; and I’ll try to impress upon him that my friend, Miriam
Heath, is a prize far beyond the deserts of any man of my acquaintance,
barring one who is already appropriated,” she added, laughingly.
“Thank you. That is even more than I could ask,” Miriam said, with a
smile. “Serena, you and the doctor must stay to tea.”
“Thank you, kindly, but we must hurry home on account of the children.
Besides, the doctor has a call to make before tea,” Mrs. Jasper
answered. Then, drawing out her watch, “Ah! it is time we were off now.
I must run in again and remind Alonzo.”