Everywhere on these hills the mining prospector has roamed, and on the summit of the pass we found a group of cabins where certain claims have been "staked out" and much digging done. As yet, they are as profitable, by reason of remoteness, as may be the mines in the lunar mountains. With careless glances at piles of ore which may or may not be valuable, we rode on to camp, two miles beyond—not very comfortably, finding water scarce, some rain falling and a great wealth of midges, such as we call in upper Pennsylvania "pungies," and needing a smudge for the routing of them. The night was cold and dewy, and our sufferers were wretched with sunburn.

The doctor and George Houston here left us, and went on to a salt-lick famous for game, but this proved a failure, some one having carelessly set fire to the tract. Indeed, in summer it is hard not to start these almost endless fires, since a spark or a bit of pipe-cinder will at once set the grasses ablaze, to the destruction of hunting and the annoyance of all travellers, to whom a fire is something which suggests man, and the presence of man needs, sad to say, an explanation. At 6 A. M., August 6th, Captain G. and the lad Lee also went off on a side-trail after game, and with lessened numbers we broke camp rather late, and rode into dense woods down a steady descent on a fair trail. The changes of vegetation were curious and sudden—from pines and firs to elders, stunted willows and sparse cottonwood bending over half-dry beds of torrents, with vast boulders telling of the fierce fury of water which must have undermined, then loosened and at last tumbled them from the hillsides. These streams are, in the early spring, impassable until a cold day and night check the thaw in the hills, and thus allow the impatient traveller to ford.

Gradually, as we rode on, the hills to our left receded, and on our right the summits of Index and Pilot stood up and took the morning—long, straggling volcanic masses of deep chocolate-brown, black as against the crystalline purity of cloudless blue skies, rising in the middle to vast rugged, irregular cones fourteen thousand feet above tide. From the bewildering desolateness of these savage peaks the eye wanders to the foot-hills, tree-clad with millions of pines, and lower yet to the wide valley of the West Branch of Clarke's Fork of the Yellowstone, through which a great stream rushes; and then, beyond the river, park over park with gracious boundaries of fir and pine, and over all black peak and snow-clad dome and slope, nameless, untrodden, an infinite army of hills beyond hills. The startling combination of black volcanic peaks with gray and tinted limestone still makes every mile of the way strange and grand. In one place the dark rock-slopes end abruptly in a wall of white limestone one hundred to two hundred feet high and regular as ancient masonry. A little below was a second of these singular dikes, which run for twenty miles or more.

On a rising ground where we halted to lunch a note was found stating that Dr. T., failing to find game at the salt-lick, had gone on ahead. While lingering over our lunch in leisurely fashion, encircled by this great mass of snow and blackness, an orderly suddenly rode up to hasten us to camp, as Indian signs had been seen down the valley. In a moment we were running our horses over a sage-plain, and were soon in camp, which was pitched on the West Branch in the widening valley. Dr. T. and George Houston, it appeared, had seen a column of smoke four miles below on a butte across the river. As the smoke was steady and did not spread, like an accidental fire, it seemed wise to wait for the party. There being no news of Indians, and no probability of white travellers, it was well to be cautious. It might be a hunters' or prospectors' camp, or a rallying-signal for scattered bands of Sioux, or a courier from Fort Custer. The doubt was unpleasant, and its effect visible in the men, two of whom already saw Indians.

"See 'em?" says Jack. "Yes, they're like the Devil: you just doesn't see 'em!"

While we pitched camp sentinels were thrown out, and two guides went off to investigate the cause of the fire. Houston came back in two hours, and relieved us by his statement that no trails led to the fire, and that its probable cause was the lightning of the storm which had overtaken us in camp the day before.

As the day waned the tints of the great mountains before us changed curiously. Of a broken chocolate-brown at noon, as the sun set their eastern fronts assumed a soft velvety look, while little purple clouds of haze settled in the hollows and rifts, fringing with tender grays the long serrated ridges as they descended to the plain. As the sun went down the single huge obelisk of Pilot Mountain seemed to be slowly growing upward out of the gathering shadows below. Presently, as the sun fell lower, the base of the mountain being swarthy with the growing nightfall, all of a sudden the upper half of the bleak cone yet in sunshine cast upward, athwart the blue sky, upon the moisture precipitated by the falling temperature, a great dark, broadening shaft of shadow, keen-edged and sombre, and spreading far away into measureless space—a sight indescribably strange and solemn.

The next day's ride down Clarke's Fork still gave us morass and mud and bad trails, with the same wonderful views in the distance of snow-clad hills, and, nearer, brown peaks and gray, with endless limestone dikes. We camped at twelve on Crandall's Creek, a mile from the main branch of Clarke's Fork of the Yellowstone, and learned from the guides that no fish exist in these ample waters. The doubts I at first had were lessened after spending some hours in testing the matter. Strange as it may seem, and inexplicable, I am disposed to think the guides are right. We saw two "cow-punchers," who claimed to be starving, and were questioned with some scepticism. In fact, every stranger is looked after sharply with the ever-present fear of horse-thieves and of the possibility of being set afoot by a night-stampede of the stock. Our hunting-parties were still out when I started next morning at 8.30 to climb a huge butte opposite our camp. I reached the top at about twelve, and found on the verge of a precipice some twenty-five hundred feet above the vale a curious semicircle of stones—probably an Indian outlook made by the Nez Perces in their retreat. Sitting with my back against it, I looked around me. A doe and fawn leapt away, startled from their covert close by. Never, even in the Alps, have I so felt the sense of loneliness—never been so held awestruck by the silence of the hills, by the boundlessness of the space before me. No breath of air stirred, no bird or insect hovered near. Away to the north-west Pilot and Index rose stern and dark; across the valley, to the north, out of endless snow-fields, the long regular red-and-yellow pyramid of Bear Tooth Mountain glowed in vivid light with amazing purity of color; while between me and it the hills fell away, crossed by intersecting bands of dark firs, and between marvellous deceits of fertile farm-lands, hedges and orchards. Here and there on the plain tiny lakes lit up the sombre grasses, and lower down the valley the waters of Clarke's Fork, now green, now white with foam, swept with sudden curve to the north-east, and were lost in the walls of its canyon like a scimitar half sheathed. On my right, across the vast grass-slopes of this great valley, on a gradual hill-slope, rose the most remarkable of the lime dikes I have seen. It must enclose with its gigantic wall a space of nearly two miles in width, in the centre of which a wild confusion of tinted limestone strata, disturbed by some old convulsion of Nature, resembles the huge ruins of a great town.

Soon after my return to camp, C. and the doctor came in with great triumph, having slain four bears. I was not present on this occasion, but I am inclined to fancy, as regards the doctor, that he verily believed the chief end and aim of existence for him was to kill bears, while C. had an enthusiasm of like nature, somewhat toned down.

After a wild ride on cayooses across Clarke's Fork and on the glowing pink side-slopes of Bear Tooth, and a camp in the hills, the ponies, which are always astray, were caught, and a game-trail followed among the mountains. Suddenly, Houston, in a stage-whisper, exclaimed, "We've got him! He's an old buster, he is!" He had seen a large gray bear—improperly called a grizzly—feeding a mile away in a long wide cooly. A rough, scrambling ride under cover of a spur, amid snow-drifts and tumbled trees, enabled the bear-hunters to tie up their ponies and push on afoot. If a man desire to lose confidence in his physical powers, let him try a good run with a Winchester rifle in hand nine thousand feet above tidewater. Rounding the edge of a hill and crossing a snow-drift, they came in view of Bruin sixty yards away. He came straight toward them against the wind, when there appeared on the left Bruin No. 2, to which the doctor directed his attention. Both bears fell at the crack of the rifles, and with grunt and snort rolled to the foot of the cooly. Houston climbed a snowbank to reconnoitre, aware, as there were no trees to climb, that an open cooly was no good place in which to face wounded bears. Away went the doctor.

"Let them alone, doctor," said Houston. "Hold up! That valley's full of bears." For he had seen a third.

The doctor paused a moment, and then there was a rush down the slope. A second shot finished one bear, and then began a running fight of a mile, in which wind was of more value than courage. Finally, Bruin No. 2 stopped. Leaving C. to end his days, the doctor and Houston pursued No. 3. As the bear grew weak and they approached him, the doctor's excitement and Houston's quite reasonable prudence rose together.

"Don't go down that cooly, doctor."

Then a shot or two, a growl, and the doctor gasping, "Do you think I left my practice to let that bear die in his bed?"

"Well, the place is full of bears," said George; and so on they went, now a shot and now a growl, and then a hasty retreat of Bruin, until, utterly blown and in full sight of his prey, the unhappy doctor murmured in an exhausted voice, "Give me one cool shot, George."

"Darn it!" replied George, "who's been warming your shots?"

And this one cool shot ended the fray. Returning, they found the judge had driven his bear into a thicket, and, having probably taken out a ne exeat or an injunction, or some such effective legal remedy against him, awaited reinforcements. As George and the doctor arrived the bear moved out into the open, and was killed by a final shot.

Mr. Jump informs us that one gets an awful price out of the Chinese for bear-galls; and it is the judge's opinion that at this supreme moment the doctor would have taken a contract to supply all China with bile of Bruin. I suspect our friend George has since told at many a camp-fire how the doctor's spurs danced down the coolies, and how the judge corralled his bear.

We broke camp August 10th at four, after a night of severe cold—27 deg. Fahrenheit—but perfectly dry and dewless. E. and I, as usual, pushed on ahead across Lodge Pole Creek, and so down the valley of Clarke's Fork. An increasing luxury of growth gave us, in wood or swamp, cottonwood, alder, willow, wild currants and myriads of snow-white lilies, and, in pretty contrast, the red or pink paint-brush. Losing Pilot and Index as the windings of the main valley hid them, and leaving them behind us, we began to see rocks of bright colors and more and more regular walls of silvery gray stone. At last the widening valley broadened, and from it diverged five valleys, like the fingers from a hand, each the bed of a stream. As we turned to the left and crossed the wildly-rolling hills, and forded Clarke's Fork to camp by Dead Indian Creek, the novelty and splendor of this almost unequalled view grew and grew. As I close my eyes it comes before me as at the call of an enchanter. From the main valley the outlook is down five grass-clad valleys dotted with trees and here and there flashing with the bright reflection from some hurrying stream. The mountains between rise from two to ten thousand feet, and are singular for the contrasts they present. The most distant to the right were black serrated battlements, looking as if their darkness were vacant spaces in the blue sky beyond. The next hill was a mass of gray limestone, and again, on the left, rose a tall peak of ochreous yellows, sombre reds and grays. The hill above our camp was composed of red and yellow rocks, fading below to gray debris, bounded beneath by a band of grasses, and below this another stratum of tinted rock; and so down to the plain. The side-view of this group showed it to be wildly distorted, the strata lying at every angle, coming out against the distant lava-peaks and the green slopes below them in a glory of tenderly-graded colors.

It seems as if it should be easy to describe a landscape so peculiar, and yet I feel that I fail utterly to convey any sense of the emotions excited by the splendid sweep of each valley, by the black fierceness of the lava-peaks thrown up in Nature's mood of fury, by the great "orchestra of colors" of the limestone hills, and by a burning red sunset, filling the spaces between the hills with hazy, ruddy gold, and, when all was cold and dark, of a sudden flooding each grim lava-battlement with the dim mysterious pink flush of the afterglow, such as one may see at rare times in the Alps or the Tyrol. In crossing the heads of these valleys, some day to be famous as one of the sights of the world, we forded Clarke's Fork, the major, Jack and I being ahead. We came out on the far side upon a bit of strand, above and around which rose almost perpendicularly the eroded banks of the stream, some fifteen feet high. While the guides broke down the bank to allow of our horses climbing it, I was struck with a wonderful bit of water. To my right this tall bank was perforated by numerous holes, out of which flowed an immense volume of water. It bounded forth between the matted roots and welled up below from the sand, and, higher up the bank, had, with its sweet moisture, bribed the ready mosses to build it numerous green basins, out of which also it poured in prodigal flood.

At this point, Dead Indian, we at first decided to await the looked-for scout, but on the next morning the major resolved to leave a note on a tripod for Mr. T., still out hunting, and to camp and wait on top of Canyon Mountain above us. So we left the noisy creek and the broken tepees of Joseph and the Nez Perces, and the buffalo and deer-bones and the rarer bones of men, and climbed some twenty-four hundred feet of the hill above us: then passed over a rolling plain, by ruddy gravel-hills and grasses gray- or pink-stemmed, to camp, on what Mr. Baronette called Canyon Mountain, among scattered groups of trees having a quaint resemblance to an old apple-orchard. Here we held counsel as to whether we should wait longer for the scout, push on rapidly to Custer, or complete our plans by turning southward to see the Black Canyon of the Big Horn River. Our doubt as to the steam-boats, which in the autumn are few and far between, and our failing provisions, decided us to push on to the fort. Having got in all our parties, with ample supplies of game, we started early next day to begin the descent from these delightful hills to the plains below. We rode twenty-eight miles, descending about thirty-seven hundred feet over boundless rolling, grass-clad foot-hills, behind us, to the left, the long mountain-line bounding the rugged canyon of Clarke's Fork, and to the right a march of lessening hills, and all before us one awful vast gray, sad and silent plain, and in dimmest distance again the gray summits about Pryor's Gap. The space before us was a vast park, thick with cactus and sage-brush, lit up here and there—but especially at the point where the canyon sets free the river on to the plain—by brilliant masses of tinted rocks or clays in level strata overlapping one another in bars of red, silver, pink, yellow and gray. With a certain sense of sadness we took a last look at these snowy summits rising out of their green crowns of pine and fir, and, bidding adieu to the wholesome hills, rode on to the grim alkali plain with the thermometer at 92 deg.

And now the days of bad water had come, each spring being the nastiest, and the stuff not consoling when once down, but making new and unquenchable thirst, and leaving a vile and constant taste of magnesia and chalk. And thus, over sombre prairies and across a wicked ford—where, of course, the captain and T. got their baggage wet—and past bones of men on which were piled stones, and the man's breeches thrown over these for a shroud or as a remembrance of the shrivelled thing below being human, we followed the Nez Perces' trail, to camp at four by the broad rattling waters of Clarke. Jack reported Indians near by—indeed saw them: guessed them to be Bannocks, as Crows would have come in to beg. Sentinels were thrown out on the bluffs near us and the stock watched with redoubled care.

I think every man who has camped much remembers, with a distinct vividness, the camp-fires. I recall happy hours by them in Maine and Canada and on the north shore of Lake Superior, and know, as every lover of the woods knows, how each wood has its character, its peculiar odors—even a language of its own. The burning pine has one speech, the gum tree another. One friend at least who was with me can recall our camps in Maine,

Where fragrant hummed the moist swamp-spruce, And tongues unknown the cedar spoke, While half a century's silent growth Went up in cheery flame and smoke.

The cottonwood burns with a rich, ruddy, abundant blaze and a faint pleasant aroma. Not an unpicturesque scene, our camp-fire, with the rough figures stretched out on the grass and the captain marching his solemn round with utterly unfatigable legs, Jack and George Houston good-humoredly chaffing, and now and again a howl responsive to the anguish of a burnt boot. He who has lived a life and never known a camp-fire is—Well, may he have that joy in the Happy Hunting-grounds!

The next day's ride was only interesting from the fact that we forded Clarke's Fork five times in pretty wild places, where, of course, Captain G. and the doctor again had their baggage soaked. The annoyance of this when, after ten hours in the saddle, you come to fill your tobacco-bag and find the precious treasure hopelessly wet, your writing-paper in your brushes, the lovely photographs, a desolated family presented on your departure, brilliant with yellow mud—I pause: there are inconceivable capacities for misery to be had out of a complete daily wetting of camp-traps. I don't think the captain ever quite got over this last day's calamity, and I doubt not he mourns over it to-day in England.

The ride of the next two days brought us again to rising ground, the approach to Pryor's Gap. On the 13th I rode on ahead with George Houston, and had an unsuccessful buffalo-hunt. We saw about forty head, but by no device could we get near enough for effective shooting. I had, however, the luck to kill a buck antelope and two does. Rejoining the command in great triumph, I found Jump, to my amusement, waving over his head a red cotton umbrella which some wandering Crow had dropped on the trail. The umbrella being, from the Crow point of view, a highly-prized ornament, it was not strange to find it on our trail. In an evil moment I asked Jump to hand it to me. As he did so it fell, open, over the nose of my cayoose. As to what happened I decline to explain: there have been many calumnies concerning what Mr. Jump called "that 'ere horse-show."

On this day we rode through the last range of considerable hills, past a vast rock which meant "medicine" of some kind for the Indian, as its clefts were dotted with sacrificial beads, arrows and bits of calico. A brief scramble and a long descent carried us through Pryor's Gap, and out again on to boundless plains, thick with the fresh dung of the buffaloes, which must have been here within two days and been hurried southward by Crow hunting-parties. This to our utter disgust, as we had been promised abundance of buffalo beyond Pryor's Gap.

A thirty-mile march brought us to a poor camp by a marshy stream. Man and beast showed the effects of the alkaline waters, which seemed to me more nasty every day. There is no doubt, however, that it is possible to become accustomed to their use, and no lands are more capable of cultivation than these if the water be sufficient for irrigation. The camp was enlivened by an adventure of the major's, which revenged for us his atrocious habit of rising at 3 A. M. and saying "Now, gentlemen!" as he stood relentless at the tent-doors. C. and I had found a canyon near by about one hundred feet deep and having a good bathing stream. As we returned toward it at evening we saw the gallant major standing barelegged on the edge of the canyon, gesticulating wildly, his saddle-bags and toilette matters far below beside the creek. Still suffering with the sunburn, he had been cooling his feet in the water preparatory to a bath, when, lo! a bear standing on his hind legs eating berries at a distance of only about fifteen feet! The major promptly availed himself of the shelter offered by the bank of the stream; but once there, how was he to escape unseen? The water was cold, the bear big, the major shoeless. Perhaps a bark simulative of a courageous dog might induce the bear to leave. No doubt, under such inspirations, it was well done. The bear, amazed at the resources of the army, fled—alas! not pursued by the happy major, who escaped up the canyon-wall, leaving his baggage to a generous foe, which took no advantage of comb or toothbrush. How the whole outfit turned out to hunt that bear, and how he was never found, I have not space to tell more fully.

All of twelve hours the next day we rode on under a blinding sunlight, a cloudless sky, over dreary, rolling, dusty plains, where the only relief from dead grasses was the gray sage-brush and cactus, from the shelter of which, now and again, a warning rattle arose or a more timid snake fled swiftly through the dry grasses. Tinted cones of red and brown clays or toadstool forms of eroded sandstone added to the strange desolateness of the view; so that no sorrow was felt when, after forty miles of it, we came upon a picturesque band of Crows with two chiefs, Raw Hide and Tin Belly.

It was an amazing sight to fresh eyes—the clever ponies, these bold-featured, bareheaded, copper-tinted fellows with bead-decked leggins, gay shirts or none, and their rifles slung in brilliantly-decorated gun-covers across the saddle-bows. We rode down the bluffs with them to the flat valley of Beauvais Creek, where a few lodges were camped with the horses, twelve hundred or more, in a grove of lordly cottonwood—a wild and picturesque sight. Tawny squaws surrounded us in crowds, begging. A match, a cartridge, anything but a quill toothpick, was received with enthusiasm. I rode ahead to the ford of the Beauvais Creek, and met the squaws driving in the cayooses. Altogether, it was much like a loosely-organized circus. Our own camp being set, we took our baths tranquilly, watched by the squaws seated like men on their ponies. One of them kindly accepted a button and my wornout undershirt.

The cottonwood tree reigns supreme throughout this country wherever there is moisture, and marks with its varied shades of green the sinuous line of every water-course. Despised even here as soft and easily rotted, "warping inside out in a week," it is valuable as almost the sole resource for fuel and timber, and as making up in speed of growth for a too ready rate of decay. Four or five years' growth renders it available for rails, and I should think it must equal the eucalyptus for draining moist lands. Many a pretty face is the more admired for its owner's wealth, and were the now-despised cottonwood of greater market-value it could not, I think, have escaped a reputation for beauty. A cottonwood grove of tall trees ten to eighteen feet in diameter, set twenty to forty feet apart, with dark-green shining leaves spreading high in air over a sod absolutely free of underbrush, struck such of us as had no Western prejudices as altogether a noble sight. Between Forts Custer and Keogh the cottonwoods are still finer, and what a mocking-bird is among birds are these among trees—now like the apple tree, now like the olive, now resembling the cork or the red-oak or the Lombardy poplar, and sometimes quaintly deformed so as to exhibit grotesque shapes,—all as if to show what one tree can do in the way of mimicking its fellows.

To our delight, General Sheridan's old war-scout, Mr. Campbell, rode in with letters at dusk, and we had the happiness to learn that our long absence had made ill news for none of us. By six next day we were up and away to see the great Crow camp, which we reached by crossing a long ford of the swift Big Horn River. There were one hundred and twenty lodges, about one thousand Crows, about two thousand dogs and as many ponies. I think it was the commissary who dared to say that every dog could not have his day among the Crows, as there would not be enough days to go round; but surely never on earth was such a canine chorus. It gave one a respect for Crow nerves. Let me add, as a Yankee, my veneration for the Crow as a bargainer, and you will have the most salient ideas I carried away from this medley of dogs, horses, sullen, lounging braves with pipes, naked children warmly clad with dirt, hideous squaws, skin lodges, medicine-staffs gay with bead and feathers, and stenches for the describing of which civilized language fails.

Crossing a branch of the Big Horn, we rode away again over these interminable, lonely grass-plains; past the reaping-machines and the vast wagons, with a dozen pairs of oxen to each, sent out to gather forage for the winter use of the fort; past dried-up streams, whitewashed with snowy alkaline deposits, cheating the eye at a distance with mockery of foaming water. Still, mile on mile, across rolling lands, with brief pause at the river to water horses, scaring the gay little prairie-dogs and laughing at the swift scuttle away of jack-rabbits, until by noon the long lines of Custer came into sight.

These three days of sudden descent from high levels to the terrible monotony of the thirsty plains, without shade, with the thermometer still in the nineties, began to show curiously in the morale of the outfit. The major got up earlier and rode farther: our English captain walked more and more around the camp-fire. On one day the coffee gave out, and on the next the sugar, and everything except the commissary's unfailing good-humor, which was, unluckily, not edible. Mr. T. rode in silence beside the judge, grimly calculating how soon he could get a railroad over these plains. Even the doctor fell away in the "talk" line. Says Mr. Jump: "These 'ere plains ain't as social as they might be." Some one is responsible for the following brief effort to evolve in verse the lugubrious elements of a ride over alkali plains with failing provender, weary horses, desiccating heat and quenchless thirst:

Silent and weary and sun-baked, we rode o'er the alkaline grass-plains, Into and out of the coolies and through the gray green of the sage-brush— All the long line of the horses, with jingle of spur and of bridle, All the brown line of the mule-train, tired and foot-sore and straggling; Nothing to right and to left, nothing before and behind us, Save the dry yellowing grass, and afar on the hazy horizon, Sullen, and grim, and gray, sunburnt, monotonous sand-heaps. So we rode, sombre and listless, day after day, while the distance Grew as we rode, till the eyeballs ached with the terrible sameness.

By this time the command was straggling in a long broken line, all eyes set on the fort, where, about 1.30, we dismounted from our six hundred miles in the saddle to find in the officers' club-room a hearty welcome and the never-to-be-forgotten sensation of a schooner of iced Milwaukee beer. From Fort Custer we rode a hundred and thirty miles in ambulances to Fort Keogh. This portion of our journey took us over the line to be followed by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and gave us a good idea of the wealthy grass-lands, capable of easy irrigation, bordering the proposed line of rail. The river is navigable to Custer until the middle of September, and in wet seasons still later. Already, much of the best land is taken up, and we were able to buy chickens if we could shoot them, and eggs and potatoes, the latter the best I have seen in any country. The river is marked by ample groves of superb cottonwoods and by immense thickets of the wild prairie-rose and moss-rose, while the shores are endlessly interesting and curious, especially the left bank, on account of the singular forms of the mud and sandstone hills, along which, in places, lie for miles black level strata of lignite. At Fort Keogh we took a steamer to Bismarck, whence we travelled by rail on the Northern Pacific road, reaching home September 9th. We had journeyed sixty-five hundred miles—on horses, six hundred; by ambulances, four hundred; by boat, six hundred and seventy-five.

S. WEIR MITCHELL, M. D.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Nicholas Biddle.

[B] A little valley—probably from the French coulisse, a narrow channel.



ADAM AND EVE.

CHAPTER XIX.

Aunt Hepzibah's house stood well up the hill, far enough away from the village to escape the hubbub and confusion which during the removal of any considerable store of spirit were most certain to prevail.

Hidden away in the recesses of a tortuous valley, amid hills whose steep sides bristled with tier after tier of bare, broken rocks, to reach or to leave Polperro by any other mode than on foot was a task of considerable difficulty. Wagons were unknown, carts not available, and it was only at the risk of his rider's life and limbs that any horse ventured along the perilous descents and ascents of the old Talland road. Out of these obstacles, therefore, arose the necessity for a number of men who could manage the drays, dorsals and crooks which were the more common and favored modes of conveyance. With the natural love of a little excitement, combined with the desire to do as you would be done by, it was only thought neighborly to lend a hand at whatever might be going on; and the general result of this sociability was that half the place might be found congregated about the house, assisting to the best of their ability to impede all progress and successfully turn any attempt at work into confusion and disorder.

To add to this tumult, a keg of spirits was kept on tap, to which all comers were made free, so that the crowd grew first noisy and good-tempered, then riotously merry and quarrelsomely drunk, until occasions had been known when a general fight had ensued, the kegs had got burst open and upset, the men who were hired to deliver them lay maddened or helpless in the street, while the spirit for which liberty and life had been risked flowed into the gutters like so much water.

In vain had Adam, to whom these scenes afforded nothing but anger and disgust, used all his endeavors to persuade his fellow-workers to give up running the vessel ashore with the cargo in her. The Polperro men, except under necessity, turned a deaf ear to his entreaties, and in many cases preferred risking a seizure to foregoing the fool-hardy recklessness of openly defying the arm of the law. The plan which Adam would have seen universally adopted here, as it was in most of the other places round the coast, was that of dropping the kegs, slung on a rope, into the sea, and (securing them by an anchor) leaving them there until some convenient season, when, certain of not being disturbed, they were landed, and either removed to a more distant hiding-place or conveyed at once to their final destination. But all this involved immediate trouble and delay, and the men, who without a complaint or murmur would endure weeks of absence from their homes, the moment those homes came in sight grew irritable under control and impatient of all authority.

With a spirit of independence which verged on rebellion, with an uncertain temperament in which good and bad lay jostled together so haphazard that to calculate which at any given moment might come uppermost was an impossibility, these sons of the sea were hard to lead and impossible to drive. Obstinate, credulous, superstitious, they looked askant on innovation and hated change, fearing lest it should turn away the luck which they vaunted in the face of discretion, making it their boast that so many years had gone by since any mischance had overtaken the Polperro folk that they could afford to laugh at the soldiers before their faces and snap their fingers at the cruisers behind their backs.

Under these circumstances it was not to be supposed that Adam's arguments proved very effective: no proposition he made was ever favorably received, and this one was more than usually unpopular. So, in spite of his prejudice against a rule which necessitated the sequence of riot and disorder, he had been forced to give in, and to content himself by using his authority to control violence and stem as much as possible the tide of excess. It was no small comfort to him that Eve was absent, and the knowledge served to smooth his temper and keep down his irritability. Besides which, his spirits had risen to no common height, a frequent result of the reaction which sets in after great emotion, although Adam placed his happy mood to the credit of Eve's kind words and soft glances.

It was late in the afternoon before the kegs were all got out and safely cleared off; but at length the last man took his departure, the visitors began to disperse, Uncle Zebedee and Jerrem disappeared with them, and the house was left to the undisturbed possession of Joan and Adam.

"I shall bring Eve back when I come," Adam said, reappearing from the smartening up he had been giving to himself.

"All right!" replied Joan, but in such a weary voice that Adam's heart smote him for leaving her sitting there alone, and with a great effort at self-sacrifice he said, "Would you like to go too?"

"Iss, if I could go two p'r'aps I should," retorted Joan, "but as I'm only one p'r'aps I might find myself one in the way. There, go along with 'ee, do!" she added, seeing him still hesitate. "You knaw if there'd bin any chance o' my goin' you wouldn't ha' axed me."

A little huffed by this home-thrust, Adam waited for nothing more, but, turning away, he closed the door after him and set off at a brisk pace up the Lansallos road, toward Aunt Hepzibah's house.

The light had now all but faded out, and over everything seaward a cloudy film of mist hung thick and low; but this would soon lift up and be blown away, leaving the night clear and the sky bright with the glitter of a myriad stars, beneath whose twinkling light Adam would tell his tale of love and hear the sweet reply; and at the thought a thousand hopes leaped into life and made his pulses quicken and his nerves thrill. Strive as he might, arrived at Aunt Hepzibah's he could neither enter upon nor join in any general conversation; and so marked was his silence and embarrassed his manner that the assembled party came to the charitable conclusion that something had gone wrong in the adjustment of his liquor; and knowing it was ticklish work to meddle with a man who with a glass beyond had fallen a drop short, they made no opposition to Eve's speedy preparations for immediate departure.

"Oh, Eve," Adam exclaimed, giving vent to deep-drawn sighs of relief as, having turned from the farm-gate, they were out of sight and hearing of the house, "I hope you're not vexed with me for seeming such a fool as I've been feeling there. I have been so longing for the time to come when I could speak to you that for thinking of it I couldn't talk about the things they asked me of."

"Why, whatever can you have to say of so much importance?" stammered Eve, trying to speak as if she was unconscious of the subject he was about to broach; and this from no coquetry, but because of an embarrassment so allied to that which Adam felt that if he could have looked into her heart he would have seen his answer in its tumultuous beating.

"I think you know," said Adam softly; and as he spoke he stooped to catch a glimpse of her averted face. "It's only what I'd on my lips to say last night, only the door was opened before I'd time to get the words out, and afterward you wouldn't so much as give me a look, although," he added reproachfully, "you sat up ever so long after I was gone, and only ran away when you thought that I was coming."

"No, indeed I didn't do that," said Eve earnestly: "that was Joan whom you heard. I went up stairs almost the minute after you left."

"Is that really true?" exclaimed Adam, seizing both her hands and holding them tight within his own. "Eve, you don't know what I suffered, thinking you were caught by Jerrem's talk and didn't care whether I felt hurt or pleased. I lay awake most of the night, thinking whether it could ever be that you could care for me as by some magic you've made me care for you. I fancied—"

But here a rustle in the hedge made them both start. Adam turned quickly round, but nothing was to be discovered. "'Twas, most-like, nothing but a stoat or a rabbit," he said, vexed at the interruption: "still, 'tis all but certain there'll be somebody upon the road. Would you mind crossing over to the cliff? 'Tis only a little bit down the other side."

Eve raised no objection, and, turning, they picked their way along the field, got over the gate and down through the tangle of gorse and brier to the path which ran along the Lansallos side of the cliff. Every step of the way was familiar to Adam, and he so guided Eve as to bring her down to a rough bit of rock which projected out and formed a seat on a little flat of ground overhanging a deep gully.

"There!" he said, in a tone of satisfaction, "this isn't so bad, is it? You won't feel cold here, shall you?"

"No, not a bit," said Eve.

Then there was a pause, which Eve broke by first giving a nervous, half-suppressed sigh, and then saying, "It's very dark to-night, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Adam, who had been thinking how he should best begin his subject. "I thought the mist was going to clear off better than this, but that seems to look like dirty weather blowing up;" and he pointed to the watery shroud behind which lay the waning moon.

"I wish a storm would come on," said Eve: "I should so like to see the sea tossing up and the waves dashing over everything."

"What! while we two are sitting here?" said Adam, smiling.

"No: of course I don't mean now, this very minute, but some time."

"Some time when I'm away at sea?" put in Adam.

Eve gave a little shudder: "Not for the world! I should be frightened to death if a storm came on and you away. But you don't go out in very bad weather, do you, Adam?"

"Not if I can help it, I don't," he answered. "Why, would you mind if I did?" and he bent down so that he could look into her face. "Eh, Eve, would you?"

His tone and manner conveyed so much more than the words that Eve felt it impossible to meet his gaze. "I don't know," she faltered. "What do you ask me for?"

"What do I ask you for?" he repeated, unable longer to repress the passionate torrent which he had been striving to keep under. "Because suspense seems to drive me mad. Because, try as I may, I can't keep silent any longer. I wanted, before I said more, to ask you about somebody you've left behind you at London; but it's of no use. No matter what he may be to you, I must tell you that I love you, Eve—that you've managed in this little time to make every bit of my heart your own."

"Somebody in London?" Eve silently repeated. "Who could he mean? Not Reuben May: how should he know about him?"

The words of love that followed this surprise seemed swallowed up in her desire to have her curiosity satisfied and her fears set at rest. "What do you mean about somebody I've left in London?" she said; and the question, abruptly put, jarred upon Adam's excited mood, strained as his feelings were, each to its utmost tension. This man she had left behind, then, could even at a moment like this stand uppermost in her mind.

"A man, I mean, to whom, before you left, you gave a promise;" and this time, so at variance was the voice with Adam's former tones of passionate avowal, that, coupled with the shock of hearing that word "promise," Eve's heart quailed, and to keep herself from betraying her agitation she was forced to say, with an air of ill-feigned amazement, "A man I left? somebody I gave a promise to? I really don't know what you mean."

"Oh yes, you do;" and by this time every trace of wooing had passed from Adam's face, and all the love so late set flowing from his heart was choked and forced back on himself. "Try and remember some fellow who thinks he's got the right to ask how you're getting on among the country bumpkins, whether you ain't tired of them yet, and when you're coming back. Perhaps," he added, goaded on by Eve's continued silence, "'twill help you if I say 'twas the one who came to see you off aboard the Mary Jane. I suppose you haven't forgot him?"

Eve's blood boiled at the sneer conveyed in Adam's tone and look. Raising her eyes defiantly to his, she said, "Forgotten him? Certainly not. If you had said anything about the Mary Jane before I should have known directly who you meant. That person is a very great friend of mine."

"Friend?" said Adam.

"Yes, friend—the greatest friend I've got."

"Oh, I'm very glad I know that, because I don't approve of friends. The woman I ask to be my wife must be contented with me, and not want anything from anybody else."

"A most amiable decision to come to," said Eve. "I hope you may find somebody content to be so dictated to."

"I thought I had found somebody already," said Adam, letting a softer inflection come into his voice. "I fancied that at least, Eve, you were made out of different stuff to the women who are always hankering to catch every man's eye."

"And pray what should make you alter your opinion? Am I to be thought the worse of because an old friend, who had promised he would be a brother to me, offers to see me off on my journey, and I let him come? You must have a very poor opinion of women, Adam, or at least a very poor opinion of me."

And the air of offended dignity with which she gave this argument forced Adam to exclaim, "Oh, Eve, forgive me if I have spoken hastily: it is only because I think so much more of you—place you so much higher than any other girl I ever saw—that makes me expect so much more of you. Of course," he continued, finding she remained silent, "you had every right to allow your friend to go with you, and it was only natural he should wish to do so; only when I'm so torn by love as I am I feel jealous of every eye that's turned upon you: each look you give another seems something robbed from me."

Eve's heart began to soften: her indignation was beginning to melt away.

"And when I heard he was claiming a promise, I—"

"What promise?" said Eve sharply.

"What promise did you give him?" replied Adam warily, suspicion giving to security another thrust.

"That's not to the point," said Eve. "You say I gave him a promise: I ask what that promise was?"

"The very question I put to you. I know what he says it was, and I want to hear if what he says is true. Surely," he added, seeing she hesitated, "if this is only a friend, and a friend who is to be looked on like a brother, you can't have given him any promise that if you can remember you can't repeat."

Eve's face betrayed her displeasure. "Really, Adam," she said, "I know of no right that you have to take me to task in this manner."

"No," he answered: "I was going to ask you to give me that right when you interrupted me. However, that's very soon set straight. I've told you I love you: now I ask you if you love me, and, if so, whether you will marry me? After you've answered me I shall be able to put my questions without fear of offence."

"Will you, indeed?" said Eve. "I should think that would rather depend upon what the answer may be."

"Whatever it may be, I'm waiting for it," said Adam grimly.

"Let me see: I must consider what it was I was asked," said Eve. "First, if—"

"Oh, don't trouble about the first: I shall be satisfied of that if you answer the second and tell me you will accept me as a husband."

"Say keeper."

"Keeper, if that pleases you better."

"Thank you very much, but I don't feel quite equal to the honor. I'm not so tired yet of doing what pleases myself that I need submit my thoughts and looks and actions to another person."

"Then you refuse to be my wife?"

"Yes, I do."

"And you cannot return the love I offer you?"

Eve was silent.

"Do you hear?" he said.

"Yes, I hear."

"Then answer: have I got your love, or haven't I?"

"Whatever love you might have had," she broke out passionately, "you've taken care to kill."

"Kill!" he repeated. "It must have been precious delicate if it couldn't stand the answering of one question. Look here, Eve. When I told you I had given you my heart and every grain of love in it, I only spoke the truth; but unless you can give me yours as whole and as entire as I have given mine, 'fore God I'd rather jump off yonder rock than face the misery that would come upon us both. I know what 'tis to see another take what should be yours—to see another given what you are craving for. The torture of that past is dead and gone, but the devil it bred in me lives still, and woe betide the man or woman who rouses it!"

Instinctively Eve shrank back: the look of pent-up passion frightened her and made her whole body shiver.

"There! there! don't alarm yourself," said Adam, passing his hand over his forehead as if to brush away the traces which this outburst had occasioned: "I don't want to frighten you. All I want to know is, can you give me the love I ask of you?"

"I couldn't bear to be suspected," faltered Eve.

"Then act so that you would be above suspicion."

"With a person always on the watch, looking out for this and that, so that one would be afraid to speak or open one's mouth, I don't see how one could possibly be happy," said Eve. "All one did, all one said, might be taken wrongly, and when one were most innocent one might be thought most guilty. No: I don't think I could stand that, Adam."

"Very well," he said coldly. "If you feel your love is too weak to bear that, and a great deal more than that, you are very wise to withhold it from me: those who have much to give require much in return."

"Oh, don't think I haven't that in me which would make my love equal yours any day," said Eve, nettled at the doubt which Adam had flung at her. "If I gave any one my heart, I should give it all; but when I do that I hope it will be to somebody who won't doubt me and suspect me."

"Then I'd advise you not to give them cause to," said Adam.

"And I'd advise you to keep your cautions for those that need them," replied Eve, rising from where she had been sitting and turning her face in the direction of home.

"Oh, you needn't fear being troubled by any more I shall say," said Adam: "I'm only sorry that I've been led to say what I have."

"Pray don't let that trouble you: such things, with me, go in at one ear and out at the other."

"In that case I won't waste any more words," said Adam; "so if you can keep your tongue still you needn't fear being obliged to listen to anything I shall say."

Eve gave a little scornful inclination of her head in token of the accepted silence between them, and in silence the two commenced their walk and took their way toward home.

CHAPTER XX.

Except the long surging roll of the waves, as in monotonous succession they dashed and broke against the rocks, not a sound was to be heard. The night had grown more lowering: the sprinkle of stars was hid behind the dense masses of cloud, through which, ever and anon, the moon, with shadowy face, broke out and feebly cast down a glimmering light. Below, the outspread stretch of water lay dark and motionless, its glassy surface cold and glittering like steel. Walking a little in the rear of Adam, Eve shuddered as her eyes fell on the depths, over whose brink the narrow path they trod seemed hanging. Instinctively she shrank closer to the cliff-side, to be caught by the long trails of bramble which, with bracken and gorse, made the steep descent a bristly wall. Insensibly affected by external surroundings, unused to such complete darkness, the sombre aspect of the scene filled her with nervous apprehension: every bit of jutting rock she stumbled against was a yawning precipice, and at each step she took she died some different death. The terrors of her mind entirely absorbed all her former indifference and ill-humor, and she would have gladly welcomed any accident which would have afforded her a decent pretext for breaking this horrible silence. But nothing occurred, and they reached the open piece of green and were close on the crumbling ruins of St. Peter's chapel without a word having passed between them. The moon struggled out with greater effort, and, to Eve's relief, showed that the zigzag dangers of the path were past, and there was now nothing worse to fear than what might happen on any uneven grassy slope. Moreover, the buzz of voices was near, and, though they could not see the persons speaking, Eve knew by the sound that they could not be very far distant. Having before him the peculiar want of reticence generally displayed by the Polperro folk, Adam would have given much to have been in a position to ask Eve to remount the hill and get down by the other side; but under present circumstances he felt it impossible to make any suggestion: things must take their course. And without a word of warning he and Eve gained the summit of the raised elevation which formed a sheltered background to this favorite loitering-place, at once to find themselves the centre of observation to a group of men whose noisy discussion they had apparently interrupted.

"Why, 'tis my son Adam, ain't it?" exclaimed the voice of Uncle Zebedee; and at the sound of a little mingled hoarseness and thickness Adam's heart sank within him.—"And who's this he's a got with un, eh?"

"Tis me, Uncle Zebedee," said Eve, stepping down on to the flat and advancing toward where the old man stood lounging—"Eve, you know."

"Awh, Eve, is it?" exclaimed Zebedee. "Why, how long's t'wind veered round to your quarter, my maid? Be you two sweetheartin' then, eh?"

"I've been all day up to Aunt Hepzibah's," said Eve quickly, endeavoring to cover her confusion, "and Adam came to fetch me back: that's how it is we're together."

"Wa-al, but he needn't ha' fetched 'ee 'less he'd got a mind for yer company, I s'pose," returned Zebedee with a meaning laugh. "Come, come now: 't 'ull niver do for 'ee to try to cabobble Uncle Zibedee. So you and Adam's courtyin', be 'ee? Wa-al, there's nuffin' to be said agen that, I s'pose?" and he looked round as if inviting concurrence or contradiction.—"Her's my poor brother Andrer's little maid, ye knaw, shipmates"—and here he made a futile attempt to present Eve to the assembled company—"what's dead—and drownded—and gone to Davy's locker; so, notwithstandin' I'd lashins sooner 'twas our Joan he'd ha' fix'd on—Lord ha' massy!" he added parenthetically, "Joan's worth a horsgead o' she—still, what's wan man's mate's another man's pison; and, howsomedever that lies, I reckon it needn't go for to hinder me fra' drinkin' their healths in a drap o' good liquor. So come along, my hearties;" and, making a movement which sent him forward with a lurch, he began muttering something about his sea-legs, the effect of which was drowned in the shout evincing the ready satisfaction with which this proposal for friendly conviviality was hailed.

Eve drew in her breath, trying to gather up courage and combat down the horrible suspicion that Uncle Zebedee was not quite himself, didn't exactly know what he was saying, had taken too much to drink. With congratulatory intent she found herself jostled against by two or three others near her, whose noisy glee and uncertain gait only increased her fears. What should she do? Where could she go? What had become of Adam? Surely he would not go and leave her amongst—

But already her question was answered by a movement from some one behind, who with a dexterous interposition succeeded in placing himself between Uncle Zebedee and herself.

"Father," and Adam's voice sounded more harsh and stern than usual, "leave Eve to go home as she likes: she's not used to these sort o' ways, and she will not take things as you mean them."

"Eh! what? How not mane 'em?" exclaimed old Zebedee, taken aback by his son's sudden appearance. "I arn't a said no harm that I knaws by: there's no 'fence in givin' the maid a wet welcome, I s'pose."

A buzz of dissatisfaction at Adam's interference inspired Zebedee with renewed confidence, and with two or three sways in order to get the right balance he managed to bring himself to a standstill right in front of Adam, into whose face he looked with a comical expression of defiance and humor as he said, "Why, come 'long with us, lad, do 'ee, and name the liquor yerself, and see it passes round free and turn and turn about: and let's hab a song or two, and get up Rozzy Treloar wi' his fiddle, and Zeke Orgall there 'ull dance us a hornpipe;" and he began a double-shuffle with his feet, adding, as his dexterity came to a sudden and somewhat unsteady finish, "Tis a ill wind that blows nobody no good, and a poor heart what never rejices."

Eve during this time had been vainly endeavoring to make her escape—an impossibility, as Adam saw, under existing circumstances; and this decided him to use no further argument; but, with his arm put through his father's and in company with the rest of the group, he apparently conceded to their wishes, and, motioning Eve on, the party proceeded along the path, down the steps and toward the quay, until they came in front of the Three Pilchards, now the centre of life and jollity, with the sound of voices and the preparatory scraping of a fiddle to enhance the promise of comfort which glowed in the ruddy reflection sent by the bright lights and cheerful fire through the red window-curtain.

"Now, father," exclaimed Adam with a resolute grip of the old man's arm, "you and me are homeward bound. We'll welcome our neighbors some other time, but for this evening let's say good-night to them."

"Good-night?" repeated Zebedee: "how good-night? Why, what 'ud be the manin' o' that? None o' us ain't agoin' to part company here, I hopes. We'm all goin' to cast anchor to the same moorin's—eh, mates?"

"No, no, no!" said Adam, impatiently: "you come along home with me now."

"Iss, iss, all right!" laughed the old man, trying to wriggle out of his son's grasp; "only not just yet a whiles. I'm agoin' in here to drink your good health, Adam lad, and all here's a-comin' with me—ain't us, hearties?"

"Pack of stuff! Drink my health?" exclaimed Adam. "There's no more reason for drinking my health to-night than any other night. Come along now, father: you've had a hard day of it, you know, and when you get home you can have whatever you want quietly by your own fireside."

But Zebedee, though perfectly good-humored, was by no means to be persuaded: he continued to laugh and writhe about as if the fact of his detention was merely a good joke on Adam's part, the lookers-on abetting and applauding his determination, until Adam's temper could restrain itself no longer, and with no very pleasant explosion of wrath he let go his hold and intimated that his father was free to take what course pleased him most.

"That's right, lad!" exclaimed old Zebedee heartily, shaking himself together. "You'm a good son and a capital sailor-man, but you'm pore company, Adam—verra pore company."

And with this truism (to which a general shout gave universal assent) ringing in his ears, Adam strode away up the street with all possible speed, and was standing in front of the house-door when he was suddenly struck by the thought of what had become of Eve. Since they had halted in front of the Three Pilchards he had seen nothing of her: she had disappeared, and in all probability had made her way home.

The thought of having to confront her caused him to hesitate: should he go in? What else could he do? where had he to go? So, with a sort of desperation, he pushed open the door and found himself within the sitting-room. It was empty; the fire had burnt low, the wick of the unsnuffed candle had grown long; evidently Eve had not returned; and with an undefined mixture of regret and relief Adam sat down, leaned his arms on the table and laid his head upon them.

During the whole day the various excitements he had undergone had so kept his mind on the stretch that its powers of keen susceptibility seemed now thoroughly exhausted, and in place of the acute pain he had previously suffered there had come a dull, heavy weight of despair, before which his usual force and determination seemed vanquished and powerless. The feeling uppermost was a sense of the injustice inflicted on him—that he, who in practice and principle was so far removed above his neighbors, should be made to suffer for their follies and misdeeds, should have to bear the degradation of their vices. As to any hope of reclaiming them, he had long ago given that up, though not without a certain disappointment in the omniscience of that Providence which could refuse the co-operation of his valuable agency.

Adam suffered from that strong belief in himself which is apt, when carried to excess, to throw a shadow on the highest qualities. Outstepping the Pharisee, who thanked God that he was not like other men, Adam thanked himself, and fed his vanity by the assurance that had the Polperro folk followed his lead and his advice they would now be walking in his footsteps; instead of which they had despised him as a leader and rejected him as a counsellor, so that, exasperated by their ignorance and stung by their ingratitude, he had cast them off and abandoned them for ever; and out of this disappointment had arisen a dim shadow of some far-off future wherein he caught glimpses of a new life filled with fresh hopes and successful endeavors.

From the moment his heart had opened toward Eve her image seemed to be associated with these hitherto undefined longings: by the light of her love, of her presence, her companionship, all that had been vague seemed to take shape and grow into an object which was real and a purpose to be accomplished; so that now one of the sharpest pricks from the thorn of disappointment came of the knowledge that this hope was shattered and this dream must be abandoned. And, lost in moody retrospection, Adam sat stabbing desire with the sword of despair.

"Let me be! let me be!" he said in answer to some one who was trying to rouse him.

"Adam, it's me: do look up;" and in spite of himself the voice which spoke made him lift his head and look at the speaker. "Adam, I'm so sorry!" and Eve's face said more than her words.

"You've nothing to be sorry for," returned Adam sullenly.

"I want you to forgive me, Adam," continued Eve.

"I've nothing to forgive."

"Yes, you have;" and a faint flush of color came into her cheeks as she added with hesitating confusion, "You know I didn't mean you to take what I said as you did, Adam; because"—and the color suddenly deepened and spread over her face—"because I do care for you—very much indeed."

Adam gave a despondent shake of his head. "No, you don't," he said, steadily averting his eyes; "and a very good thing too. I don't know who that wasn't forced to it would willingly have anything to do with such a God-forsaken place as this is. I only know I'm sick of it, and of myself and my life, and everything in it."

"Oh, Adam, don't say that—don't say you're sick of life. At least, not now;" and she turned her face so that he might read the reason.

"And why not now?" he asked stolidly. "What have I now that I hadn't before?"

"Why, you've got me."

"You? You said you couldn't give me the love I asked you for."

"Oh, but I didn't mean it. What I said was because I felt so hurt that you should suspect me as you seemed to."

"I never suspected you—never meant to suspect you. All I wanted you to know was that I must be all or nothing."

"Of course; and I meant that too, only you—But there! don't let's drift back to that again;" and as she spoke she leaned her two hands upon his shoulders and stood looking down. "What I want to say is, that every bit of love I have is yours, Adam. I am afraid," she added shyly, "you had got it all before ever I knew whether you really wanted it or not."

"And why couldn't you tell me that before?" he said bitterly.

"Why, is it too late now?" asked Eve humbly.

"Too late? You know it can't be too late," exclaimed Adam, his old irritability getting the better of him: then, with a sudden revulsion of his overwrought susceptibilities, he cried, "Oh, Eve, Eve, bear with me to-night: I'm not what I want to be. The words I try to speak die away upon my lips, and my heart seems sunk down so low that nothing can rejoice it. To-morrow I shall be master of myself again, and all will look different."

"I hope so," sighed Eve tremulously. "Things don't seem quite between us as they ought to be. I sha'n't wait for Joan," she said, holding out her hand: "I shall go up stairs now; so good-night, Adam."

"Good-night," he said: then, keeping hold of her hand, he drew her toward him and stood looking down at her with a face haggard and full of sadness.

The look acted as the last straw which was to swamp the burden of Eve's grief. Control was in vain, and in another instant, with Adam's arms around her, she lay sobbing out her sorrow on his breast, and the tears, as they came, thrust the evil spirit away. So that when, an hour later, the two said good-night again, their vows had been exchanged and the troth that bound them plighted; and Adam, looking into Eve's face, smiled as he said, "Whether for good luck or bad, the sun of our love has risen in a watery sky."

CHAPTER XXI.

Most of the actions and events of our lives are chameleon-hued: their colors vary according to the light by which we view them. Thus Eve, who the night before had seen nothing but happiness in the final arrangement between Adam and herself, awoke on the following morning with a feeling of dissatisfaction and a desire to be critical as to the rosy hues which seemed then to color the advent of their love.

The spring of tenderness which had burst forth within her at sight of Adam's humility and subsequent despair had taken Eve by surprise. She knew, and had known for some time, that much within her was capable of answering to the demands which Adam's pleading love would most probably require; but that he had inspired her with a passion which would make her lay her heart at his feet, feeling for the time that, though he trampled on it, there it must stay, was a revelation entirely new, and, to Eve's temperament, rather humiliating. She had never felt any sympathy with those lovesick maidens whose very existence seemed swallowed up in another's being, and had been proudly confident that even when supplicated she should never seem to stoop lower than to accept. Therefore, just as we experience a sense of failure when we find our discernment led astray in our perception of a friend, so now, although she studiously avoided acknowledging it, she had the consciousness that she had utterly misconceived her own character, and that the balance by which she had adjusted the strength of her emotions had been a false one. A dread ran through her lest she should be seized hold upon by some further inconsistency, and she resolved to set a watch on the outposts of her senses, so that they might not betray her into further weakness.

These thoughts were still agitating her mind when Joan suddenly awoke, and after a time roused herself sufficiently to say, "Why, whatever made you pop off in such a hurry last night, Eve? I runned in a little after ten, and there wasn't no signs of you nowheres; and then I come upon Adam, and he told me you was gone up to bed."

"Yes," said Eve: "I was so tired, and my foot began to ache again, so I thought there wasn't any use in my sitting up any longer. But you were very late, Joan, weren't you?"

"Very early, more like," said Joan: "'twas past wan before I shut my eyes. Why, I come home three times to see if uncle was back; and then I wouldn't stand it no longer, so I went and fetched un."

"What, not from—where he was?" exclaimed Eve.

Joan nodded her head. "Oh Lors!" she said, "'tain't the fust time by many; and," she added in a tone of satisfaction, "I lets 'em know when they've brought Joan Hocken down among 'em. I had Jerrem out, and uncle atop of un, 'fore they knawed where they was. Awh, I don't stand beggin' and prayin', not I: 'tis 'whether or no, Tom Collins,' when I come, I can tell 'ee."

"Well, they'd stay a very long time before they'd be fetched by me," said Eve emphatically.

"Awh, don't 'ee say that, now," returned Joan. "Where do 'ee think there'd be the most harm in, then—sittin' comfortable at home when you might go down and 'tice 'em away, or the goin' down and doin' of it?"

"I've not a bit of patience with anybody who drinks," exclaimed Eve, evading a direct answer.

"Then you'll never cure anybody of it, my dear," replied Joan. "You'm like Adam there, I reckon—wantin' to set the world straight in one day, and all the folks in it bottommost side upward; but, as I tell un, he don't go to work the right way. They that can't steer 'ull never sail; and I'll bet any money that when it comes to be counted up how many glasses o' grog's been turned away from uncle's lips, there'll be more set to the score o' my coaxin' than ever 'ull be to Adam's bullyraggin'."

"Perhaps so," said Eve; and then, wishing to avoid any argument into which Adam could be brought, she adroitly changed the subject, and only indifferent topics were discussed until, their dressing completed, the two girls were ready to go down stairs.

The first person who answered the summons to breakfast was Uncle Zebedee—not heavy-eyed and shamefaced, as Eve had expected to see him, but bright and rosy-cheeked as an apple. He had been up and out since six o'clock, looking after the repairs which a boat of his was laid up to undergo, and now, as he came into the house fresh as a lark, he chirruped in a quavery treble,

"Tom Truelove woo'd the sweetest fair That e'er to tar was kind: Her face was of a booty rare—

That's for all the world what yourn is," he said, breaking off to bestow a smacking kiss on Joan. "So look sharp, like a good little maid as you be, and gi'e us sommat to sit down for;" and he drew a chair to the table and began flourishing the knife which had been set there for him. Then, catching sight of Eve, whose face, in her desire to spare him, betrayed an irrepressible look of consciousness, he exclaimed, "Why, they've bin tellin' up that I was a little over-free in my speech last night about you, Eve: is there any truth in it, eh? I doan't fancy I could ha' said much amiss—did I?"

"Oh, nothing to signify, uncle."

"'Twas sommat 'bout you and Adam, warn't it?" he continued with a puzzled air: "'tis all in my head here, though I can't zackly call it to mind. That's the divil o' bein' a little o'ertook that ways," he added with the assurance of meeting ready sympathy: "'tis so bafflin' to set things all ship-shape the next mornin'. I minds so far as this, that it had somehow to do with me holdin' to it that you and Adam was goin' to be man and wife; but if you axes for the why and the wherefore, I'm blessed if I can tell 'ee."

"Why, whatever put such as that into your head?" said Joan sharply.

"Wa-al, the liquor, I reckon," laughed Zebedee. "And, somehow or 'nother, Maister Adam didn't seem to have overmuch relish for the notion;" and he screwed up his face and hugged himself together as if his whole body was tickled at his son's discomfiture. "But there! never you mind that, Eve," he added hastily: "there's more baws than one to Polperro, and I'll wager for a halfscore o' chaps ready to hab 'ee without yer waitin' to be took up by my son Adam."

Poor Eve! it was certainly an embarrassing situation to be placed in, for, with no wish to conceal her engagement, to announce it herself alone, and unaided by even the presence of Adam, was a task she naturally shrank from. In the endeavor to avoid any direct reply she sat watching anxiously for Adam's arrival, her sudden change of manner construed by Zebedee into the effect of wounded vanity, and by Joan into displeasure at her uncle's undue interference. By sundry frowns and nods of warning Joan tried to convey her admonitions to old Zebedee, in the midst of which Adam entered, and with a smile at Eve and an inclusive nod to the rest of the party took a chair and drew up to the table.

"Surely," thought Eve, "he intends telling them."

But Adam sat silent and occupied with the plate before him.

"He can't think I can go living on here with Joan, even for a single day, and they not know it;" and in her perplexity she turned on Adam a look full of inquiry and meaning.

Still, Adam did not speak: in his own mind he was casting over the things he meant to say when, breakfast over and the two girls out of the way, he would invite his father to smoke a pipe outside, during the companionship of which he intended taking old Zebedee decidedly to task, and, putting his intended marriage with Eve well to the front, clinch his arguments by the startling announcement that unless some reformation was soon made he would leave his native place and seek a home in a foreign land. Such words and such threats as these could not be uttered to a father by a son save when they two stood quite alone; and Adam, after meeting a second look from Eve, shook his head, feeling satisfied that she would know that only some grave requirement deterred him from immediately announcing the happiness which henceforth was to crown his life. But our intuition, at the best, is somewhat narrow, and where the heart is most concerned most faulty: therefore Eve, and Adam too, felt each disappointed in the other's want of acquiescence, and inclined to be critical on the lack of mutual sympathy.

Suddenly the door opened and in walked Jerrem, smiling and apparently more radiant than usual under the knowledge that he was more than usually an offender. Joan, who had her own reasons for being very considerably put out with him, was not disposed to receive him very graciously; Adam vouchsafed him no notice whatever; Uncle Zebedee, oppressed by the sense of former good fellowship, thought it discreet not to evince too much cordiality; so that the onus of the morning's welcome was thrown upon Eve, who, utterly ignorant of any offence Jerrem had given, thought it advisable to make amends for the pettish impatience she feared she had been betrayed into on the previous morning.

Old Zebedee, whose resolves seldom lasted over ten minutes, soon fell into the swing of Jerrem's flow of talk; a little later on and Joan was forced to put in a word; so that the usual harmony was just beginning to recover itself when, in answer to a remark which Jerrem had made, Eve managed to turn the laugh so cleverly back upon him that Zebedee, well pleased to see what good friends they were growing, exclaimed, "Stop her mouth! stop her mouth, lad! I'd ha' done it when I was your years twenty times over 'fore this. Her's too sarcy—too sarcy by half, her is."

Up started Jerrem, but Adam was before him. "I don't know whether what I'm going to say is known to anybody here already," he burst out, "but I think it's high time that some present should be told by me that Eve has promised to be my wife;" and, turning, he cast a look of angry defiance at Jerrem, who, thoroughly amazed, gradually sank down and took possession of his chair again, while old Zebedee went through the dumb show of giving a long whistle, and Joan, muttering an unmeaning something, ran hastily out of the room. Eve, angry and confused, turned from white to red and from red to white.

A silence ensued—one of those pauses when some event of our lives seems turned into a gulf to separate us from our former surroundings.

Adam was the first to speak, and with a touch of irony he said, "You're none of you very nimble at wishing us joy, I fancy."

"And no wonder, you've a-tooked us all aback so," said old Zebedee. "'T seems to me I'm foaced to turn it round and round afore I can swaller it for rale right-down truth."

"Why, is it so very improbable, then?" asked Adam, already repenting the abruptness of the disclosure.

"Wa-al, 'twas no later than last night that you was swearin' agen and cussin' everybody from stem to starn for so much as mentionin' it as likely. Now," he added, with as much show of displeasure as his cheery, weatherbeaten old face would admit of, "I'll tell 'ee the mind I've got to'ard these sort o' games: if you see fit to board folks in the smoke, why do it and no blame to 'ee, but hang me if I can stomach 'ee sailin' under false colors."

"There wasn't anything of false colors about us, father," said Adam in a more conciliatory tone; "for, though I had certainly spoken to Eve, it was not until after I'd parted with you last night that she gave me her answer."

"Awh!" said the old man, only half propitiated. "Wa-al, I s'pose you can settle your consarns without my help; but I can tell 'ee this much, that if my Joanna had took so long afore she could make her mind up, I'm blamed if her ever should ha' had the chance o' bein' your mother, Adam—so there!"

Adam bit his lip with vexation. "There's no need for me to enter upon any further explanations," he said: "Eve's satisfied, I'm satisfied, so I don't see why you shouldn't be satisfied."

"Awh, I'm satisfied enough," said Zebedee; "and, so far as that goes, though I ain't much of a hand at speechifyin', I hopes that neither of 'ee 'ull never have no raison to repent yer bargain. Eve's a fine bowerly maid, so you'm well matched there; and so long as she's ready to listen to all you say and bide by all you tells her, why 'twill be set fair and sail easy."

"I can assure you Eve isn't prepared to do anything of the sort, Uncle Zebedee," exclaimed Eve, unable to keep silence any longer. "I've always been told if I'd nothing else I've got the Pascals' temper; and that, according to your own showing, isn't very fond of sitting quiet and being rode over rough-shod."

The whistle which Uncle Zebedee had tried to choke at its birth now came out shrill, long and expressive, and Adam, jumping up, said, "Come, come, Eve: we've had enough of this. Surely there isn't any need to take such idle talk as serious matter. If you and me hadn't seen some good in one another we shouldn't have taken each other, I suppose; and, thank the Lord, we haven't to please anybody but our two selves."

"Wa-al, 'tis to be hoped you'll find that task aisier than it looks," retorted Uncle Zebedee with a touch of sarcasm; while Jerrem, after watching Adam go out, endeavored to throw a tone of regret into the flattering nothings he now whispered by way of congratulation, but Eve turned impatiently away from him. She had no further inclination to talk or to be talked to; and Uncle Zebedee having by this time sought solace in a pipe, Jerrem joined him outside, and the two sauntered away together toward the quay.

Left to the undisturbed indulgence of her own reflections, Eve's mood was no enviable one—the more difficult to bear because she had to control the various emotions struggling within her. She felt it was time for plain speaking between her and Adam, and rightly judged that a proper understanding come to at once would be the safest means of securing future comfort. Turn and twist Adam's abrupt announcement as she would, she could assign but one cause for it, and that cause was an overweening jealousy; and as the prospect came before her of a lifetime spent in the midst of doubt and suspicion, the strength of her love seemed to die away and her heart grew faint within her. For surely if the demon of jealousy could be roused by the sight of commonplace attentions from one who was in every way like a brother—for so in Eve's eyes Jerrem seemed to be—what might not be expected if at any time circumstances threw her into the mixed company of strangers? Eve had seen very little of men, but whenever chance had afforded her the opportunity of their society she had invariably met with attention, and had felt inwardly gratified by the knowledge that she was attracting admiration; but now, if she gave way to this prejudice of Adam's, every time an eye was turned toward her she would be filled with fear, and each time a look was cast in her direction her heart would sink with dread.

What should she do? Give him up? Even with the prospect of possible misery staring at her, Eve could not say yes, and before the thought had more than shaped itself a dozen suggestions were battling down the dread alternative. She would change him, influence him, convert him—anything but give him up or give in to him. She forgot how much easier it is to conceive plans than to carry them out—to arrange speeches than to utter them. She forgot that only the evening before, when, an opportunity being afforded, she had resolved upon telling Adam the whole circumstance of Reuben May and the promise made between them, while the words were yet on her lips she had drawn them back because Adam had said he knew that the promise was "nothing but the promise of a letter;" and Eve's courage had suddenly given way, and by her silence she had led him to conclude that nothing else had passed between them. Joan had spoken of the envious grudge which Adam had borne toward Jerrem because he had shared in his mother's heart, so that this was not the first time Adam had dropped in gall to mingle with the cup of his love.

The thought of Joan brought the fact of her unexplained disappearance to Eve's mind, and, full of compunction at the bare suspicion of having wounded that generous heart, Eve jumped up with the intention of seeking her and of bringing about a satisfactory explanation. She had not far to go before she came upon Joan, rubbing and scrubbing away as if the welfare of all Polperro depended on the amount of energy she could throw into her work. Her face was flushed and her voice unsteady, the natural consequences of such violent exercise, and which Eve's approach but seemed to lend greater force to.

"Joan, I want to speak to you."

"Awh, my dear, I can't listen to no spakin' now," replied Joan hastily, "and the tables looking as they do."

"But Tabithy always scrubs the tables, Joan: why should you do it?"

"Tabithy's arms ain't half so young as mine—worse luck for me or for she!"

Having by this time gained a little insight into Joan's peculiarities, Eve argued no further, but sat herself down on a convenient seat, waiting for the time when the rasping sound of the brush would come to an end. Her patience was put to no very great tax, for after a few minutes Joan flung the brush along the table, exclaiming, "Awh, drabbit the ole scrubbin'! I must give over. I b'lieve I've had enuf of it for this time, 't all events."

"Joan, you ain't hurt with me, are you?" said Eve, trying to push her into the seat from which she had just risen. "I wanted to be the first to tell you, only that Adam spoke as he did, and took all I was going to say out of my mouth. It leaves you to think me dreadfully sly."

"Awh, there wasn't much need for tellin' me," said Joan with a sudden relax of manner. "When I didn't shut my eyes o' purpose I could tell, from the first, what was certain to happen."

"It was more than I could, then," said Eve. "I hadn't given it a thought that Adam meant to speak to me, and when he asked me I was quite taken aback, and said 'No' for ever so long."

"What made 'ee change yer mind so suddent, then?" said Joan bluntly.

Eve hesitated. "I hardly know," she said, with a little confusion. "I think it was seeing him so cast down made me feel so dreadfully sorry."

"H'm!" said Joan. "Didn't 'ee never feel no sorrow for t'other poor chap that wanted to have 'ee—he to London, Reuben May?"

"Not enough to make me care in that way for him: I certainly never did."

"And do you care for Adam, then?"

"I think I do."

"Think?"

"Well, I am sure I do."

"That's better. Well, Eve, I'll say this far;" and Joan gave a sigh before the other words would come out: "I'd rather it should be you than anybody else I ever saw."

The struggle with which these words were said, their tone and the look in Joan's face, seemed to reveal a state of feeling which Eve had not suspected. Throwing her arms round her, she cried out, "Oh, Joan, why didn't he choose you? You would have been much better for him than me."

"Lord bless the maid!"—and Joan tried to laugh through her tears—"I wouldn't ha' had un if he'd axed me. Why, there'd ha' bin murder 'tween us 'fore a month was out: us 'ud ha' bin hung for one 'nother. No: now don't 'ee take no such stuff as that into yer head, 'cos there's no sense in it. Adam's never looked 'pon me not more than a sister;" and, breaking down, Joan sobbed hysterically; "and when you two's married I shall feel 'zackly as if he was a brother, and be gladder than e'er a one else to see how happy you makes un."

"That's if I do make him happy," said Eve sadly.

"There's no fear but you'll do that," said Joan, resolutely wiping the tears from her eyes; "and 'twill be your own fault if you bain't happy too yourself, Eve. Adam's got his fads to put up with, and his fancies same as other men have, and a masterful temper to keep under, as nobody can tell better than me; but for rale right-down goodness I shouldn't know where to match his fellow—not if I was to search the place through; and, mind 'ee, after all, that's something to be proud of in the man you've got to say maister to."

Eve gave a little smile: "But he must let me be mistress, you know, Joan."

"All right! only don't you stretch that too far," said Joan warningly, "or no good 'ull come of it; and be foreright in all you do, and spake the truth to un. I've many a time wished I could, but with this to hide o' that one's and that to hush up o' t'other's, I know he holds me for a downright liard; and so I am by his measure, I 'spects."

"I'm sure you're nothing of the sort, Joan," said Eve. "Adam's always saying how much people think of you. He told me only yesterday that he was certain more than half the men of the place had asked you to marry them."