"Mr. Warren remembers your kindness, sir," replied Lyman; "not only your words of encouragement, but the money you so generously advanced to him."

"A paltry sum, and really I had forgotten it."

"The sum was not large, but any debt is embarrassing until we pay it, and then we can look back upon it as a pleasure."

"Sound doctrine, Mr. Lyman. But there must be no embarrassment in this matter. So, if you please, you may tell Mr. Warren that I will take enough copies of the next edition to cancel the debt. Not enough to embarrass him, you understand. It would come to about one hundred copies, I believe. But let him make it two hundred, as I wish to send it out pretty largely, and I will send him five dollars in addition. Will you pardon me if I mix business with pleasure, and give you the money now?" He unhooked his arm.

"I shall be delighted to act as your messenger," Lyman replied.

"I thank you, sir; you are very obliging. And now," he added, when he had given Lyman the money, "we'll go over to the grotto and get a lemonade and a cigar."

They went to a hollow pile of stones, where a negro stood ready to serve them. "Help yourself to the lemonade. It was deemed advisable to have nothing strong. A very old ladle, that, sir; it was the property of my grandfather. The cigars, Jacob, the gold band. Now, here's a cigar, sir, that I can recommend. Oh, don't stop at one. Here," he added, grabbing a handful, "put these in your pocket, for I am sure you'll not get any like them down town. Well, if you will be kind enough to excuse me, I'll slip off to look after my other guests."

Lyman walked about, joking and gathering the names of the joyous maidens, the heavy men, the light young fellows, and the dames who had come to enjoy their daughters' conquests and their own dignity. With a feeling of disappointment he wondered why the banker's family was not represented, and more than once he looked about sweepingly, believing that he had heard the loud voice of Zeb Sawyer. He mused that his work was done, that the company had transacted its business with him, and he turned aside to a quiet spot, to a seat behind a clump of shrubs, to smoke a cigar and to picture Warren's surprise and delight. The cigar burned out and he was about to go, when he heard the ripple of skirts on the soft grass. A woman came across the sward, and in the light of a neighboring lantern Lyman recognized Eva. She saw him and halted.

"Won't you please sit down," he said, rising.

"I—I—didn't know you were here," she replied, looking back.

"The fact that you came is proof enough of that," said he, with a quiet laugh.

"How shrewd you are," she replied.

"No, I am only considerate. But now that you are here, won't you please sit down. I am weary of senseless chatter, and I would like to talk to you."

"Oh, I couldn't refuse, after such a compliment as that. And, besides, I am tired."

She sat down; he continued to stand. She did not appear to notice it.

"I looked all over the ground, but could not find you," he said.

"Mamma and I did not come until just now. We live so near that we put off our coming until late."

"Did your father come?"

"No. Only mamma and I. Some of us had to come."

"Just you and your mother, and not Mr. Sawyer?"

"He didn't come with us. I don't know that he is here." For a few moments they were silent. "I am so tired of everything," she said.

"Tired of yourself?"

"Yes, I am."

"Why don't you do something? Did you ever think of that?"

"What would be the use of thinking of it? There's nothing for me to do."

"There is something for everyone to do. Why don't you take up some line of study?"

"I hate study. I can't put my mind on it."

"But you could read good books."

"I do, but I get tired. I must have been petted too much."

"Ah! A girl is beginning to be strong when she feels that way. I suppose you have been flattered all your life."

"Do I show it?"

"Yes. But not so much as you did."

"And do you know the reason?"

"I don't know, unless it is that you have been sobered by a joke."

"That has something to do with it. You have made me think. You don't regard me as a spoiled child; you seem to believe that I have a mind. And that, even if you were a field hand, would cause me to be interested in you. I would like to talk with you seriously, but you joke with me."

"To hear you in a serious mood would be as sweet as an anthem."

"You must not talk that way. I want your friendship."

"You shall have it."

"I need your help."

"You shall have it."

"I don't want to be wicked," she said, looking up at him, "but I beg of you not to sign that petition to the Court, until—"

"Until when?"

"Until Zeb Sawyer is—is—out of the way. People flatter me and praise me, but they don't know what I have suffered. And my father doesn't understand me. When you called Sawyer a coward I wanted to shout in the street."

"Still you consented to marry him."

"Yes, to live for a little longer in peace. But I know a tall rock over on the creek, and from the top of it is a long way to the cruel boulders below. They call it 'Lover's Leap,' and I have thought after awhile the name might be changed to 'Despair's Leap.' At night I have dreamed of that rock, and sometimes my dream would continue after I opened my eyes. Our engagement was for one year, and often I said to myself that I had but one year longer to live. At church I would pray, and I could hear the words, 'Children, obey your parents.' And then I would go home and pretend to be happy in that obedience."

"But you signed the petition."

"Yes, with a prayer that you would not sign it."

"And I won't."

"Not even if they should come with pistols?"

"Not if they should come with a mob and a rope."

She looked up at him, with her hands clasped in her lap. The light fell upon her face, and in its human loveliness was the divine spirit of sadness. Lyman looked upward at the fleece among the stars, the lace curtain of the night.

"With the strength accidentally dedicated to me by a body of men assembled to break the customs of a class opposed to them, I will hold you a prisoner, free from the grasp of a feelingless clown," he said. "I will protect you. And when you have really fallen in love, and believe that your happiness depends upon a man, I will sign the petition."

With the frankness of a child she sprung from the seat and grasped his hand: "Oh, you stand between me and the tall rock," she said. "Good night—God bless you."

She ran away. Lyman looked after her, with dim vision—her white gown spectral in the misty light.



CHAPTER XII.

WANTED TO DREAM.

Lyman walked slowly down the tree-darkened lane that led to the main street of the village. Beneath a forest oak, where the desolate town cow and the stray sheep had come to seek freedom from the annoyances of the day, he halted and looked back. The few remaining lanterns were like fire-flies in a growth of giant grass. The members of the "string-band" were singing a negro melody. The notes came floating with the mirth-shriek of a maiden, and the hoarse laugh of the boy who aspired to be a man. Far away on a hillside a dog was barking at the mystery of night. Near by a mocking-bird, in a cage, was singing out of the melodious fullness of his heart. The muser felt two distinct senses, one that a sweet voice had touched the quick of his nature, the other that he had been grandiloquent in his talk while looking at the stars. She had threatened to destroy herself. No, she would not do that. She could but shrink from it if the time should come. But to resolve upon it, driven by a father who could not understand her, was so girlishly natural, so complete a bit of romantic despair, that she must have found it a source of great consolation.

Warren was waiting. "I'll bet you didn't bring a cigar," he said, tossing a cob pipe on the table.

"You've lost," Lyman replied, rolling out a handful of cigars upon a pile of newspapers.

Warren reached over, his eyes snapping. "Gold bands," he said. "Oh, I knew you would bring them if they were to be had. You are all right, Samuel," he added, striking a match. "Yes, sir, but I have been sitting up here, almost envious of the good time you were having. However, I was not sorry that I had not faced the Hon. S. Boyd. He frowned at me the last time we met. I can stand to be dunned once in awhile, but I don't like to be frowned at. Did he say anything about the money I owe him?"

"Well," said Lyman, leaning back in his chair, "the subject was mentioned."

"What, the old skinflint! Did he blurt it out before everybody?"

"No. He talked to me privately."

"Well, I am glad he had that much consideration. But why did he want to speak of it at all? I suppose you told him I'd pay it as soon as I could, didn't you?"

"Yes, I told him so."

"Well, then, what more does he want? No man can pay a debt before he can. There are in this town some of the queerest people I ever saw. They expect a man to pay a debt whether he's got the money or not. I'll pay that fellow and tire him to death with meeting him afterward. I'll cross the street a dozen times a day to shake hands with him. Yes, sir, I'll make him wish that I owed him."

"He sent you this," said Lyman, handing over the five dollars.

Warren's eyes flew wide open with astonishment. "Sent it to me?"

"Yes, he wants two hundred copies of our next edition. One hundred to discharge the old debt, and the five dollars is to pay for the other hundred."

"Lyman, you rubbed the lamp. Don't rub it again right away. Let me hold this thing a minute."

"You may hold it until the express company takes it away from you."

"Hush, don't make a noise. You'll wake me up. Let me dream."

"She was there," said Lyman, after a brief silence.

"A dreamer listening to a dream," Warren vacantly replied.

"I had quite a talk with her. She is not a doll. She's a woman with a soul and a mind."

"You are gone," said Warren, wrapping the bank note about his finger.

"No, I'm not gone. I am decidedly here, and I am going to stay here to protect her."

He related the talk that had passed between the young woman and himself. He told even of his gaze at the stars and his theatric declaration to stand as her protector. But he did not tell that she had caught his hand. In that act there was something sacred to him.

"As I said before, you're all right," declared Warren. "No one but a great man could have done what you have done tonight. Why, that old fellow was a jewel, and was not revealed until you brushed the dust off him. Two hundred copies? He shall have them, together with a write-up that will make this town's hair stand on end. And, by the way, don't you think you had better get at it while it's fresh?"

"Don't you fear. It will never fade, my boy. It is in my mind to stay."

"Look here, don't let that joke turn on you," said Warren. "It would be serious if you should fall in love with her."

"Yes, but I won't."

"Were you ever caught by a woman?"

"Not very hard; were you?"

"Rather," Warren answered; "I loved a girl several years ago, while I was running a paper over at Beech Knob. Yes, sir, and I reckon I loved her as hard as a woman was ever loved. I thought about her every day. And I believe she cared for me."

"It's of no use to ask you why you didn't marry her. Money, I suppose."

"That's it, Lyman; money. You see, her old man was rather well fixed, and one day when he was in the office I borrowed ten dollars of him. Then I couldn't go to the house, you see, and before I could pay it back the girl was married. Lost one of the best girls this country ever produced just because I couldn't raise ten dollars to pay her father. I guess Brother McElwin wishes now that he had let you have the hundred. It would have given him a hold on you."

"It would have given him a club," said Lyman. "A man could snatch out a hundred dollar debt and run me off the bluff. 'Lover's Leap,'" he added to himself, smiling. Warren looked up and saw the smile, but he had not caught the words.

"It's too serious a matter to grin over," he remarked, sadly, but with a bright eye turned toward the cigars that lay upon the pile of newspapers. "It's a curse to be poor," he said, with solemnity, though his eye was delighted.

"A crime," Lyman replied. "It gives no opportunity to be generous, sneers at truth and calls virtue a foolish little thing. It is the philosopher, with money out at interest, that smiles upon the contentment and blessedness of the poor man."

"Helloa, you are more of a grumbler than I ever saw you before."

Lyman leaned back with his arms spread out, and laughed. "It would seem that the rich man's coach wheel has raked off a part of my hide, but it hasn't, my boy." He got up and walked about the room; he went to the window. Damp air was stirring and an old map was flapping slowly against the dingy wall. He gazed over the housetops in the direction of the grove where the paper lanterns had hung, but all was dark and rain was fast falling.

"It's raining," he said. "I'm glad it held up until after the picnic."

"Yes," Warren replied, "for we might have been cheated out of the cigars and the five dollars."

"And I might have been robbed of a pleasant few moments."

"You are gone," said Warren, yawning.

"No, not yet, but I am going." He reached for his hat.

"In the rain?" Warren asked. "I'm going to smoke another cigar before I turn in. Stay here tonight; you can have my cot. I'd as soon sleep on the floor."

"No, I won't rob you."

"Rob me? Your work tonight would make a stone slab a soft place for me to rest."

"And my mind might turn a bed, formed of the breast feathers of a goose, into a stone slab. Good night."

The hour was late, but a light was burning in old Jasper's house. As Lyman stepped upon the veranda Henry Bostic came out of the sitting room.

"Ah, Mr. Lyman, but you are dripping wet."

"I hadn't noticed it, but it is raining rather hard. You are not going out in it, are you?"

"I have but a short distance to go. I found Miss Annie so entertaining that I didn't know it was so late. I came to invite her to hear me preach the third Sunday of next month, at Mt. Zion, on the Fox Grove road, five miles from town. I should like you to be present."

"Yes, as I was present at your first—"

"Don't mention that, Mr. Lyman," he said, hoisting his umbrella. "That was not wholly free from a spirit of revenge, and I have prayed for pardon. My mother has called on the McElwins to beseech them to forgive me, and I went to the bank today on the same errand."

"Wait a moment," said Lyman, as the young minister moved toward the steps leading to the dooryard. "Did the banker forgive you?"

The young man stood with his umbrella under the edge of the roof, and the rain rumbled upon it. "No, sir. He said I had done his family a vital injury. I told him I might have been an instrument in the hands of a higher power, and he sneered at me. I hope you forgive me, Mr. Lyman."

"To be frank, I am secretly glad that it happened," Lyman replied.

"But not maliciously or even mischievously glad, I hope," said the preacher.

"No, I am glad for other reasons, but I cannot explain them."

The rain rumbled upon the umbrella and the preacher was silent for a moment. "Mr. McElwin said that if I could induce you to sign the petition he would forgive me. And I told him I would. Will you sign it?"

"I cannot, Mr. Bostic."

"May I ask why?"

"Because I stand as the young woman's protector. She despises Sawyer, and her father was determined that she should be his wife."

"Did she tell you, sir?"

"Yes, and I have promised; but this is confidential."

"Then, sir, the petition must not be signed. The ceremony, after all, was a blessing, and I shall not again crave the banker's forgiveness. Good night."



CHAPTER XIII.

IN A MAGAZINE.

There came a day, and it followed the picnic, with not a week between, when Lyman's midnight scratching, done at the house of old Uncle Buckley, came out into the dazzling light. A story written by him appeared in one of the leading magazines of the East. It was a simple recital, a picture of the country and its people, and so close down upon the earth did it lie that a patter of rain that fell somewhere among the words brought a sweet scent from the blackberry briars, and a smell of dust from the rain. There were intelligent reading persons, in Old Ebenezer, and with the big eye of astonishment they viewed the story, but they were afraid to form an opinion until the critic of the "State Gazette," following a bold lead struck by an eastern reviewer, declared it to be a piece of masterly work. And then the town of Old Ebenezer was glad to assert its admiration. The leading hardware man said that he had noticed from the first that there was something strange about the fellow.

"And," said he, "you can never tell what a strange sort of a fellow may pop up and do. Now, there was old Kincade's son Phil. Everybody knew he was curious; everybody could see that, but they didn't know how to place him. I told them not to place him. I told them there was no telling where he might break out. His daddy said he was a fool. I said 'wait.' Well, they waited, and what came? The boy discovered a process for tanning coon hides without bark, and now look at him. Worth ten thousand dollars if he's worth a cent."

A saddler gave his opinion: "I knew he had it in him. I haven't read his article, but I'll bet it's good. Why, he's said things in my shop that it would be worth anybody's while to remember. Just stepped in and said them and went out like it wasn't no trouble at all. And look what he's done for the paper here! Every time he touches her he makes her flinch like a hoss-fly lightin' on a hoss. And when everybody was making such a mouth about that fool marriage, I—well, I just kept my mouth shut and didn't say a word."

Warren was the proudest man in town. He was so elated and so busy talking about the story that he never found time to read it, except to dip into it here and there, to find something to start him off on a gallop of praise.

"Why didn't you tell me, so that I might have known what to expect? Why did you nurse it so long?" Warren asked, as he and Lyman sat in the office.

"Oh, I hadn't anything to tell, except of a probable prospect. And nothing is more tiresome than to listen to a man's hopes."

"But you must have known that the story would be a success."

"No, I didn't."

"Well, maybe not. It was fortunate to drive center the first shot."

Lyman laughed sadly. "Warren," said he, nodding toward the magazine, which lay upon the table, "I began to scatter seeds so long ago that I hardly know when; and one has sprouted. I have been writing stories for the magazines ever since I was a boy, and they were returned with a printed 'thank you for—' and so forth. I had thought, as many young writers think, that I must be deep and learned. I didn't know that one half-hidden mood of nature, one odd trait of man, one little reminder to the reader of something that had often flitted across his mind, was of more value than the essence of a thousand books. I strove to climb a hill where so many are constantly falling and rolling to the bottom. At last I opened my eyes and shut my memory, and then I began to progress. But not without the most diligent work. This story, (again nodding toward the magazine) was written six times at least."

"Why, you have made it look as easy as falling off a log," said Warren.

"Yes; it was work that made it look easy. There are two sorts of successful stories; one that makes the reader marvel at its art; the other one that makes the reader believe that almost anybody could have written it. The first appeals to the stylist and may soon die. The other may live to be a classic."

"Go ahead. That sort of talk catches me. It seems now that I have thought it many times, but just didn't happen to say it. Have you got anything in hand now?"

"Yes; I might as well let it all out now. I have a book accepted by a first-class house, and I have a long story which I may submit to a magazine to be published as a serial in the event of the success of the book."

"You are all right. I have often told you that. Why, some of the things you have written for this paper would do to go into the school readers along with the dialogue between some fellow—forget his name now—and Humphrey Dobbins; and that barber who lived in the City of Bath. Recollect? Let's see, 'Respect for the Sabbath Rewarded.' Don't you know now? 'And say,' the stranger says to him, 'I have glorious news for you. Your uncle is dead,' and so on. But it used to tickle me to think the fellow could find any glory in the news of his uncle's death, but I guess he did."

"Yes, I remember. He was the barber that wouldn't shave on Sunday. And as a reward his uncle died and left him a lot of money. And you'd hit it off pretty well now by marking out virtue in 'Virtue Is Its Own Reward,' and substituting 'money.'"

"But I don't think we've got very much cause to complain," said Warren. "We gathered in five subscribers yesterday, and three today, besides an electric belt ad, to run for six months. Oh, we're all right, and the first thing you know, we'll have some new clothes. We don't want any hand-me-downs. About two weeks ago I went into the tailor's shop across the square, and picked out a piece of cloth. But when I passed there yesterday I noticed that some scoundrel had bought it. Why, helloa; come in."

Uncle Buckley Lightfoot stood in the door. His approach had been so soft that they did not hear him. His tread was always noiseless when he walked in strange places. He appeared to be afraid of breaking something.

"Come in!" Lyman shouted, springing to meet him.

"Howdy do; howdy do." He seized Lyman and then shook hands with Warren. "I jest thought I'd look in and see how Sammy was gettin' along. And I promised mother that if he was busy I'd jest peep in and then slip away. Sammy, you look as peart as a red bird."

"Sit down, Uncle Buckley," said Lyman. "Let me take off your leggings."

"Jest let them alone where they are, Sammy," the old man replied. "I haven't got long to stay, for I don't want to keep you from your work. Jest put those saddle-bags over there on the table. No, wait a minute. I've got something in 'em for you. Look here," he added, taking out a package; "mother sent you some pickles."

"Oh, I'm a thousand times obliged to her," said Lyman, putting the package and the saddle-bags on the table. "Tell her so, please."

"I'll do that. Lawd bless you, Sammy; I do reckon she knows what a man needs. And she says to me, 'Pap, you shan't go one step toward that fetch-taked town unless you agree to take Sammy some pickles made outen the finest cucumbers that ever growd.' And I jest said, 'You do up your pickles and don't you be askeered of me.' And she begins then to fix 'em up, a-talkin' all the time fitten to kill herself. 'The idea of a man bein' shet up there in that musty place, without any pickles,' she says; 'it's enough to kill him, the Lord knows.' And I wanted to sorter relieve her distress, and I 'lowed that mebby there was pickles in town; and she turned about, lookin' like she wanted to fling somethin' at me. 'Pap,' she says, and I begin to dodge back, 'for as smart a man as you are, I do think you can say the foolishest things of anybody I ever seen. Pickles fitten to eat in a town where if a person ain't dressed up he can't get into the churches on the Lord's day; and where, if they do get in, the minister won't even so much as cast his eye on 'em while he's a preachin' of his sermon! Pickles indeed,' she says, and I kep' on a dodgin'. How are you gettin' along, Sammy?"



"First rate."

"But what's this joke they've got on you about bein' married?"

"That's what it is, Uncle Buckley, a joke."

"I told Jimmy and Lige that it was only a prank. I knowed you weren't goin' to throw yourself away on no one here, when the woods are full of 'em out our way that would like to have you. Don't dodge, Sammy. Stand right up to your fodder, for you know it's a fact. It made mother powerful mad. She took it that you wanted the gal, and the old man thought you wa'n't good enough. And she boiled. 'Why, he can start a church tune better than any person we ever had in the neighborhood,' she 'lowed. 'Not good enough, indeed!' And I dodged on off, sorter laughin' as I ducked behind the hen-house. And that reminds me, Sammy, that a varmint come the other night and toated off the likeliest rooster I had on the place. Mother woke me at night, and asked if that wa'n't a chicken squallin.' I told her that I had the plan of a new barn in my head, and that I couldn't let the squallin' of no sich thing as a chicken drive it out, and I went to sleep. But you ought to have seen the look she gave me the next mornin' when we found feathers scattered all over the yard. By the way, Sammy, where is the other man; the great lawyer that was your partner? Is he out at present?"

"Yes, Uncle Buckley, he's out at present, and for good. We have dissolved partnership."

"No!" said the old man, dropping his jaw. "Why, I thought you and him was together for keeps. And you don't really mean to tell me that you ain't, Sammy?"

"He has an office on the other side of the square, and I'm not in the law business," Lyman replied. "Warren and I are running this paper."

"When did you quit each other?" the old man asked, leaning forward and picking at his blanket leggings.

"Why, the day you were in here. You remember I left you here with him. When I came back he had decided to set aside the partnership."

The old man looked up at the ceiling. "I reckon it's all right, but I don't exactly get the hang of it," he said, getting up and taking his hat off the table.

"Understand what, Uncle Buckley?" Lyman asked.

"Oh, nothin'. It's all right, I reckon. Young feller, jest keep on a shootin' your paper at me. We find some mighty interestin' readin' in it; and sometimes Lige he breaks out in a loud laugh over a piece, and he 'lows, 'if that ain't old Sammy, up and up, I don't want a cent.' Well, boys, I've some knockin' around to do and I'll have to bid you good day."



CHAPTER XIV.

NOTHING REMARKABLE IN IT.

Mr. McElwin put aside his newspaper and paced slowly up and down the room, his slippered feet falling with an emphatic pat on the carpet. His wife sat near the window, watching the swallows cutting black circles in the dusky air. Eva was seated at the piano, half turned from it, while with one hand she felt about to touch the nerve of some half-forgotten tune. McElwin dropped down in an arm chair.

"I wonder if this newspaper will ever stop talking about that fellow's story," said he. "I read it over and I didn't see anything remarkable in it. Of course it's all right to feel a local pride in a thing, but gracious alive, we don't want to go into fits over it. Now, here's nearly half a column about it."

"Let me see it," said Eva. He picked up the paper and held it out to her. She got off the piano stool, took the paper and stood near her father, under the hanging lamp.

"Can't you find it? On the editorial page."

"Yes, I have found it. But it is not written by the pen of local pride."

"It is in the state paper."

"Yes, but if you had read to the bottom you would have seen that it was from a New York paper."

"Ah, well, it doesn't interest me, no matter what paper it is from."

"What is it?" Mrs. McElwin asked, turning from the window.

"Something more about Mr. Lyman's story," the daughter answered.

"It appears to have stirred up quite a sensation," said Mrs. McElwin. "One of those happy accidents."

"It was not an accident," the girl replied. "It was genius."

"Come, don't be absurd," said her father. "There is such a thing as a man finding a gold watch in the road. I call it an accident. I had quite a talk with him in my private office before our relations became strained, and I found him to be rather below the average. He surely has but a vague and confused idea regarding even the simplest forms of business. But I admit that his story is all well enough, and so are many little pieces of fancy work, but they don't amount to anything. Educated man? Yes, that's all right, too, but the highways are full of educated men, looking for something to do. Sawyer is worth a dozen of him."

Mrs. McElwin glanced at her daughter, as if she had heard a footstep on dangerous ground. She was not far wrong.

"Sawyer is a man, ready—"

"He has not shown it," the girl was bold enough to declare. She stood under the lamp and the newspaper rattled as she held it now grasped tightly.

"Eva," said her mother, in gentle reproof, "don't say that."

"But I want her to say it if she thinks it," the banker spoke up, almost angrily. "I want her to say it and prove it."

"He proved it to me, but I may not be able to prove it to you. Mr. Lyman called him a coward and he did not resent it."

"Lyman did? How do you know?"

"I heard him."

The banker blinked at her. "You heard him? When? And how came you to be near him?"

"It was on the Sunday after the mar—the foolish ceremony. As Mr. Sawyer walked off with me from the church door Mr. Lyman joined us."

"Joined you! The impudent scoundrel! What right had he to join you, and why did you permit it?"

"He took the right and we couldn't help ourselves. At least I couldn't and Mr. Sawyer didn't try to."

"I wish I had been there."

"You were just in front, but you didn't look around."

"Well, and then what happened?"

"Why, during the talk that followed, Mr. Lyman called him a coward."

"Mr. Sawyer is a gentleman and he couldn't resent it at the time in the presence of a lady."

"He has had time enough since," she said with scorn.

Mrs. McElwin came from the window and sat down near her husband. The banker looked hard at his daughter, and a sudden tangling of the lines on his face showed that the first words that flew to the verge of utterance had been suppressed, and that he was determined to be calm.

"He has had time, but he has also had consideration," said McElwin. "To resent an insult is sometimes more of a scandal than to let it pass. He hesitated to involve your name."

He was now so quiet, so plausible in his gentleness that the young woman felt ashamed of the quick spirit she had shown.

"Sit down," he said, and she obeyed, with her hands lying listlessly together in her lap.

"Your mother and I know what is best for you," he said. A slight shudder seemed to pass through the wife's dignified shoulders. "You have always been the object of our most tender solicitude," he went on. "And if I have been determined, it has been for your own ultimate good. I admit that there is not much romance about Mr. Sawyer. He is a keen, open-eyed, practical business man, with money out at interest, and with money lying in my bank. His family is excellent. His father was, for many years, the Clerk of the Court of Appeals, and his grandfather was a judge. And I believe as firmly as I ever believed anything, that he will be a very rich man. He is constantly widening out and will not confine himself to the buying and selling of mules. His judgment of the markets is fine, and I repeat that he will be a very rich man. In looking over the field I don't know another man I would rather have associated with me."

His wife, long since convinced by his practical logic, looked up with a quiet smile of approval. The girl sat weaving her fingers together. She met her father's questioning eye and did not waver.

"I don't presume to question what you say," she said. "But I am no longer a spoiled child to be petted and persuaded. I am a woman and have begun to think. This marriage, though brought about in so ridiculous a way, has had a wonderful effect upon me. I have heard that marriage merges a woman's identity with that of her husband, but this marriage has made an individual of me. It has freed me from frivolous company; it has given me something that I once thought I could not endure—solitude—and I have found it delightful. The hard and stubborn things that were beat into my head at school, and which I despised at the time, are useful pieces of knowledge now, and, viewing them, I wonder that I could ever have been so silly as to find my greatest pleasure in flattery."

Never before had she spoken at such length, nor with an air so serious. Her mother looked at her with a half wondering admiration, and the banker's countenance showed a new-born pride in her—in himself, indeed—for nothing in his household was important unless it showed a light reflected from him; and now, in his daughter, he discovered a part of himself, a disposition to think. This thought was seditious, and there is virtue in even a rebellious strength, and it convinced him that henceforth he must address her reason rather than a feminine whim. He was proud of her, admitted it to himself and conveyed it in a look which he gave his wife; but he was not the less determined to carry his point. Sawyer was a man of affairs. His judgment was sure, his spirit adventurous. Figures were his playthings, and who could say that he was not to become one of the country's great financiers? Once he had made a bid against many competitors acquainted with the work, to build a bridge for the county. Sawyer's bid was the lowest. His friends said that the undertaking would ruin him; McElwin deplored the young man's rashness. But he built the bridge, made money on the speculation; and the first traffic across the new structure was a drove of Sawyer's mules, en route to a profitable market.

"I am glad you have begun to think," he said, smiling at her. "I knew the time would come, and, as it has come, let me ask you a question. Did you request this Mr. Lyman to sign the petition?"

"I mentioned it to him."

"You did. That ought to have been sufficient. What did he say?"

"He said that he would—under certain conditions." McElwin winced in memory of his and Sawyer's visit to Lyman.

"Conditions? How does he dare enforce conditions? What were they?"

"That I must avow my love for Zeb—Mr. Sawyer."

"Well, is that all?"

"All! Isn't it enough?"

"You can do that, my daughter," Mrs. McElwin said meekly.

"Yes, I could, if the time should ever come."

"What time?" the banker asked.

"The time when I can say that I love him."

McElwin crossed his legs with a sudden flounce. "You put too serious an estimate upon love," he said. "You expect it to be the grand, over-mastering passion we read about. That was all well enough for the age of poetry, but this is the age of prose. You can go to that man and tell him that—"

"That I have a Nineteenth century love for Mr. Sawyer," she interrupted.

"Well, yes."

"And he would laugh at me."

"Laugh at you," he frowned. "No gentleman can laugh at a lady's distress."

"But he might not regard it as distress. It might seem ridiculous to him."

"Hump," he grunted. "Well, it's undignified, it is almost outrageous to be forced to do such a thing, but you must go to him. Your mother will go with you."

"No, James," his wife gently protested, looking at him in mild appeal. "I don't really think I can muster the courage for so awkward an undertaking. Please leave me out."

"Leave you out of so important an arrangement, an arrangement that involves the future of your daughter!"

"Then, why should not all three of us go?" she asked.

"I have trampled my own pride under my feet by going once," he replied. "Yes, and he treated me with cool impudence. And if I should go again something might happen. That man has humiliated me more than any man I ever met, and once is enough; I couldn't bear an insult in the presence of my wife and daughter. Eva, do you know what that man tried to do? He gained admission to my private office, and actually strove to bunco me out of a hundred dollars."

"He may have tried to borrow it, father, but I don't think he tried to get it dishonestly."

"Didn't I tell you that he tried to beat me out of the money? Why do you set up a mere opinion against my experience? And why are you so much inclined to take his part? Tell me that. You can't be interested in him?"

"I don't want injustice done him."

"Oh, no; but you would submit to the injustice he does you. He has robbed you of the society of your younger acquaintances—he compels you to sit almost excluded in a town where you are an acknowledged belle. Young gentlemen are afraid to call on you."

"Well, I don't know that it would be exactly proper," she replied.

"And," he went on, lifting his voice, "the strangest part of it is that you quietly submit to this treatment when there is a way to free yourself. And I request you to make use of it."

He got up, went to the mantel-piece, took up a sea-shell, put it down, turned his back to the fire place, stood there a moment and strode out.

"You must do as he commands," said the mother.

"I can't."

"Don't say that. You must. I have thought it over, and I know it's for the best."

"You have permitted him to think it over, and you hope it is for the best," the daughter replied.



CHAPTER XV.

MUST LEAVE THE TOWN.

At eleven o'clock the next day, Zeb Sawyer was to meet McElwin at the bank. The hour was tolled off by a grim old clock standing high in a corner, a rare old time piece with a history, or at least a past, of interest to McElwin, for it had been bought at the forced sale of fixtures belonging to a defunct bank. It struck with solemn self-importance, as if proclaiming the hour to foreclose a mortgage; and though not given to this sort of reflective speculation, McElwin must have been vaguely influenced by its knell-like stroke, for he nearly always glanced up as if a tribute were due to its promptness. A few minutes later Zeb Sawyer was shown into the room. The banker had been sitting in deep thought, with his legs stretched forth, and with his hands in his pockets, but he turned about when the clock struck, and as Sawyer entered the office he was busy with papers on a table in front of him.

"Good morning, Zeb; sit down."

"Hard at it, I see," said the young man, taking a seat at the opposite side of the table.

"Yes, day and night. No rest for the wicked, you know."

"I don't know as to that," Sawyer replied, "but I do know that there is mighty little rest for the man that wants to do anything in the world."

"You are right. The gospel of content builds poor houses. I never knew a happy man who wasn't lazy."

"You ought to go to Congress, McElwin; they need such talk there."

"They need a good many qualities that they are not likely to get." He put his papers aside, and leaning with his arms on the table looked into the eyes of his visitor. "My daughter has developed into a thinking woman, Zeb."

The over-confident young money-maker's face brightened, as if the banker had given him a piece of encouraging news.

"Yes, sir," McElwin went on, "and no cause is lost so long as thinking is going on. Why, sir, it took my wife years and years to learn how to think. It was not expected that a young woman in this part of the country should think. Men were the necessities and women the adornments of society when I was a young fellow."

"But you said your daughter had become a thinking woman," Sawyer hastened to remark, to bring him back from his wanderings.

"Yes. And it will require all my strength and influence as a father, to get her to think as I want her to. Still, in our dealings with a woman there is always hope—if she thinks. I had quite a talk with her last night, but I did not convince her that she ought to go to that fellow and ask him to sign—sign that infamous petition." McElwin took his arms off the table and leaned back in his chair. "And, sir, I don't believe she'll do it."

"It can't be that she can care anything for him," said Sawyer.

"Nonsense," the banker replied. "Such a thing has never entered her head. I think she enjoys the oddity of her position, married and yet not married. I think it tickles her sense of romance. But there is a way of getting at everything, and there must be some way of approaching this outrageous affair. I have looked into the law, and I find that in case the fellow should go and remain away one year, his signature would not be necessary. However, being a sort of a lawyer, he knows this as well as I do. We can't bring the charge of non-support, for we have not let him try. Zeb, she has intimated that you are afraid of him."

The banker looked straight at him, but the mule-trader did not change countenance. "No, I am not afraid of him," he said, "but unless I'm shoved pretty far, I don't care to mix up with him, I tell you that. My life is too valuable to throw away, and they tell me that Lyman is nothing short of a desperado when he is stirred up, though you wouldn't think it to look at him. But you can never tell a man by looking at him, not half as much as you can a mule. Oh, if the worst comes, I'd kill him, but—"

"That would never do," the banker broke in. "Don't think of such a thing. I wonder if we couldn't buy him off," he added, after a moment's musing. "I should think that he might be induced to go away. There is one thing in support of this; he has had a taste of success, or rather a nibble at ambition, and he may, even now, be thinking of going to a city. Suppose you go over and see him—offer him five hundred dollars."

Sawyer studied awhile. "He couldn't take offense at that," he said. "At least no sensible man ought to. Suppose you write me a check payable to him."

McElwin, without replying, made out a check, blotted it and handed it to Sawyer. "Come back and tell me," he said.

* * * * *

Lyman was writing when Sawyer tapped at the open door. "Come in," said the writer. His manner was pleasant and his countenance was genial, and Sawyer, standing at the threshold, felt an encouragement coming to meet him. He stepped forward and Lyman invited him to sit down.

"A little warm," said Lyman.

"Yes, think we'll have rain, soon; the air's so heavy."

"Shouldn't be surprised. It would help farmers when setting out their tobacco plants."

"I reckon you are right. But the farmers would complain anyway, wet or dry. The weather wouldn't suit them, even if they had the ordering of it."

"Well, in that they are not different from the rest of us," said Lyman. "We all grumble."

A short silence followed. Lyman moved some papers. Sawyer coughed slightly. They heard the grinding of the press.

"Printing the paper in there?" said Sawyer, nodding toward the door. He began to turn about as if nervous at the thought of his errand. "How many do you print a week?"

"I don't know, but we have a pretty fair circulation."

"I see it a good deal out in the state."

"Yes, it spreads out fairly well. We try to make it interesting to the farmers."

"By telling them something they don't know," said the visitor.

Lyman shook his head slowly: "By reminding them of many things they do know," he replied. "Tell a man a truth he doesn't know and he may dispute it; call to his mind a truth which he has known and forgotten, and he regards it as a piece of wisdom. The farmer is the weather-cock of human nature."

"I guess you have about hit it. By the way, Mr. Lyman, I have called on a little matter of business, and I hope you'll not fly off before you consider it. The only way we can get at the merits of a case is by being cool and deliberate. The last time we had a talk, you—"

"Yes," Lyman interrupted, "I must have gone too far when I called you a coward."

"I think so, sir, but be that as it may, let us be cool and deliberate now. I have just had a talk with Mr. McElwin and he is still greatly distressed over—over that affair, and he thinks by putting our reasons to work we can get at a settlement. The fact is, he wonders that you would want to stay in such a small and unimportant place as this is, after your editorial that everybody is talking about."

"Did he call it an editorial?" Lyman asked, smiling at his visitor.

"Well, I don't know as he called it that, but whatever it is, he was a good deal struck by it, and he wondered that you didn't go to some big city and set up there. And I wondered so too, from all that I heard. Somebody, I have forgotten who, hinted that maybe you didn't have money enough and—"

"Money," said Lyman; "why, I've got money enough to burn a wet elephant."

Sawyer blinked in the glare of this dazzling statement, but he managed to smile and then to proceed: "I spoke to Mr. McElwin about what had been hinted, and inasmuch as you had applied to him for a loan, he didn't know but it was the truth."

"A very natural conclusion on his part," said Lyman, leaning back and crossing his feet on a corner of the table.

"Yes, he thought so, and I did, too. He ain't so hard a man to get along with as you might think."

"He is not a hard man to get away from. It doesn't seem to put him to any trouble to let a man know when he's got enough of him."

"I'm afraid you didn't see him under the best conditions."

"No, I don't believe I did. He made me feel as if I looked like the man standing at the threshold of the almanac, badly cut up, with crabs and horns and other things put about him."

"I think you would find him much more agreeable now."

"Oh, he was agreeable enough then, only he didn't agree. And I am thankful that he didn't."

"Well, he regrets that he didn't let you have the money, although you came in an unbusiness-like way."

"Yes, I did. And pretending to be a lawyer, I ought to have known better. I don't blame him for that."

"What do you blame him for, then?"

"For wanting his daughter to be your wife."

Sawyer jerked his hand as if something had bitten him. "But what right have you to blame him for that? It was arranged long before you ever saw me, and besides what right have you, a stranger, to interfere in his affairs?"

"That's very well put, Mr. Sawyer, but there are some affairs that rise above family and appeal to humanity. You requested me to be cool and deliberate, and you will pardon me, I hope, if I am cooler than you expected, and more considerate than you desire. It would be a crime to attempt to merge that young woman's life into yours."

"I know you have a pretty low estimate of me, but I won't resent it. We are to be cool."

"And considerate," said Lyman, with a slight bow.

"Yes, sir; and considerate. But I don't see where the crime would come in. My family is as good as hers."

"That may be. I am not looking at her family, but at her. She was spoiled, it is true, but she is developing into the highest type of American womanhood."

"Yes, but I haven't come to discuss her. We were talking just now about the prospect of your going away, and the probability that you might not have money enough to settle in a city. Mr. McElwin is willing to help you toward that end, and has signed a check for five hundred dollars, made out in your name. Here it is." He handed the check to Lyman, who took it, looked at it and said: "He writes a firm hand. Money gives a man confidence in himself, doesn't it?" He held out the check toward Sawyer. The latter did not take it, and it fluttered in the air and fell to the floor. Sawyer took it up and put it on the table, with an ink stand on it to hold it down.

"It is yours, Mr. Lyman; it is made out to you."

"Upon the condition that I leave here and remain away as long as one year. Is that it?"

"Well, yes."

"I told you that I have enough money to burn a wet elephant. I haven't—I haven't enough to scorch a dry cricket."

"Then you will accept the check," said Sawyer, brightening.

Lyman had struck a match, as if to light his pipe. He took up the check and held it to the blaze. "Look out," he said, as Sawyer sprung to interfere. "Sit down." He took the cinders and wrapped them in a piece of paper, folding it neatly. "Give this to Mr. McElwin and tell him that I have cremated the little finger of his god, and send him the ashes," he said.

Sawyer stood gazing at him in astonishment.

"I told you to sit down. You won't sit down. And you won't take the god-ashes to the devotee. Come, that's unkind."

"Sir, you have insulted me."

"What, again?"

"And you shall regret it. And you shall leave this town," he added, turning to go. "You have not only insulted me, but you—you have put an indignity upon Mr. McElwin." Indignity was rather a big word, coming from him unexpectedly out of his vague recollection, and he halted to stiffen with a better opinion of himself. "I say you shall leave this town."

"I heard what you said. But I thought we were to be cool. Oh, pardon me, it was the fire that gave offense."

"I say you are going to leave this town."

"Good-bye, then."

"I will make one more attempt," said Sawyer, standing in the door.

"Don't exert yourself."

"I will offer you a thousand dollars to go away."

"My stock is rising."

"Will you take it?"

"The advance is too rapid. Can't afford to sell now."

Sawyer began to sputter. "I'm done," he said. "I have no other proposition to make. But remember what I say. You are going to leave this town."

"Then I may not see you again; good-bye."



CHAPTER XVI.

SAWYER'S PLAN.

McElwin was engaged when Sawyer returned to the bank, but he soon cleared the room. "Well," he said, when the mule buyer entered. Sawyer sat down before he replied.

"He refused."

McElwin's feet scraped the floor. "Refused?"

"Yes. He took the check, struck a match and burned it up."

"The scoundrel."

"Worse than that, he wrapped up the cinders and told me to take them to you, and tell you that he had burnt the little finger of your god."

"Blasphemous wretch!"

"And I told him that he had not only insulted me, but had put an indignity upon you. I talked to him just as cool as a man could talk to anybody; we got along first rate until he burnt the check, and then, of course, it was all off. No it wasn't, not even then. As I stood in the door on my way out I offered him a thousand dollars. And he refused. And do you know why? I think he's got the notion that by sticking out he may win you and Eva over and get a partnership here."

McElwin jumped up and slapped his hand upon the table. "I would see him in——first." He turned about and began to walk slowly up and down the room.

"But he's going to leave this town," said Sawyer. "When I set my head on a thing I go at it with reason and work on that line until I find it hasn't any power, and then I use force. I am going to do it in this case."

"How?" McElwin asked.

"The boys have a way of getting at a thing that persuasion can't reach."

"Speak out," said McElwin. "Tell me what you are going to do."

"Well, I am going out into the Spring Hill neighborhood and appeal to the boys—the White Caps. Then, some fine night, a party, all dressed in white head-gear, will call on Mr. Lyman. They will put him on a horse, take him out to the woods, take off his shirt, tie him across a log and give him fifty lashes as a starter. Then, when they untie him, they'll remark that if he is not gone within three days they will give him a hundred. See the point?"

"Zeb, he deserves it, but I'm afraid that course won't do."

"Not weakening, are you?"

"Weakening? Who ever knew me to weaken? I say he deserves it."

"But you say it won't do."

"And I'm afraid it won't. It would create a terrible scandal."

"It's done every week, in some part of the country. Even the most law-abiding citizens acknowledge that it is a good thing."

"It might do in the country, severe as it is, but it would be different in town. The law would interfere, and that would be disgraceful."

"But the law will not interfere. I can fix the town marshal, and as for the sheriff—he owes me for a span of mules. I have worked it all out. In the evening I'll go around to Uncle Jasper's with a bottle of old Bourbon. I'll tell him that I am celebrating my birthday or something. Once in a while he takes to the bottle, and the old liquor will tempt him. Well, when he's in good condition, I'll put him to bed and shortly afterwards the boys will come for brother Lyman. In the meantime I will see that there are no guns in the way. The women will be scared, of course, but they'll soon get over it. Isn't that a plan worthy of a county surveyor?"

"The plan's all right, Zeb, but I'm afraid of it's execution. Supposing my name should become involved. It would ruin me."

"Yes, but your name sha'n't be involved."

"He will suspect you and me, too."

"But he couldn't prove anything."

"Well, now, you may do as you please, but I'll have no hand in it. I refuse to countenance it."

"You simply don't know anything about it."

"Of course not. I'm too much taken up with other affairs."

Sawyer arose to go. "I shall see you again, I suppose. I mean before anything is done," said McElwin. "At the house," he added.

Sawyer looked down: "I don't feel free to come there," he said. "She has told me not to."

McElwin coughed dryly: "Nonsensical proprieties," he remarked, scraping his feet upon the floor. "But I am to see you again?"

"I think not—until afterwards. Whatever is done, you know, must be done at once."

Sawyer went out. The clock struck and McElwin glanced up at it. Then he settled down into a deep muse. Sawyer's plan was desperate—it was outlawry. It ought not to be carried out, and yet the provocation was great. But supposing it should be known that he had given countenance to the undertaking. Suppose the newspapers should print his name in connection with it; the public, to say nothing of the law, would frown upon him. It must not be done. He snatched a piece of paper, and writing upon it the words: "Give up that scheme at once," sealed it up and gave it to a negro, with instructions to find Mr. Sawyer and hand it to him at once. About half an hour later the negro returned with a note written on a piece of paper bag, and unsealed. The note ran: "Don't you worry, but it shall be done tonight. Don't try to find me. I have been fooling long enough, and now I am getting down to business." He tore the paper into bits, and then strode slowly up and down the room. Presently he took down his hat, rubbed it abstractedly with the sleeve of his coat, and went out, remarking that he might not be back that day. He felt like a criminal as he stepped upon the sidewalk. But he was stiff, and merely nodded to the tradesmen who bowed to him cringingly. He was looking for Sawyer, but was afraid to inquire after him. He went to the wagon yard where Sawyer stabled his mules, and looked about, but did not find him. The owner of the place, hard in the presence of the farmers, but obsequiously soft under the banker's eye, invited him into the office, a dismal place, the walls hung with halters, bridles, chains and twisting sticks, used to grip the jaw of a refractory horse and wrench rebellion out of him. The rough appearance of the stable men within and the pungent smell of the place, turned McElwin at the threshold.

"No, I don't think I have time," he said.

"Is there anything I can do for you? If there is, name it, and I will stir up this place from top to bottom."



McElwin thought that it was stirred up quite enough, with its rough men, its mangy dogs and rat-like smell. "Nothing at all," he answered. "I am looking for a farmer, a man named Brown."

"Old Jack? He's around here somewhere. It will tickle him pretty nigh to death to know you'd look for him. I'll tell him when he comes in."

"Oh, no. He's not the man. This man's quite young, and his name is Lucian Brown, I think."

"Then I don't know anything about him, I'm sorry to say."

"Are you feeding many mules at present?"

"Well, not many at present, but I expect to have more in a day or two. Mr. Sawyer has gone down in the country to gather up a lot. He drove out just a few moments ago. I tell you, there's a hustler, Mr. McElwin. He don't wait, he makes things happen."

"Which way did he go?" McElwin asked.

"I don't know, exactly, but I think he took the Spring Hill road. He must be going after something particularly fine, for I heard him tell old Josh that he wanted a bottle of the oldest liquor in town, no matter what it costs. But he didn't take it with him, come to recollect. He 'lowed he'd want it this evening when he come back."

McElwin walked straightway to his home. His appearance at that odd hour caused surprise, and his wife, having seen him through the window, came to the door with something of a flurry.

"Is there anything wrong?" she asked, as he stepped into the hall.

"Nothing at all," he answered, hanging up his hat. "Why?"

"Because you are home so early."

"Oh, that's it. I was tired and I thought I'd come home to rest."

She took his arm and they passed into the rear parlor. "Where is Eva?" he asked, sitting down.

"I don't know. I think she's out for a walk. Are you tired?" she asked, standing behind him, with her hands resting on the back of the chair.

"Not now," he said, reaching back and taking her hands. He pressed them against his cheeks. "You always rest me."

"Do I?" She leaned affectionately over him. "I was afraid that I did not. You have had so much to worry you of late."

"Yes," he sighed. "But when we are alone I can forget it all. Play something for me, please."

She looked at him in surprise: "When did you ask me to play, before?"

"I don't know," he answered frankly. "You most always play without my asking. Sing an old song, something we used to sing long ago."

She went to the piano and touched to life the strains of "Kitty Clyde." And when her voice arose, he felt a lump in his throat, and he sat with his eyes shut, with a picture in his heart—an old house, a honey-suckle, a beautiful girl in white, with a rose in her hair.



CHAPTER XVII.

AT THE CREEK.

Shortly after Sawyer took his leave, Lyman went out for a meditative stroll in the wooded land. About a mile and a half distant was a creek, with great bluffs on one side, and with a romantic tumble of land on the other. Of late he had gone often to this stream, not to listen to the melody of water pouring over the rocks, not to hear the birds that held a joy-riot in the trees, but to lie in the grass on a slope, beneath an elm, and gaze across at a limestone tower called "Lover's Leap." And on these journeys he always went through the shaded lane-like street that led past the banker's house. It was the most pretentious house in the town, of brick, trimmed with stone. In the yard, which was large, the great man had indulged his taste for art, stucco statuary—a deer, a lion, a dog, two Greek wrestlers, a mother with a child in her arms, and a ghastly semblance of Andrew Jackson.

Lyman reached the shore of the creek and walked slowly among the large, smooth rocks, that looked like the hip bones of the worn and tired old earth, coming through. As he approached the tree and the grassy slope whereon he was wont to lie and muse, he saw the fluttering of something white, and then from behind the tree a woman stepped. His heart beat faster, for he recognized her, and when he came up, with softened tread, to the tree, he was panting as if he had run a race. The woman did not see him until he spoke, her eyes having been cast down when she passed from behind the tree, and she started and blushed at beholding him.

"I hope I don't intrude," he said, taking off his hat.

"Oh, no, since you have as much right here as I have."

"I don't know but that I have a pretty good right," he said. "That is, if occupancy means anything. I come here often."

"Do you?" she cried in surprise. "Why, I have never seen you here before, and this has been my favorite spot for years."

"Well, as we are both at home," he said, laughing, "we might as well sit down."

They laughed and seated themselves on the spreading roots of the tree, though not very near each other. She took off her hat and he looked with admiration at her brown hair, tied with a ribbon. She flushed under his gaze and said he must pardon her appearance, as she had not expected to meet anyone.

"A violet might say as much," he replied.

"You must not talk that way," she said.

"Why? Because you like to hear it?"

"The idea! How could you say that?"

"Because modesty protests against the words that a woman most likes to hear, and modesty does not chide until she ventures upon an enjoyment."

"Then modesty is a scold, instead of a friendly guide."

"No. But over-modesty is over-caution."

"We were not talking of over-modesty. Are you as bold with all women as you are with me?" She looked at him with quizzical mischief in her eyes. He plucked a white clover blossom and tossed it upward. It fell in her lap.

"Bold, did you say? Am I bold? Most women have laughed at my angular shyness."

"Laughed at you; how could they?"

"On account of my peculiarities. I was called an old bachelor before I was twenty, and as I grew older I considered myself one, irredeemably, for I never expected to marry."

"I should have thought your life full of romance, wandering about, as you must have done."

"My life has been a tread-mill," he answered.

"But you see so many beautiful things in nature."

"The horse on the tread-wheel can look through a crack, and see a flower growing outside."

"Has your life been really hard?" she asked.

"Yes, desperately hard, at times."

"But you don't show it. You seem so kind and gentle."

"If I do, it is out of charity for those who have suffered."

"But I don't see any sign of your suffering, you write so beautifully."

"I had to suffer before I could write. The heart cannot express a joy until it has felt a sorrow."

She gave him her frank, admiring eyes. "Why haven't I met such men as you are? I have not lived here all my life; I have travelled with my aunt, who knew the world, and she took me to many strange places, and I met many men, but they didn't appeal to me or interest me any more than those I met at home. It was all the same old commonplace flattery."

"You have never found a man so interesting because you have never had the opportunity to see a man standing in the light I stand in now," he replied. "Our relationship has given me a new color."

She shook her head: "I have thought of that, but I believe that I should have found you interesting, even if I should have met you in the ordinary way."

"No, you would never have allowed yourself the time. Some sobering process was required."

"Yes, that is true," she frankly admitted.

In the tree tops above them the birds were riotous. The air was scented with a sharp sweetness from the wild mint that grew at the edge of the water.

"Has Mr. Sawyer been to see you?"

"He came today."

"Tell me about his visit. What did he say?"

"He wanted to buy me—wanted to hire me to go away."

"Tell me all about it. Remember, we are friends."

"He brought a check for five hundred dollars, signed by your father."

"I think you have told me enough," she said.

A flock of sheep came pattering along the road that skirted the hill-top, not far away. A bare-footed boy shouted in the dust behind them.

"Not much more remains to be told. He said I would regret not having taken the check."

"Did he threaten you?"

"Well, he said that I would have to leave town."

"He is afraid of you, and he knows it."

"If he is, he ought to know it," Lyman drolly replied. "If he doesn't know it, somebody ought to tell him. But I won't go away and leave you unprotected."

She looked at him gratefully. "How strange it sounds, and yet how true it is that you are my only real protector. My father cannot understand why I don't place Mr. Sawyer's money-getting ability above everything else. He thinks Mr. Sawyer will become one of the greatest men in the country. And I admit that at times this, together with father's entreaty, has had a strong influence over me. But I don't think," she added, shaking her head, "that I could ever have married that man. No," she said energetically, as she pointed across the stream, "that rock, first."

"You wouldn't do that," Lyman replied.

"Wouldn't I? Don't we read every day of women who kill themselves?"

"Yes, of women whose minds are not sound."

"But who shall say when a mind is not sound? How do you know that it is? What proof have I? We often read that no one suspected that Miss So-and-So had the slightest intention of destroying herself. Well, I may be a Miss So-and-So."

"I have no right to doubt your word," said Lyman. "Things that we most doubt sometimes come to pass, and then we wonder why we should have questioned them. But I will stand between you and the rock; I will be your friend and confidant, your brother, let us say. You must keep faith with me, and if you ever really fall in love, the sweet, torturing, the desperate sort of love which must exist, come to me and tell me."

"I will keep faith. But why do you say the sweet and torturing and desperate love that must exist? You talk as if it was a speculation of the mind rather than a fact of the heart. Don't you know that it does exist? Was there not a woman in the past who aroused it within you?"

"I have seen one or two women who might have done so. I remember one particularly. I was young and foolish, of course, but as I looked at her I thought she could win my soul. I did not know her; I saw her only once and that was at a hotel in the White Mountains. She and a party of ladies and gentlemen dined at the hotel, and I was a waiter." She looked up at him. "Yes, a waiter, with a white apron on and a Greek Testament in my pocket. The employment was menial, perhaps loathsome in your eyes."

"No," she said with a shiver. "Perhaps you had to do it."

"Yes, under a keen whip, the desire to continue my education. I think I must have been the first of my race to run forward at the tap of a knife on a dish. In my strong determination to fit myself—as I then thought—for the duties of life, I would have done almost anything to further my plans; and I was never really ashamed of my having to wait at table to earn knowledge-money, until the night I saw you—until you turned to some one and said: 'What, that thing!'"

"I did say that," she answered, "yes, and I have censured myself a thousand times. I hoped that you had not heard me. I am awfully sorry."

"Oh, I don't take it to heart. It hurt my pride a little and it gave me a wrong impression of you."

"Let us forget it. I was always a fool—until after that night. But about the woman, what became of her?"

"I don't know. She blew away like the down of the dandelion."

"And you didn't see her again?"

"Never again."

"But you dreamed of her?"

"No. You misunderstand me. I didn't fall in love with her. I say that I might have loved her. Perhaps upon becoming acquainted with her, I might have smiled at my foolish belief—might have found her uninteresting."

"You said there was one or two—the other one? What about her?"

"I don't remember her at all. I say that I may have seen her, but I don't recall her."

"Perhaps the other one has read your story."

"Or perhaps her daughter honeyed over it on her wedding journey," he suggested, laughing.

A light vehicle rattled down the road, and she looked up. "I was thinking that someone might drive past and recognize us," she said. "It may be wrong, but I don't want father to know that we meet, except by accident."

"Wasn't this meeting an accident?" he asked, hoping that she would say it was not, on her part.

"Yes. But sitting here under this tree is not. And I must go," she added, arising. He got up and stood there, hoping that she would hold out her hand to him, but she did not. "Good-bye," she said, smiling as she turned away.

"Let me hope for another accident, soon," Lyman replied, bowing to her.



CHAPTER XVIII.

AT THE WAGON-MAKER'S SHOP.

Sawyer drove rapidly toward Spring Hill, about eight miles distant from Old Ebenezer. The land was uneven, with oak ridges, beech slopes and shell-bark hickory flats, but the road was smooth, and for the two trotting horses the buggy was merely a plaything. He drew up at a wagon-maker's shop, the end of his journey, and threw the lines to a negro who came forward to meet him.

"You needn't feed them," he said. "Take the harness off and let them run about the lot. They've been shut up till they're frisky."

A large man, in his shirt sleeves, and with collar unbuttoned, met him at the door.

"Helloa, Mr. Zeb."

"Helloa, Steve, where's Bob?"

"Come in. He's about, somewhere."

Sawyer entered and sat down on a large block of wood, his feet half hidden in a pile of chips. A hand-saw, hanging on the wall, caught a shaft of light from the sun, and threw it into his eyes. He turned slightly and spoke to the wagon-maker.

"How's business with you?"

"Bad enough. People can buy wagons a good deal cheaper than I can afford to make 'em. They tell me that up north a man can go into a place and they'll make him a wagon while he waits, ironed and all ready for the road, and for a third less than I can do it. I can't buck against anything like that. I've got to get my timber out of the woods and season it, and take care of it like it was a lame leg, and all that sort of thing, to say nothin' of the work after I get down to it. Just before the election," said the wagon-maker, sitting down upon an unfinished hub, taking up an oak splinter and putting one end of it into his mouth, "a man come around here and 'lowed, he did, that if we could get a majority of farmers into the legislature, the condition of affairs would be changed. He 'lowed that they'd make it a point to put a tax on wagons not made in the state. Well, they got in, and about all they did was to fight the railroads, tear the digest to pieces and tinker with the marriage law, as some of you folks in Old Ebenezer have good cause to know. Why, if you read the papers at the time, you recollect that one old feller from Blaxon county said that marriage license was an outrage—'lowed, he did, that there wa'n't no license writ out for Adam. Yes, and he said that down in his neighborhood several young fellers held off from marryin' because they couldn't afford to pay for the license. He said it was a sin and a shame to put a tax on a man that was tryin' to do somethin' for his country."

"Do you think Bob will be back pretty soon?" Sawyer asked, working his feet deep down among the chips.

"Yes, he ought to be here now. If he don't come pretty soon I'll send the nigger to look for him. How's that marriage of McElwin's daughter gettin' along?"

"Not at all. It's just the same."

"Feller still there?"

"Yes; he's running the paper."

"Don't 'pear to mind it, I reckon. I wonder McElwin don't hire him to pull out. Well, down in this neighborhood we've got a way of settlin' such things. We tell a feller to go and if he refuses, why, we see that he goes. We've got a mighty lively set of young fellers."

"And your brother Bob is one of the liveliest," said Sawyer.

"Well, Bob ain't slow. The other night they took out a feller over on Caney Fork, feller that had dropped into the habit of whippin' his wife—and they hit him about forty-five, with a promise of more; and they say now that he's as sweet to his home folks as a June apple-pie. Oh, it do have a powerful sweetenin' effect on a sour citizen. Any sour citizens up your way?"

"One," Sawyer answered.

"Don't know why, but I sorter thought so. It's dangerous in town, ain't it?"

"Not when you fix everything."

"Well, then, go ahead, but keep outer the way of the law. Here's Bob now."

A tall, gaunt young fellow stepped into the shop. He was a type of the southern ruralist, broad, flapping straw hat, home-woven shirt, cottonade trousers, one suspender. He grinned upon seeing Sawyer, and said, "Hi."

"Ho, Bob. Busy tonight?"

"Ain't rushed. Anything blowing in the wind?"

"A little fun, that's all."

"Then let her blow my way. Steve, here, 'lows he's gettin' so old that he don't care for fun any more, but I have to have it—bread and blackberry jam to me."

"Well, you shall have it. How are the boys, the White Caps?"

"Finer'n silk split three times."

"Can you call them together for tonight?"

"By howlin' like a wolf. Do you want 'em?"

"Yes. Will twenty dollars pay the way?"

"We'll whip the governor of the state for that much."

Sawyer unfolded his plan. The boys were to be in front of old Jasper's house at midnight.

"Don't let nobody take a gun with him," said Steve. "If you do there mout be serious trouble. And there won't be no need of it, as you say everything will be fixed. I know what I'm talkin' about. Give one of them boys a pop and he'll use it whether occasion warrants or not. I know 'em."

"Well, they needn't put themselves to the trouble of firing off a gun to scare that chap. He ain't one of the sort that scares," Sawyer was gracious enough to admit. "He don't tote a pistol and I'll manage to slip into his room and see if he has one there, and if he has, I'll hook it. I have also hatched out a plan to get the women folks away. I've got my mother, and of course she knows nothing about the affair, to send a message by me asking them to come over to our house. If I can get the old man to go, too, so much the better. But he don't care to go out much at night, and I reckon my only course will be to get him drunk."

"Say," said Bob, "you 'lowed your man wa'n't easy to skeer, and if that's the case, what's the use of takin' him a mile or two to the woods? Men that don't skeer don't holler. Why not put it to him right then and there, out in the yard, over a barrel?"

Before Sawyer could reply, the philosophic mind of Steve saw the practical sense of his brother's suggestion. "I reckon he's got the right idee, Mr. Sawyer. He's done so much of this sort of work lately that now it comes to him somewhat in the natur' of a trade. You can tell him a good deal about mules that I reckon he don't know, but he knows the fine p'ints in men like a hungry feller knows the fine p'ints of a fried chicken. Better let him have his way."

"I am more than willing," said Sawyer. "The sooner it's over with the better it will suit me. It's results I'm after. There's a rain-water barrel at the corner of the house," he went on, reflectively. "We can pour the water out and roll the barrel around where we'll have plenty of room. Do you think he'll be willing to go away, Bob?"

Bob stood leaning back, with his elbows on the vise bench. "Well," he drawled, "an examination of the books of my firm will show that none ain't never failed yet. I have know'd them to argy and object, but I'll jest tell you that a hickory sprout laid on right, can soon make a man lose sight of the p'int in his own discussion. Why, when we get through with a man, and tell him what we want him to do, he thanks us, as if we had given him the opportunity of his life."

"All right," Sawyer laughed, getting up. "Be there on time is all I ask."



CHAPTER XIX.

A RESTLESS NIGHT.

The air was damp. At evening a heavy mist came with the soft June wind, and the night was dark. McElwin had gone over to the town after supper, something he rarely did alone, having the rich man's dread of a dark street; but he soon returned and paced nervously up and down the room. And more than once he muttered, shaking his head: "I can't help it; I tried to prevent it, but couldn't." He told his wife that he was worried over a piece of business, and as business was the awe-inspiring word of the household, she stood aloof from him, in nervous sympathy with his worry; and the negro servants spoke in whispers. From her walk her daughter had returned in a solemn state of mind. Her manner, which had been growing gentler, was now touched with a winsome melancholy, and her eyes appeared to be larger and dreamier. Of late an old minister, who for nearly half a century had worn a tinkling bell in the midst of a devoted flock, had called frequently to talk to her, and in her smile the old man saw the spirit of religion, though not of one creed, but the heart's religion of the past, of the present, of Eternity.

Mrs. McElwin went up to Eva's room, leaving her husband to continue his troubled walk. The girl was sitting at the window. "Come in," she said.

"I'm worried about your father," said Mrs. McElwin, sitting down with a sigh. "Have you said anything to annoy him?"

"No, nothing that I can remember."

"Well, something has happened. Have you seen—seen Mr. Lyman since the evening of the picnic? You told me that you saw him then, but you haven't told me of seeing him since. And I don't dare tell your father."

"No, for you promised me that you wouldn't."

"But have you kept your promise to me? You told me you would tell me if you met him again."

"Yes, and I will keep my word. I met him today, over by the creek, and we sat down under a tree and talked. And, oh, his voice almost made me sob as I sat there, listening to him."

"Eva," said her mother.

"I can't help it. His life has been so hard, and yet it has made him so considerate and so gentle. Mother, why haven't I met such a man among our friends—why didn't I see one in my travels?"

"My daughter, can't you understand the strange interest you take in him? Have you considered the circumstances—"

"I have considered everything, and it would have been the same no matter where we might have met. Mother," she said, turning with a smile, more than sad in the dim light, "do you know that old log cabin over on the hill where the pension woman used to live? Yes, for we could see it from here in daylight. I passed there today, coming home, and I stopped and gazed at the wretched place, and suddenly there came a thought that almost took my breath away. I thought that with him—" she leaned over and took her mother's hand—"that with him I could live there and bless God for my happiness."

"My darling child, you must not think that—you couldn't think that."

"But I did, and though the world seemed further away, heaven was closer. I ought to have been a poor man's daughter, mother, for love is all there is to live for."

They put their arms about each other. "It would break your father's heart," the mother said, her tears falling. "It would crush him to the earth."

"I know it, and my heart may be crushed, instead of his. But that petition must not be signed."

"Let us wait, my child. Don't say anything. Don't—"

They heard McElwin calling from the foot of the stairs. "Lucy, Lucy, I think I'll have to go down town again."

"Wait a moment," his wife cried, hastening out, Eva following her. He turned back before they reached the foot of the stairs, and had resumed his anxious walk when they entered the parlor.

"Why, what can you be thinking about, James?" his wife asked.

"Thinking about going down town. I must go."

"Not tonight? Why, it's going to rain."

"Doesn't make any difference if it rains bearded pitchforks, I must go."

His wife took him by the arm: "James, you are keeping something from me—something has happened."

"No, nothing has happened. A friend of mine has a project on foot. I am interested in it, and I want to advise him not to go ahead with it."

"But he couldn't go ahead with it tonight," Eva spoke up.

"Yes he can. You don't know how rash he is; he's got no head at all when it comes to such matters. Let me get my umbrella."

"James," said his wife, looking into his eyes, "don't deceive us, tell us what it is."

"What noise was that?" he cried, leaning toward the window. "I heard something. Gracious!" he exclaimed, as the doorbell rang.

Mr. Menifee, the old minister, was shown in. "Ah, good evening," McElwin cried, starting toward him, but then remembering his dignity he said: "You are always welcome. Sit down."

The old gentleman bowed to the ladies and took the easy chair which the banker shoved toward him. McElwin turned to the window and stood there, looking out, listening, with no ear for the solicitous common-places concerning the health of his household, indulged by the old gentleman. He glanced at the clock on the mantel, and was surprised to find that the hour was no later. He turned to the preacher.

"You can do me a service, Mr. Menifee; you can quiet the fears of my wife and daughter while I go down town. I have a most important matter of business on hand but they don't want me to go. Why," he added, with a dry laugh, "what is it to go down town at half past nine?"

"What, is it that late?" the old gentleman spoke up. "Why, I am getting to be a late prowler. But if you have an important matter to attend to, surely you ought to do it."

"I rarely ever go down town at night," said the banker; "that is the reason of their uneasiness. Yes, the only cause, I assure you."

He passed out into the hall, his wife following him. He took an umbrella from the rack, and preparing to hoist it, stepped out upon the veranda. His wife spoke to him and he started as if he had not noticed her. "James," she said, "something is wrong and you are deceiving me."

"Nothing at all, my dear," he replied, hoisting the umbrella. "The truth is, I want to see Sawyer."

"In relation to Mr. Lyman?" she asked, putting her hand on his arm to detain him.

"Well, yes, indirectly. The truth is, I authorized Zeb to offer him a sum of money to go away—quite too much I am sure—and I want to ask him to withdraw the offer. I can't afford to invest that much ready money at present, I really cannot."

"If you have been afraid that he will accept the offer—"

"What," he said, closing the umbrella and looking at her, "what do you know about it?"

"I know, or at least I believe, that he is not a man to be bribed,—to be turned from his purpose."

"His purpose. What is his purpose?"

"To claim his wife."

"Lucy, whatever you may be unreasonable enough to think, don't talk that way to me. He may claim her as his wife and may force his claim, but it will be after I am dead. I don't like the fellow personally. He is impudent; he is an anarchist. There now," he added, hoisting the umbrella, "go back and don't worry about me."

He stepped out upon the walk, and she stood in the door until he had passed into the lane, into the heavy darkness of the trees. When she returned to the parlor the minister was preparing to take his leave.

"My mission in coming might have been discharged in a moment," he said; "but seeing that your husband was worried I did not like to bring it up in his presence. Young Henry Bostic is soon to preach over at Mt. Zion. I know that in this family a prejudice is felt against him, but he is deeply in earnest and I feel that it is your Christian duty, madam, to give him on that occasion the encouragement of your presence. He believes that he is inspired to preach the Word, and who, indeed, shall say that he is not? I have talked to him frequently of late, and I am convinced that toward this household he bears no malice."

"Eva and I will go," Mrs. McElwin replied promptly.

"Nobly said, madam," the minister rejoined, looking upon her with an eye that had swept over many a field of duty. "I did not believe that I should appeal to you in vain. We have but a little while here," he went on, his white head shaking. "The future has seemed far, but the past is short, and soon the time comes when we must go. They may dispute our creed and pick flaws in our doctrine, but they acknowledge the mighty truth of death. There is nothing in life worth living for—"

"Except love," said the girl standing beside him.

He put his tremulous hand upon her head, a withered leaf upon a flower in bloom. "Yes, my child, love which is God's spirit come down to earth."

He bade them good night, and for a long time they sat in silence.

"Sometimes," said the mother, "I feel a sudden strength, and I look up in surprise and see that it has come from you."

"I believe that I am developing," the daughter replied. "But I shall be strong if he asks me to go with him."

"What do you mean, my dear?"

"I mean that if he were to ask me, I would be strong enough to go."

"And leave me?"

"Leave the world—everything!"

"Why, my child, how can you talk so? Really, you alarm me. You scarcely know the man; you have met him but a few times, and then your talks with him were brief."

"I don't attempt to explain, mother. I simply know."

"But you must wait and see. It may be possible that he has no such feeling toward you; it may be that he has not permitted himself to aspire—"

"Oh," she cried, moving impatiently; "it is almost sacrilege to talk that way. Who am I that he should aspire to me? What have I done? What can I do? Nothing. I haven't a single talent, hardly an accomplishment. Oh, I know that I was intoxicated with vanity, but that has worn off. I am simply a country girl, that's all."

"You are a girl bewitched," said the mother, sadly.



CHAPTER XX.

AFRAID IN THE DARK.

McElwin hastened along the hard and slippery path that ran on a ridge at the side of the road. Sometimes a low-bending bough raked across his umbrella, and once he was made to start by a cold slap in his face, dealt by the broad leaf of a shrub that leaned and swayed above a garden fence. He came upon a wooden bridge over a small stream and halted to breathe, for his walk beneath the dark trees had been rapid and nervous. Frogs were croaking in the sluggish water. A cradle in a hovel bumped upon the uneven floor, and he remembered to have heard from his father that in the pioneer days he had been many a time rocked to sleep in a sugar trough. The lights of the town, the few that he could see, looked red and angry. He remembered a newspaper account of the way-laying and robbing of a prominent citizen. It was so easy for a tramp to knock down an unsuspecting man. Tramp and robber were interchangeable terms with him, and often, on a cold night, when he had seen the wanderer's fire, kindled close to the railway track, he had wondered why such license had been allowed in a law-abiding community. He moved off with a brisk step, for he fancied that he heard something under the bridge. There was many a worse man than McElwin, but it is doubtful whether a ranker coward had ever been born to see the light of day, or to shy at an odd shape in the dark. He felt an easy-breathing sense of relief when he reached the main street, and in the light of the tavern lamp, hung out in front, he was bold; his head went up and his heels fell with measured firmness upon the bricks. He halted in front of his bank, as his own clock was striking ten, and looked up at Lyman's window. The room was dim, but the other part of the floor, the long room, was bright. He was afraid to show anxiety concerning either Sawyer or Lyman, nor did he deem it advisable to call at old Jasper's house. For what purpose had he come, he then asked himself. He must do something to pay himself for coming, to make himself feel that his time had not been utterly thrown away. In his arrangement of economy, every piece of time must show either an actual or a possible result. To go even in the direction of old Jasper's house was out of the question, for if anyone should see him he would surely be associated with the White Caps. Why would it not be a wise move to find out whether or not Lyman was in the printing-office, and to warn him. He could easily put his call upon the ground of an argument against the impulsive man's rashness in burning the check. No, that would invite the ill-will and perhaps the outright enmity of Sawyer. He could not afford to lose Sawyer; he needed his energy for the future and the use of his money for the present. But he could bind Lyman to secrecy. "I wonder," he mused, "that I should have any faith in his word, but I have. Confound him, he has upset us all. But I ought to warn him. It is terrible to be taken out and whipped upon the bare back. I'll make him promise and then I'll tell him."

He crossed the street and began slowly to climb the stairs. He reached the first landing and halted. "It won't do," he said. "Sawyer might find it out and that would ruin everything. I advised against it; I have done my best to prevent it, and it is now no concern of mine. I will go home. I have been foolish."

He turned about and walked rapidly down the stairs. When he reached home his daughter had gone to bed, but his wife was sitting up, waiting for him. She met him at the door and looked at him, searchingly, as he halted in the light of the hall lamp to put the umbrella in the rack.

"Did you see him?" she asked, not in the best of humor, now that the worry was practically over.

"Sawyer? No, he's out in the country, so a man told me. I have decided to dismiss the matter from my mind or to think about it as little as possible. It isn't so very late yet," he added, looking at his watch. He found his slippers beside his chair when he entered the sitting-room, but he shoved them away with his foot.

"Did Mr. Menifee have anything of interest to say?" he asked, leaning with his elbows on the table.

"It may not interest you, but it has been put to Eva and me as a matter of duty, that we ought to go out to Mt. Zion to hear Henry Bostic preach."

McElwin grunted: "Menifee may put it as a matter of duty, but I don't. Fortunately I have other duties that are of much more importance. I will not go."

"He didn't seem to expect that you would," she replied.

"I hope not. He may have reason to believe me worldly in some things, but I trust he has never found me ridiculous."

"Would it be ridiculous to hear that young man preach?"

"For me to hear him? Decidedly. The true gospel has not been handed over to the keeping of the malicious idiot, I hope."

"I believe he is sincere."

"Sincere? Of course he is. So is a wasp when it stings you."

She laughed in her dignified way, her good humor having suddenly returned; and he looked up with a smile, pleased with himself. They sat for a time, talking of other matters, and he went to bed humming the defineless tune of self-satisfaction. But late in the night Mrs. McElwin awoke and found him standing at the window, listening.

"What is it, dear?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"Then why are you standing there?"

"I thought I heard something."

"In the house?" she asked, rising up with sudden alarm.

"No. Over in town, or rather over by the railroad track. I noticed some tramp-fires along there."

"Oh, well, don't worry. The watchman will look after them."

"Hush," he said, leaning from the window. "There it is again."

"I don't hear anything," she declared. "Why, it's only a negro singing."

"So it is," he said. "I thought it was someone yelling over in town. Are you sure that it was a negro singing?"

"Oh, I don't know whether he is a negro or not, but it is someone singing. But what if it is someone yelling over in town? It's nothing unusual, I am sure. I have heard them yell at all times of the night. I believe it is someone singing," he finally said, turning from the window.



CHAPTER XXI.

WITH OLD JASPER.

Early in the evening old Jasper Staggs received a visit from Zeb Sawyer, and inasmuch as the social exchanges between them had never been particularly marked, the old man was not a little surprised.

"Well, you see, it aint altogether on your account that I've come," said Sawyer with a weak laugh, seeing that in the old man's astonishment there lurked an unfavorable suspicion. "Mother—and you know she's getting along—took it into her head today that nothing would do her so much good as a visit from your wife and Miss Annie. And she says she'd like mighty well to have you."

"Well," said old Jasper, "the women folks are out there in the dinin' room a fussin' around, and I reckon they'll take the time to answer for themselves, jest as I am agoin' to answer for myself, when I say that I'm obleeged to you, but I can't come. I'm talkin' for myself, recollect," he added, with emphasis, nodding his head and running his fingers through his rim of gray beard. "Yes, sir; for myself, and for myself only."

"But I guess Aunt Tobithy and Miss Annie will go, won't they?"

"I have said my say, and it was for myself only, but if you want to know anything consarnin' the other members of this house, just step right out there where they are tinkerin' with the dishes, and ask them."

Sawyer went into the dining-room. There was a hush of the rattle of dishes and knives, and then Sawyer came back and said they were kind enough to go. "I am going to stay here with you," Sawyer remarked.

"All right," the old man replied.

"And I believe it will be a little more than all right when I tell you of something. The other day I was at an old house in the country, and an old fellow that lives there took me down into the cellar to show me a new patent churn that he was working on. Well, I didn't care anything about the churn, you know, not having much to do with cows, but I looked at the thing like I was interested, just to please him. And while I was looking about I saw a small barrel, with dried moss on it, and I asked him about it, and he said it was a whisky barrel that was hid out all during the war. This made me open my eyes, I tell you; but as quiet as I could I asked him if there was any of the liquor left. He said he had about a gallon left, and I told him I'd give him twenty dollars for a quart of it, and I did, right then and there; and if I haven't got that bottle right with me now, you may crack my head like a hickory nut."

By this time old Jasper's jaw had fallen, and now he sat, leaning forward with his mouth wide open. "Zeby," he said, and his voice sounded as if he had been taken with a sudden hoarseness. "I reckon I am about as fond of a joke and a prank as any man that ever crossed Goose Creek—and some great jokers came along there in the early days—but there was things too sacred for them to joke about. You know what I said, Zeby?"

"I know all about them old fellows," Zeb said, with a laugh. "I have heard my granddad talk about them. In fact, he was one of them, and I get it from him not to joke on some things. I've that bottle of liquor in my pocket this very minute."

The old man stepped to the door. "Tobithy; oh, Tobithy."

"Well," his wife answered from the dining-room.

"Zeb is powerful anxious for you to go over to his mother's, as the old lady is wanting to see you, but I don't see how you can get off."

Sawyer looked at him in surprise. The old man made him a sign to be quiet.

A dish clattered and his wife exclaimed: "You don't see how I can go. Oh, no, but you see how I can stick here day after day, killing myself with work. I am going."

The old man grinned and sat down. "I was afraid she would back out," he said, "and I wanted to clinch the thing. Jest let me tell her that I am afraid she can't do a thing and then it would take a good deal more high water than we've had for a year or two to keep her from doing it."

His wife and Annie came into the room and he put on a sober air. "I don't think you can stay late, for it looks like rain," he said.



"I'm going to stay until I get ready to come back, and it can rain brick bats for all I care," she replied; and the old man, knowing that everything was fixed, leaned back with a long breath of contentment. The women soon took their departure; the old man watched them until they passed through a gate that opened out upon the sidewalk, then he looked at Sawyer and said:

"The bottle; I believe you 'lowed you had it with you."

"Right here," Sawyer replied, tapping a side pocket of his coat.

The old man flinched like a horse prodded in a tender place. "Don't do that again, you might break it," he said. "There ain't nothing easier to break than a bottle full of old liquor. Let me see," he added, with an air of deep meditation. "It has been about five months since I renewed my youth; it was the night Turner was elected Sheriff. And I want to tell you, Zeby, that to a man who has seen fun and recollects it, that's a good while. We'll jest wait a minute before we open the ceremonies. You can never tell when a woman's clean gone. The chances are that she may forget something and come bobbin' back at any minute. And it might take me quite a while to explain. There are some things you can explain to a woman and some things you can't, and one of the things you can't, is why you ought to take liquor when she don't feel like takin' any herself. Well, I reckon their start was sure enough," he said, looking through the window. "Now, jest step out here in the dinin' room and make yourself at home, while I pump a pail of fresh water."

Old Jasper put a pitcher of water on the dining room table. Sawyer sat with his arms resting on the board, and with a flask held affectionately in his hands. Old Jasper cleared his throat, and drawing up a large rocking chair, sat down. He said, as he looked at the flask, that he had not felt well of late, and that whisky would do him good. Sawyer would make no apology for drinking such liquor. Good whisky was to him its own apology. Life at best was short, with many a worry, and he did not see how a so-called moral code should censure a man for throwing off his troubles once in a while. The old man needed no persuasion to lead him on. And in the dim light of a lamp, placed upon the corner of an old red side-board, they sat glowing with merriment. Sawyer drank sparingly, but Jasper declared that it took about three fingers at a time to do him any good, and into the declaration the action was dove-tailed. He told a long and rambling story, relating to a time when he had driven a stage coach; a tickling recollection touched him and he leaned back and laughed till the tears rolled down through the time-gullies in his face. Sawyer snapped his watch. The old man told him to let time take care of itself.

"That's what I'm doing," said Sawyer. "By the way, I've an idea that I'd like to go squirrel hunting. But I broke my gun the other day and sent it to the shop. Haven't got an old gun around, have you?"

"There's an old muzzle-loader in there behind the door, standing there ready to break the leg of a dog that comes over to howl in the garden."