"I am on my way to New Orleans," said the traveler, after a moment's hesitation. "My business, fortune-getting. In sugar, tobacco, or indigo-culture!"

"New Orleans!" exclaimed the manager, poising the ladle in mid air. "That, too, is our destination. We have an engagement to play there. Why not join our band? Write or adapt a play for us. Make a temperance drama of your play!"

"You are a whimsical fellow," said the stranger, smiling. "Why don't you write the play yourself?"

"I? An unread, illiterate dotard! Why, I never had so much as a day's schooling. As a lad I slept with the rats, held horses, swept crossings and lived like a mudlark! Me write a play! I might let fall a suggestion here and there; how to set a flat, or where to drop a fly; to plan an entrance, or to arrange an exit! No, no; let the shoemaker stick to his last! It takes"—with deference—"a scholar to write a drama."

"Thus you disqualify me," laughed the other, drawing out a pipe which he filled; and lighted with a coal held in the iron grip of the antique tongs. "If it were only to help plant a battery or stand in a gap!" he said grimly, replacing the tongs against the old brick oven at one side of the grate. "But to beset King Bacchus in three acts! To storm his castle in the first; scale the walls in the second, and blow up all the king's horses and all the king's men in the last—that is, indeed, serious warfare!"

"True, it will be a roundabout way to New Orleans," continued the manager, disregarding his companion's response, "but there is no better way of seeing the New World—that is, if you do not disdain the company of strolling players. You gain in knowledge what you lose in time. If you are a philosopher, you can study human nature through the buffoon and the mummer. If you are a naturalist, here are grand forests to contemplate. If you are not a recluse, here is free, though humble, comradeship."

His listener gazed thoughtfully into the fire. Was the prospect of sharing this gipsy-like life attractive to him? An adventurer himself, was he drawn toward these homeless strollers, for whom the illusions of dramatic art shone with enticing luster in the comparative solitude of the circuit on the wilderness?

As he sat before the glow, the light of the burning shagbark, playing elfishly above the dying embers, outlined the stalwart, yet active figure and the impenetrable, musing features. But when, with an upward shower of sparks, the backlog fell asunder and the waning flame cast yet more gloomy shadows behind them, he leaned back in his heavy, hewn chair and again bent an attentive look upon the loquacious speaker.

"Or, if you desire," resumed the manager after some hesitation, "it might become a business venture as well as a pleasure jaunt. Here is a sinking ship. Will the salvage warrant helping us into port; that is, New Orleans? There hope tells a flattering tale. The company is well equipped; has a varied repertoire, while Constance"—tenderly—"is a host in herself. If you knew her as I do; had watched her art grow"—his voice trembled—"and to think, sometimes I do not know where the next day's sustenance may come from! That she"—

He broke off abruptly, gazing at his companion half-apologetically. "We players, sir," he resumed, "present a jovial front, but"—tapping his breast—"few know what is going on here!"

"Therein," said the younger man, emptying his pipe, "you have stated a universal truth." He pushed a smoldering log with his foot toward the remnants of the embers. "Suppose I were so minded to venture"—and he mentioned a modest sum—"in this hazard and we patched up the play together?"

"You don't mean it?" cried the manager, eagerly. Then he regarded the other suspiciously: "Your proposal is not inspired through sympathy?"

"Why not through the golden prospects you have so eloquently depicted?" replied Saint-Prosper, coldly.

"Why not indeed!" exclaimed the reassured manager. "Success will come; it must come. You have seen Constance but once. She lives in every character to her heart's core. How does she do it? Who can tell? It's inborn. A heritage to her!"

His voice sank low with emotion. "Yes," he murmured, shaking his head thoughtfully, as though another image arose in his mind; "a heritage! a divine heritage!" But soon he looked up. "She's a brave girl!" he said. "When times were dark, she would always smile encouragingly, and, in the light of her clear eyes, I felt anew the Lord would temper the wind to the shorn lamb."

"One—two—three—four," rang the great clock through the silent hall, and, at its harsh clangor, Barnes started.

"Bless my soul, the maids'll be up and doing and find us here!" he exclaimed. "One last cup! To the success of the temperance drama!"

In a few moments they had parted for their respective chambers and only the landlord was left down-stairs. Now as he came from behind the bar, where he had been apparently dozing and secretly listening through the half-opened door leading into the kitchen, he had much difficulty to restrain his laughter.

"That's a good one to tell Ezekiel," he muttered, turning out the lights and sweeping the ashes on the hearth to the back of the grate. "To the temperance drama!"



CHAPTER VI

THE DEPARTURE OF THE CHARIOT

Down the hill, facing the tavern, the shadows of night were slowly withdrawn, ushering in the day of the players' leaving. A single tree, at the very top, isolated from its sylvan neighbors, was bathed in the warm sunshine, receiving the earliest benediction of day. Down, down, came the dark shade, pursued by the light, until the entire slope of the hill was radiant and the sad colored foliage flaunted in new-born gaiety.

Returning from the stable, where he had been looking after his horse, the soldier stood for a moment before the inn, when a flower fell at his feet, and, glancing over his shoulder, he perceived Susan, who was leaning from her window. The venturesome rose, which had clambered as high as the second story, was gone; plucked, alas, by the wayward hand of a coquette. Saint-Prosper bowed, and stooped for the aspiring but now hapless flower which lay in the dust.

"You have joined the chariot, I hear?" said Susan.

"For the present," he replied.

"And what parts will you play?" she continued, with smiling inquisitiveness.

"None."

"What a pity! You would make a handsome lover." Then she blushed. "Lud! What am I saying? Besides"—maliciously—"I believe you have eyes for some one else. But remember,"—shaking her finger and with a coquettish turn of the head—"I am an actress and therefore vain. I must have the best part in the new piece. Don't forget that, or I'll not travel in the same chariot with you." And Susan disappeared.

"Ah, Kate," she said, a moment later, "what a fine-looking young man he is!"

"Who?" drawled her sister.

"Mr. Saint-Prosper, of course."

"He is large enough," retorted Kate, leisurely.

"Large enough! O, Kate, what a phlegmatic creature you are!"

"Fudge!" said the other as she left the chamber.

Entering the tavern, the soldier was met by the wiry old lady who bobbed into the breakfast room and explained the kind of part that fitted her like a glove, her prejudices being strong against modern plays.

"Give me dramas like 'Oriana,' 'The Rival Queens' or Webster's pieces," she exclaimed, quoting with much fire for her years:

"'We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves!'"

"And do not forget the 'heavy' in your piece!" called out Hawkes across the table. "Something you can dig your teeth in!"

"Nor the 'juvenile lead,'" chimed in the Celtic Adonis.

"Adonis makes a great hit in a small part," laughed Kate, appearing at the door. "'My lord, the carriage is waiting!'"

"My lady, your tongue is too sharp!" exclaimed Adonis, nettled.

"And put in a love scene for Adonis and myself," she continued, lazily floating into the room. "He is so fond of me, it would not be like acting!"

This bantering was at length interrupted by the appearance of the chariot and the property wagon at the front door, ready for the journey. The rumbling of the vehicles, the resounding hoofs and the resonant voice of the stable boy awakened the young lord of the manor in his chamber above. He stretched himself sleepily, swore and again composed himself for slumber, when the noise of a property trunk, thumping its way down the front stairs a step at a time, galvanized him into life and consciousness.

"Has the world come to an end?" he muttered. "No; I remember; it's only the players taking their departure!"

But, although he spoke carelessly, the bumping of boxes and slamming and banging of portable goods annoyed him more than he would confess. With the "crazy-quilt"—a patch-work of heptagons of different hues and patterns—around his shoulders, clothing him with all the colors of the rainbow, he sat up in bed, wincing at each concussion.

"I might as well get up!" he exclaimed. "I'll see her once more—the perverse beauty!" And tossing the kaleidoscopic covering viciously from him, he began to dress.

Meanwhile, as the time for their going drew near, mine host down-stairs sped the parting guest with good cheer, having fared profitably by the patronage the players had brought to the inn; but his daughter, Arabella, looked sad and pensive. How weary, flat and stale appeared her existence now! With a lump in her throat and a pang in her heart, she recklessly wiped her eyes upon the best parlor curtains, when Barnes mounted to the box, as robust a stage-driver as ever extricated a coach from a quagmire. The team, playful through long confinement, tugged at the reins, and Sandy, who was at the bits, occasionally shot through space like an erratic meteor.

The manager was flourishing his whip impatiently when Constance and Susan appeared, the former in a traveling costume of blue silk; a paletot of dark cloth, and, after the fashion of the day, a bonnet of satin and velvet. Susan was attired in a jupe sweeping and immensely full—to be in style!—and jacquette with sleeves of the pagoda form. The party seemed in high spirits, as from his dormer window Mauville, adjusting his attire, peered through the lattice over the edge of the moss-grown roof and leaf-clogged gutters and surveyed their preparations for departure. How well the rich color of her gown became the young girl! He had told himself white was her best adornment, but his opinion veered on the moment now, and he thought he had never seen her to better advantage, with the blue of her dress reappearing in the lighter shade, above the dark paletot, in the lining of the bonnet and the bow of ribbons beneath her chin.

"On my word, but she looks handsome!" muttered the patroon. "Might sit for a Gainsborough or a Reynolds! What dignity! What coldness! All except the eyes! How they can lighten! But there's that adventurer with her," as the figure of the soldier crossed the yard to the property wagon. "No getting rid of him until the last moment!" And he opened the shutters wider, listening and watching more closely.

"Are you going to ride in the property wagon?" he heard Saint-Prosper ask.

"Yes; when I have a part to study I sometimes retire to the stage throne," she answered lightly. "I suppose you will ride your horse?"

Of his reply the listener caught only the words, "wind-break" and "lame." He observed the soldier assist her to the throne, and then, to Mauville's surprise, spring into the wagon himself.

"Why, the fellow is going with them!" exclaimed the land baron. "Or, at any rate, he is going with her. What can it mean?" And hurriedly quitting his post, his toilet now being complete, he hastened to the door and quickly made his way down-stairs.

During the past week his own addresses had miscarried and his gallantry had been love's labor lost. At first he had fancied he was making progress, but soon acknowledged to himself he had underestimated the enterprise. Play had succeeded play—he could not have told what part favored her most! Ophelia sighed and died; Susan danced on her grave between acts, according to the program, and turned tears into smiles; the farewell night had come and gone—and yet Constance had made no sign of compliance to reward the patient wooer. Now, at the sight of these preparations for departure, and the presence of the stalwart stranger in the property wagon, he experienced a sudden sensation of pique, almost akin to jealousy.

Stepping from the tavern, it was with an effort he suppressed his chagrin and vexation and assumed that air of nonchalance which became him well. Smilingly he bade Susan and the other occupants of the chariot farewell, shook Barnes by the hand, and turned to the property wagon.

"The noise of your departure awakened me," he said to the young girl. "So I have come to claim my compensation—the pleasure of seeing you—"

"Depart!" she laughed quickly.

Momentarily disconcerted, he turned to the soldier. "You ride early."

"As you see," returned the other, immovably.

"A habit contracted in the army, no doubt!" retorted Mauville, recovering his easy self-possession. "Well, a bumping trunk is as efficacious as a bugle call! But au revoir, Miss Carew; for we may meet again. The world is broad—yet its highways are narrow! There is no need wishing you a pleasant journey."

His glance rested on Saint-Prosper for a moment, but told nothing beyond the slight touch of irony in his words and then shifting to the young girl, it lingered upon each detail of costume and outline of feature. Before she could reply, Barnes cracked his whip, the horses sprang forward, and the stable boy, a confused tangle of legs and arms, was shot as from a catapult among the sweet-williams. The abrupt departure of the chariot was the cue for the property wagon, which followed with some labor and jolting, like a convoy struggling in the wake of a pretentious ship. From the door Mauville watched it until it reached a toll-gate, passed beneath the portcullis and disappeared into the broad province of the wilderness.



CHAPTER VII

SOJOURNING IN ARCADIA

Calm and still was the morning; the wandering air just stirred the pendulous branches of the elms and maples, and, in the clear atmosphere, the russet hills were sharply outlined. As they swung out into the road, with Hans, the musician, at the reins, the young girl removed her bonnet and leaned back in the chair of state, where kings had fretted and queens had lolled.

The throne, imposing on the stage, now appeared but a flimsy article of furniture, with frayed and torn upholstering, and carving which had long since lost its gilded magnificence. Seated amid the jumble of theatrical appliances and accoutrements—scenery, rolled up rug-fashion, property trunks, stage clock, lamps and draperies—she accepted the situation gracefully, even finding nothing strange in the presence of the soldier. New faces had come and gone in the company before, and, when Barnes had complacently informed her Saint-Prosper would journey with the players to New Orleans in a semi-business capacity, the arrangement appeared conformable to precedent. The manager's satisfaction augured well for the importance of the semi-business role assumed by the stranger, and Barnes' friendliness was perhaps in some degree unconsciously reflected in her manner; an attitude the soldier's own reserve, or taciturnity, had not tended to dispel. So, his being in the property wagon seemed no more singular than Hans' occupancy of the front seat, or if Adonis, Hawkes, or Susan had been there with her. She was accustomed to free and easy comradeship; indeed, knew no other life, and it was only assiduous attentions, like those of the land baron's, that startled and disquieted her.

As comfortably as might be, she settled back in the capacious, threadbare throne, a slender figure in its depths—more adapted to accommodate a corpulent Henry VIII!—and smiled gaily, as the wagon, in avoiding one rut, ran into another and lurched somewhat violently. Saint-Prosper, lodged on a neighboring trunk, quickly extended a steadying hand.

"You see how precarious thrones are!" he said.

"There isn't room for it to more than totter," she replied lightly, removing her bonnet and lazily swinging it from the arm of the chair.

"Then it's safer than real thrones," he answered, watching the swaying bonnet, or perhaps, contrasting the muscular, bronzed hand he had placed on the chair with the smooth, white one which held the blue ribbons; a small, though firm, hand to grapple with the minotaur, Life!

She slowly wound the ribbons around her fingers.

"Oh, you mean France," she said, and he looked away with sudden disquietude. "Poor monarchs! Their road is rougher than this one."

"Rougher truly!"

"You love France?" she asked suddenly, after studying, with secret, sidelong glances his reserved, impenetrable face.

His gaze returned to her—to the bonnet now resting in her lap—to the hand beside it.

"It is my native land," he replied.

"Then why did you leave it—in its trouble?" she asked impulsively.

"Why?" he repeated, regarding her keenly; but in a moment he added: "For several reasons. I returned from Africa, from serving under Bugeaud, to find the red flag waving in Paris; the king fled!"

"Oh," she said, quickly, "a king should—"

"What?" he asked, as she paused.

"I was going to say it was better to die like a king than—"

"Than live an outcast!" he concluded for her, a shadow on his brow.

She nodded. "At any rate, that is the way they always do in the plays," she added brightly. "But you were saying you found your real king fled?"

His heavy brows contracted, though he answered readily enough: "Yes, the king had fled. A kinsman in whose house I had been reared then bade me head a movement for the restoration of the royal fugitive. For what object? The regency was doomed. The king, a May-fly!"

"And so you refused?"

"We quarreled; he swore like a Gascon. His little puppet should yet sit in the chair where Louis XIV had lorded it! I, who owed my commission to his noble name, was a republican, a deserter! The best way out of the difficulty was out of the country. First it was England, then it was here. To-morrow—where?" he added, in a lower tone, half to himself.

"Where?" she repeated, lightly. "That is our case, too."

He looked at her with sudden interest. "Yours is an eventful life, Miss Carew."

"I have never known any other," she said, simply, adding after a pause: "My earliest recollections are associated with my mother and the stage. As a child I watched her from the wings. I remember a grand voice and majestic presence. When the audience broke into applause, my heart throbbed with pride."

But as her thoughts reverted to times past, the touch of melancholy, invoked by the memory of her mother, was gradually dispelled, as fancy conjured other scenes, and a flickering smile hovered over the lips whose parting displaced that graver mood.

"Once or twice I played with her, too," she added. "I thought it nice to be one of the little princes in Richard III and wear white satin clothes. One night after the play an old gentleman took me on his knee and said: I had to come, my child, and see if the wicked old uncle hadn't really smothered you!' When he had gone, my mother told me he was Mr. Washington Irving. I thought him very kind, for he brought me a bag of bonbons from the coffee-room."

"It's the first time I ever heard of a great critic laden with sweetmeats!" said the soldier. "And were you not flattered by his honeyed regard?"

"Oh, yes; I devoured it and wanted more," she laughed.

Hans' flourishing whip put an end to further conversation. "Der stage goach!" he said, turning a lumpish countenance upon them and pointing down the road.

Approaching at a lively gait was one of the coaches of the regular line, a vehicle of ancient type, hung on bands of leather and curtained with painted canvas, not unlike the typical French diligence, except for its absence of springs. The stage was spattered with mud from roof to wheel-tire, but as the mire was not fresh and the road fair, the presumption followed that custom and practice precluded the cleaning of the coach. The passengers, among whom were several ladies, wearing coquettish bonnets with ribbons or beau-catchers attached, were too weary even to view with wonder the odd-looking theatrical caravan. Only the driver, a diminutive person with puckered face the color of dried apples, so venerable as to be known as Old Hundred, seemed as spry and cheery as when he started.

"Morning," he said, briskly, drawing in his horses. "Come back, have ye, with yer troupe? What's the neuws from Alban-y?"

"Nothing, except Texas has been admitted as a State," answered Barnes.

"Sho! We air coming on!" commented the Methuselah of the road.

"Coming on!" groaned a voice in the vehicle, and the florid face of an English traveler appeared at the door. "I say, do you call this 'coming on!' I'm nearly gone, don't you know!"

"Hi!—ge' long!—steady there!" And Old Hundred again whipped up his team, precipitating a lady into the lap of the gentleman who was "nearly gone," and well-nigh completing his annihilation.

In less time than when a friendly sail is lost in the mist, Old Hundred's bulky land-wherry passed from view, and the soldier again turned to his companion. But she was now intent on some part in a play which she was quietly studying and he contented himself with lighting that staple luxury of the early commonwealth, a Virginia stogie, observing her from time to time over the glowing end. With the book upon her knee, her head downcast and partly turned from him, he could, nevertheless, through the mazy convolutions and dreamy spirals of the Indian weed, detect the changing emotions which swept over her, as in fancy she assumed a role in the drama. Now the faintest shadow of a smile, coming and going; again beneath the curve of her long lashes, a softer gleaming in the dark eyes, adding new charm to the pale, proud face. Around them nature seemed fraught with forgetfulness; the Libyan peace that knows not where or wherefore. Rocked in the cradle of ruts and furrows, Hans, portly as a carboy, half-dozed on the front seat.

Shortly before noon they approached an ancient hostelry, set well back from the road. To the manager's dismay, however, the door was locked and boards were nailed across the windows. Even the water pail, hospitably placed for man or beast, had been removed from its customary proximity to the wooden pump. Abandoned to decay, the tenantless inn was but another evidence of traffic diverted from the old stage roads by the Erie Canal Company. Cold was the fireplace before which had once rested the sheep-skin slippers for the guests; empty was the larder where at this season was wont to be game in abundance, sweet corn, luscious melons—the trophies of the hunt, the fruits of the field; missing the neat, compact little keg whose spigot had run with consolation for the wanderer!

Confronted by the deserted house, where they had expected convivial cheer, there was no alternative but to proceed, and their journey was resumed with some discomfiture to the occupants of the coach which now labored like a portly Spanish galleon, struck by a squall. They had advanced in this manner for some distance through furrow and groove, when the vehicle gave a sharper lurch down a deeper rut; a crash was followed by cries of affright and the chariot abruptly settled on one side. Barnes held the plunging horses in control, while the gentlemen scrambled to the ground and assisted the ladies to dismount.

"Any one hurt?" asked the manager from his box.

"No damage done—except to the coach," said Hawkes.

By this time the horses had become quiet and Barnes, now that the passengers were rescued, like a good skipper, left the quarter deck.

"We couldn't have chosen a better place for our lunch," he remarked philosophically. "How fortunate we should have broken down where we did!"

"Very fortunate!" echoed the old lady ironically.

The accident had happened upon a slight plateau, of which they accordingly took possession, tethering the horses to graze. From the branches overhead the squirrels surveyed them as if asking what manner of people were these, and the busy woodpecker ceased his drumming, cocking his head inquisitively at the intruders; then shyly drew away, mounting spirally the trunk of the tree to the hole, chiseled by his strong beak for a nest. As Barnes gazed around upon the pleasing prospect, he straightway became the duke in the comedy of the forest.

"Ha, my brothers in exile," he exclaimed, "are not these woods more free from peril than the envious court?"

"All it wants," said the tragedian, hungrily, "is mutton, greens and a foaming pot."

"I can't promise the foaming pot," answered the manager. "But, at least, we have a well-filled hamper."

Soon the coffee was simmering and such viands as they had brought with them—for Barnes was a far-sighted and provident manager—were spread out in tempting profusion. Near them a swift-flowing stream chattered about the stones like one of nature's busiest gossips; it whispered to the flowers, murmured to the rushes and was voluble to the overhanging branch that dragged upon the surface of the water. The flowers on its brim nodded, the rushes waved and the branch bent as if in assent to the mad gossip of the blithesome brook. And it seemed as though all this animated conversation was caused by the encampment of the band of players by the wayside.

The repast finished, they turned their attention to the injured chariot, but fortunately the damage was not beyond repair, and Barnes, actor, manager, bill-poster, license-procurer, added to his already extensive repertoire the part of joiner and wheelwright. The skilled artisans in coachmaking and coach-repairing might not have regarded the manager as a master-workman, but the fractured parts were finally set after a fashion. By that time, however, the sun had sunk to rest upon a pillow of clouds; the squirrels, law-abiding citizens, had sought their homes; the woodpecker had vanished in his snug chamber, and only forest dwellers of nocturnal habits were now abroad, their name legion like the gad-abouts of a populous city.

"There!" exclaimed the manager, surveying his handiwork. "The 'bus is ready! But there is little use going on to-night. I am not sure of the road and here is a likely spot to pass the night."

"Likely to be devoured by wild beasts," said Kate, with a shudder.

"I am sure I see two glistening eyes!" exclaimed Susan.

"Fudge!" observed the elastic old lady. "That's the first time you have been afraid of two-glistening eyes."

"There's a vast difference between wolves and men," murmured Susan.

"I'm not so sure of that," returned the aged cynic.

But as the light of day was withdrawn a great fire sprang up, illumining the immediate foreground. The flames were cheering, drawing the party more closely together. Even Hawkes partly discarded his tragedy face; the old lady threw a bundle of fifty odd years from her shoulders as easily as a wood-carrier would cast aside his miserable stack of fagots, while Barnes forgot his troubles in narrating the harrowing experience of a company which had penetrated the west at a period antedating the settlement of the Michigan and Ohio boundary dispute.

The soldier alone was silent, curiously watching the play of light and shade on the faces of the strollers, his gaze resting longest, perhaps, on the features of the young girl. Leaning against an ancient oak, so old the heart of it was gone and it towered but a mighty shell, the slender figure of the actress was clearly outlined, but against that dark and roughly-furrowed background she seemed too slight and delicate to buffet with storms and hardships. That day's experience was a forerunner of the unexpected in this wandering life, but another time the mishap might not be turned to diversion. The coach would not always traverse sunny byways; the dry leaf floating from the majestic arm of the oak, the sound of an acorn as it struck the earth presaged days less halcyon to come.

"How do you enjoy being a stroller?" asked a voice, interrupting the soldier's reverie. "It has its bitters and its sweets, hasn't it? Especially its sweets!" Susan added, glancing meaningly at the young girl. "But after all, it doesn't much matter what happens to you if you are in good company." The semi-gloom permitted her to gaze steadfastly into his eyes. He ignored the opportunity for a compliment, and Susan stifled a little yawn, real or imaginary.

"Positively one could die of ennui in this wilderness," she continued. "Do you know you are a welcome addition to our band? But you will have to make yourself very agreeable. I suppose"—archly—"you were very agreeable in the property wagon?"

"Miss Carew had a part to study," he returned, coldly.

"A part to study!" In mock consternation. "How I hate studying parts! They say what you wouldn't, and don't say what you would! But I'm off to bed," rising impatiently. "I'm getting sleepy!"

"Sleepy!" echoed Barnes. "Take your choice! The Hotel du Omnibus"—indicating the chariot—"or the Villa Italienne?"—with a gesture toward a tent made of the drop curtain upon the walls of which was the picture of an Italian scene.

"The chariot for me," answered Susan. "It is more high and dry and does not suggest spiders and other crawling things."

"Good-night, then, and remember a good conscience makes a hard bed soft."

"Then I shall sleep on down. I haven't had a chance"—with a sigh—"to damage my conscience lately. But when I strike civilization again"—and Susan shook her head eloquently to conclude her sentence. "Oh, yes; if beds depend on conscience, boughs would be feathers for me to-night." With which half-laughing, half-defiant conclusion, Susan tripped to the chariot, pausing a moment, however, to cast a reproachful glance over her shoulder at Saint-Prosper before vanishing in the cavernous depths of the vehicle of the muses.

Her departure was the signal for the dispersing of the party to their respective couches. Now the fire sank lower, the stars came out brighter and the moon arose and traveled majestically up the heavens, taking a brief but comprehensive survey of the habitations of mortals, and then, as if satisfied with her scrutiny, sailed back to the horizon and dropped out of sight.



CHAPTER VIII

FLIPPING THE SHILLING

Shortly after the departure of the strolling players from the tavern, Mauville summoned his servant and ordered his equipage. While waiting he strode impatiently to and fro in the dining-room, which, dismantled of the stage, by very contrast to the temporary temple of art, turned his thoughts to the players. The barrenness of the room smote him acutely with the memory of those performances, and he laughed ironically to himself that he should thus revert to them. But as he scoffed inwardly, his eyes gleamed with vivacity, and the sensations with which he had viewed the young girl night after night were reawakened. What was one woman lost to him, his egotism whispered; he had parted from many, as a gourmand leaves one meal for another. Yes; but she had not been his, insinuated vanity; another had whipped her off before his eyes.

"Why the devil didn't you tell me he was going with them?" he demanded of the landlord while settling his account.

"He—who?" asked the surprised inn-keeper.

"That adventurer you have been harboring here. How far's he going with them?"

"I don't know. The night after the performance I heard the manager ask him to join the company; to write a temperance play."

"Temperance play!" sneered Mauville. "The fool's gone with them on account of a woman."

"I did think he was mighty attentive to one of the actresses," said the landlord, reflectively. "The one with them melting eyes. Purty good-looking! Quiet and lady-like, too! So he's gallivanting after her? Well, well, I guess actresses be all alike."

"I guess they are," added the heir savagely. "And this one took me in," he thought to himself. "Holding me off and playing with him, the jade!" Then he continued aloud: "Where are they going?"

"Didn't hear 'em say," answered the other, "and I didn't like to appear too curious."

"You didn't?" returned Mauville, ironically. "You must have changed lately."

"I don't know as I understand you quite," replied the landlord with sudden dignity. "But here's your carriage and your things are all on. I guess your tenants will be glad to see you," he continued, not resisting a parting shot.

"Curse the tenants!" muttered the guest in ill-humor, as he strode from the tavern without more ado.

He was soon on his way, partly forgetting his vexation in new anticipations, and traveling with spirit to his destination, which he reached late that afternoon. The residence of the old patroons, a lordly manor where once lavish hospitality had been displayed, was approached through great gates of hammered iron in which the family arms were interwoven, leading into a fine avenue of trees. The branches of the more majestic met overhead, forming a sylvan arch that almost obscured the blue sky by day and the stars by night. Gazing through this vista, a stately portico appeared, with Corinthian columns, affording an inviting termination of the view. The grounds bore evidence of neglect in the grass growing knee-high and rank with weeds; the flower beds almost obliterated; a corn-crib sunk to one side like a quadruped gone weak-kneed; and the stream that struggled vainly through the leaves and rubbish barring its passage across the estate. The fence resembled the "company front" of an awkward squad, each picket being more or less independent of its neighbor, with here and there a break or gap in the ranks.

Passing through the leafy archway over a noiseless road and drawing near the manor, the heir could see that the broad windows, with their quaint squares of glass, were unwashed, the portico unswept and the brass finishings of the front door unpolished. At the right of the steps leading to the portico, moss-covered and almost concealed by a rose-bush, stood a huge block of granite upon which rested the "lifting-stone," as it was called, of one of the early masters. This not inconsiderable weight the new retainers had been required to lift in days of old, or failing, the patroon would have none of their services, for he wanted only lusty, broad-backed varlets for farmers or—when need were—soldiers.

In answer to repeated summons from the ponderous knocker, shuffling footsteps were finally heard within, the door was opened a few inches and the gleaming teeth of a great, gaunt dog were thrust into the opening, followed by an ominous growling. Mauville sprang back a step; the snarling resolved itself into a yelp, as some one unceremoniously dragged the canine back; the door was opened wider and a brawny figure, smoking a long-stemmed pipe, barred the way. The dog, but partly appeased, peered from behind the man's sturdy legs, awaiting hostilities. The latter, an imperturbable Dutchman, eyed the intruder askance, smoking as impassively in his face as one of his ancestors before William the Testy. From his point of vantage on the threshold the care-taker looked down upon the master so indifferently, while the dog glared so viciously that the land baron cried angrily:

"Why the devil don't you get out of the way and call off that beast?"

The man pondered. "No one but the heir would give orders like that," he said, so accustomed to speaking his thoughts in the solitude of the great rooms, that he gave way to the habit now. "This must be the heir."

Slowly the care-taker moved aside, the hound shifting his position accordingly, and Mauville entered, gazing around with some interest, for the interior of the manor realized the pretensions of its outward aspect. The floor of the hall was of satinwood and rosewood, and the mahogany wainscoting, extending almost to the ceiling, was black with age. With its rich carvings, the stairway suggested woody rioting in balustrades lifting up to the support of the heavy beams in the ceiling. The furnishings were in keeping, but dust obscured the mirror-like surface of the mahogany tables, the heavy draperies were in need of renovation, while a housewife would have viewed with despair the condition of brass and ebony inlaid cabinets, ancient tapestries, and pictures, well-nigh defaced, but worthy, even in their faded aspect, of the brush of Sir Godfrey Kneller, Benjamin West and the elder Peale.

Having casually surveyed his new home, the heir was reminded of the need for refreshment after his long journey, and, turning to the care-taker, asked him what there was in the house? The servant smoked silently as though deeply considering this momentous question, while the rear guard maintained unabated hostility between the man's firmly-planted feet. Then abruptly, without removing his pipe, the guardian of the manor ejaculated:

"Short-cakes and oly-koeks."

The other laughed, struck his knee with his light cane and demanded to be shown to the library, where he would have these outlandish dishes served.

"And bring with them, Mynheer Oly-koeks, a bottle of wine," he continued. "At the same time, chain up the dog. He eyes me with such hungry hostility that, gad! I believe he's an anti-renter!"

Mauville was ushered into a large room, where great leather-bound volumes filled the oak shelves to the ceiling. The care-taker turned, and, with echoing footsteps, slowly departed, followed by his faithful four-footed retainer. It is true the latter paused, swung half-around and regarded the land-owner with the look of a sulky and rebellious tenant, but, summoned by a stern "Oloffe!" from his master, the dog reluctantly pattered across the hard-wood floor.

In surveying his surroundings, the land baron's attention was attracted by a coat-of-arms deeply carved in the massive wood of the book-case—on a saltire sable, a fleur-de-lys or. This head of heraldic flowers appeared to interest Mauville, who smiled grimly. "From what I know of my worthy ancestors," he muttered, "and their propensities to prey on their fellow-men, I should say a more fitting device would be that of Lovett of Astwell: Gules, three wolves passant sable, in pale."

Pleased with his own humor, he threw himself upon a couch near the window, stretching himself luxuriously. Soon the man reappeared with the refreshments and a bottle of old-fashioned, substantial girth, which he uncorked with marked solicitude.

"Where are the oly-koeks?" exclaimed the heir.

The watchman pointed to a great dish of dark blue willow-ware pattern.

"Oh, doughnuts!" said Mauville. "You know where the family lawyer lives? Have my man drive you to his house and bring him here at once."

As the care-taker again disappeared the heir bent over the curiously shaped bottle in delight, for when the cork was drawn a fragrance filled the musty apartment as from a bouquet.

"Blessings on the ancestor who laid down this wine!" he muttered. "May his ghost wander in to sniff it! These oly-koeks are not bad. I suppose this man, Ten Breecheses, or whatever he is called, is at once cook and housekeeper. Although I don't think much of his housekeeping," ruminated Mauville, as he observed a herculean spider weaving a web from an old volume of Giraldus Cambrensis, antiquary, to the classical works of one Joseph of Exeter. There is a strong sympathy between wine and cobwebs, and Mauville watched with increasing interest the uses to which these ponderous tomes had sunk—but serving the bloodthirsty purpose of the nimble architect, evolving its delicate engineering problem in mid air.

A great blundering fly had just bobbed into the net and the spider, with hideous, carnivorous zest, was scrambling for it, when the guardian of the manor returned with the family solicitor, a little man who bore in his arms a bundle of papers which, after the customary greetings, he spread upon the table. He helped himself to a glass of burgundy and proceeded forthwith to enter into the history of his trust.

Mynheer, the patroon, Mauville's predecessor, a lonely, arrogant man, had held tenaciously to the immense tracts of land acquired in the colonial days by nominal purchase. He had never married, his desire for an heir being discounted by his aversion for the other sex, until as the days dragged on, he found himself bed-ridden and childless in his old age. Unfortunately the miser can not take his acres into Paradise, and the patroon, with many an inward groan, cast about him for some remote relative to whom he would reluctantly transfer his earthly hereditaments. These were two: one a man of piety, who prayed with the tenants when they complained of their lot; the other, Mauville, upon whom he had never set eyes.

When the earliest patroons had made known to the West India Company their intention of planting colonies in New Netherland, they had issued attractive maps to promote their colonization projects. Among those who had been lured to America by these enticing advertisements was an ancestor of Edward Mauville. Incurring the displeasure of the governor for his godless views, this Frenchman was sent to the pillory, or whipping post, and his neighbors were about to cast out the devil of irreverence in good old-fashioned manner, when one of Mynheer's daughters interceded, carried off the handsome miscreant, and—such was her imperious way!—married him! He was heard in after years to aver that the whipping would have been the milder punishment, but, be that as it may, a child was born unto them who inherited the father's adventuresome and graceless character, deserted his home, joined hands with some ocean-rovers and sailed for that pasture-ground of buccaneers, the Caribbean sea. Of his subsequent history various stories may be found in the chronicles of New Orleans and Louisiana.

The only other person who might have any pretensions to the estate was a reverend gentleman who had been a missionary among the Indians, preaching from a stump, and called "Little Thunder" by the red men because of his powerful voice; a lineal descendant of the Rev. Doctor Johannes Vanderklonk, the first dominie of the patroons, who served for one thousand guilders, payable in meat or drink, twenty-two bushels of wheat and two firkins of butter. He saved the souls of the savages, while the white men cheated their bodies. Now and then, in those early days, the children of the forest protested against this evangelizing process and carried off the good dominie to the torture stake, where they plucked out his finger nails; but he returned with as much zest to his task of landing these simple souls in Paradise as those who employed him displayed in making an earthly Paradise out of the lands the red men left behind them.

When by this shrewd system the savages were gradually saved, and incidentally exterminated, Little Thunder's occupation was gone and he became a pensioner of Mynheer the Patroon, earning his bread by an occasional sermon to the tenants, exhorting them to thrift and industry, to be faithful and multiply, and to pay their rents promptly. As Mynheer's time drew near he sent for his attorney and commanded him to look up the life, deeds and character of Edward Mauville.

"This I did," said the lawyer, "and here it is." Waving a roll of papers before his interested listener.

"A nauseating mess, no doubt," carelessly remarked the land baron.

"Oh, sir!" deprecated the lawyer, opening the roll. "'Item: Religion; pupil of the brilliant Jesuit, Abbe Moneau. Item: Morals; Exhibit A, the affair with Countess —— in Paris, where he was sent to be educated after the fashion of French families in New Orleans; Exhibit B—'"

"Spare me," exclaimed Mauville. "Life is wearisome enough, but a biography—" He shrugged his shoulders. "Come to your point."

"Of course, sir, I was only trying to carry out his instructions. The same, sir, as I would carry out yours!" With an ingratiating smile. Whereupon the attorney told how he had furnished the patroon this roll and fastened it to his bed, so that he might wind and unwind it, perusing it at his pleasure. This the dying man did, sternly noting the damaging facts; thinking doubtlessly how traits will endure for generations—aye, for ages, in spite of the pillory!—the while Little Thunder was roaring petitions to divinity by his bedside, as though to bluster and bully the Almighty into granting his supplications. The patroon glanced from his pensioner to the roll; from the kneeling man to that prodigious list of peccadillos, and then he called for a shilling, a coin still somewhat in use in America. This he flipped thrice.

"Roue or sham," he said the first time.

"Rake or hypocrite," he exclaimed the second time.

"Devil or Pharisee," he cried the third time.

He peered over the coin and sent for his attorney. His soul passed away, mourned by Little Thunder until the will was read, when his lamentations ceased; he soundly berated Mynheer, the Patroon, in his coffin and refused to go to his burying. Then he became an ardent anti-renter, a leader of "bolters," a thunderer of the people's cause, the devoted enemy of land barons in general, and one patroon in particular, the foreign heir of the manor.

"But let him thunder away, sir," said Scroggs, soothingly. "The estate's yours now, for the old patroon can't come back to change his mind. He's buried sure enough in the grove, a dark and sombrous spot as befitted his disposition, but restful withal. Aye, and the marble slab's above him, which reminds me that only a month before he took to his bed he was smoking his pipe on the porch, when his glance fell upon the lifting-stone. Suddenly he strode towards it, bent his back and raised it a full two inches. 'So much for age!' said he, scoffing-like. But age heard him and now he lies with a stone on him he can not lift, while you, sir"—to his listener, deferentially—"are sole heir to the estate and to the feud."

"A feud goes with the property?" remarked Mauville carelessly.

"The tenants object to paying rent," replied Scroggs, sadly. "They're a sorry lot!"

"Evade their debts, do they?" said the land baron languidly. "What presumption to imitate their betters! That won't do; I need the money."

"They claim the rights of the landlord originated in fraud—"

"No doubt!" Yawning. "My ancestors were rogues!"

"Oh, sir"—deprecatorily.

"If the tenants don't pay, turn them out," interrupted Mauville, listlessly, "if you have to depopulate the country."

Having come to an understanding with his client, the lawyer arose to take his departure.

"By the way," he said, obsequiously, selecting a yellow, well-worn bit of paper from his bundle of documents, "it may interest you to keep this yourself. It is the original deed for all these lands from the squaw Pewasch. You can see they were acquired for a few shillings' worth of 'wet and dry goods' and seventeen and a half ells of duffels."

"The old patroons could strike a rare bargain," muttered the heir, as he casually surveyed the ancient deed, and then, folding it, placed it in his breast pocket. "For a mere song was acquired—"

"A vast principality," added the solicitor, waving his hand toward the fields and meadows far in the distance.



CHAPTER IX

SAMPLING THE VINTAGES

Having started the wheels of justice fairly moving, with Scroggs at the throttle, the new land baron soon discovered that he was not in consonance with the great commoner who said he was savage enough to prefer the woods and wilds of Monticello to all the pleasures of Paris. In other words, those rural delights of his forefathers, the pleasures of a closer intimacy with nature, awoke no responsive chord in Mauville's breast, and he began to tire before long of a patriarchal existence and crullers and oly-koeks and playing the fine lord in solitary grandeur.

The very extent of the deserted manor carried an overwhelming sense of loneliness, especially at this season when nature was dying and triumphal tints of decay were replacing the vernal freshness of the forests, flaunting gaudy vestments that could not, however, conceal the sadness of the transition. The days were growing shorter and the leaden-colored vapors, driven by the whip of that taskmaster, the wind, replaced the snow-white clouds becalmed in the tender depths of ether. Soon would the hoar frost crystallize on grass and fence, or the autumn rains descend, dripping mournfully from the water spouts and bubbling over the tubs. Already the character of the dawn was changed to an almost sullen awakening of the day, denoting a seeming uneasiness of the hidden forces, while an angry passing of the glowing orb replaced the Paphian sunset.

In nook and cranny, through the balustrades and woody screens of the ancient house, penetrated the wandering currents of air. The draperies waved mysteriously, as by a hidden hand, and, at nightfall, the floor of satin and rosewood creaked ominously as if beneath the restless footsteps of former inmates, moving from the somber hangings of the windows to the pearl-inlaid harpsichord whose melody was gone, and thence up the broad staircase, pausing naturally at the landing, beneath which had assembled gay gatherings in the colonial days. And such a heedless phantom group—fine gentlemen in embroidered coats, bright breeches, silk stockings and peruke, and, peeping through ethereal lace wristbands, a white hand fit for no sterner toil than to flourish with airy grace a gold-headed cane; ladies with gleaming bare shoulders, dressed in "cumbrous silk that with its rustling made proud the flesh that bore it!" The imaginative listener could almost distinguish these footfalls, as the blind will recognize the tread of an unseen person.

To further add to the land baron's dissatisfaction over his heritage, "rent-day"—that all-important day in the olden times; when my lord's door had been besieged by the willing lease-holders, cheerful in rendering unto Caesar what was due Caesar!—seemed to have been dropped from the modern calendar, as many an ancient holiday has gradually been lost in the whirligig of time. No long procession now awaited the patroon's pleasure, when it should suit him to receive the tribute of guilders, corn or meal; the day might have been as obsolete as an Hellenic festival day to Zeus, for all the observance it was accorded.

"Your notices, Scroggs, were wasted on the desert air," said the patroon, grimly, to that disappointed worthy. "What's the use of tenants who don't pay? Playing at feudal lord in modern times is a farce, Scroggs. I wish we had lived about four hundred years ago."

"Yes, if four hundred years ago were now," assented the parasite, "I'd begin with Dick, the tollman! He's a regular Goliath and,"—his face becoming purple—"when I threatened him with the law, threw me out of the barn on an obnoxious heap of refuse."

"You weren't exactly a David, then?" laughed the patroon, in spite of his bad humor.

"I'll throw the stone yet," said the little man, viciously showing his yellow teeth. "The law's the sling."

That evening, when the broad meadows were inundated by the shadow of the forest that crept over it like an incoming tide, the land baron ordered lights for every room. The manor shone in isolated grandeur amid the gloomy fields, with the forest-wall around it; radiant as of old, when strains of music had been heard within and many figures passed the windows. But now there was light, and not life, and a solitary anti-renter on the lonely road regarded with surprise the unusual illumination.

"What does it mean?" asked Little Thunder—for it was he—waiting and watching, as without the gates of Paradise.

Well might he ask, for the late Mynheer, the Patroon, had been a veritable bat for darkness; a few candles answered his purpose in the spacious rooms; he played the prowler, not the grand lord; a recluse who hovered over his wine butts in the cellar and gloated over them, while he touched them not; a hermit who lived half his time in the kitchen, bending over the smoky fireplace, and not a lavender-scented gentleman who aired himself in the drawing-room, a fine fop with nothing but the mirrors to pay him homage. Little Thunder, standing with folded arms in the dark road, gloomy as Lucifer, almost expected to see the brilliant fabric vanish like one of those palaces of joy built by the poets.

Hour after hour passed, midnight had come and gone, and still the lights glowed. Seated in the library, with the curtains drawn, were the land baron and Scroggs, a surveyor's map between them and a dozen bottles around them. Before Mauville stood several glasses, containing wines of various vintages which the land baron compared and sipped, held to the light and inhaled after the manner of a connoisseur sampling a cellar. He was unduly dignified and stately, but the attorney appeared decidedly groggy. The latter's ideas clashed against one another like pebbles in a child's rattle, and, if the round table may be supposed to represent the earth, as the ancient geographers imagined it, Scrogg's face was surely the glowing moon shining upon it.

Readily had the attorney lent himself to the new order of procedure. With him it was: "The king is dead! Long live the king!" He, who had found but poor pickings under the former master—dry crust fees for pleadings, demurrers or rejoinders—now anticipated generous booty and spoil. Alert for such crumbs as might fall from a bountiful table; keen of scent for scraps and bits, but capable of a mighty mouthful, he paid a courtier's price for it all; wheedling, pandering, ready for any service, ripe for any revelry. With an adulator's tact, he still strove strenuously to hold the thread of his companion's conversation, as Mauville said:

"Too old, Scroggs; too old!" Setting down a glass of burgundy in which fine particles floated through the magenta-hued liquid. "It has lost its luster, like a woman's eyes when she has passed the meridian. Good wine, like a woman, has its life. First, sweetly innocent, delicately palatable, its blush like a maiden of sixteen; then glowing with a riper development, more passionate in hue, a siren vintage; finally, thin, waning and watery, with only memories of the deeper, rosy-hued days. Now here, my good, but muddled friend, is your youthful maiden!" Holding toward the lamp a glass, clear as crystal, with luster like a gem. "Dancing eyes; a figure upright as a reed; the bearing of a nymph; the soul of a water lily before it has opened its leaves to the wooing moonlight!"



"Lord! How you go on!" exclaimed Scroggs. "What with a sampling this and sampling that, my head's going round like a top. If there's anything in the cellar the old patroons put down we haven't tried, sir, I beg to defer the sampling. I am of the sage's mind—'Of all men who take wine, the moderate only enjoy it,' says Master Bacon, or some one else."

"Pass the bottle!" answered the other. "Gently, man! Don't disturb its repose, and remember it disdains the perpendicular."

"So will I soon," muttered Scroggs. "I hope you'll excuse me, sir, but that last drop of Veuve Cliquot was the whip-cord that started the top going, and, on my word"—raising his hands to his head—"I feel like holding it on to keep it from spinning off."

"Spinning or not, you shall try this vintage"—the young man's eyes gleamed with such fire as shone in the glass—"and drink to Constance Carew!"

"Constance Carew!" stammered the other, desperately swallowing the toast.

Mauville slowly emptied the glass. "A balsamic taste, slightly piquant but agreeable," he observed. "A dangerous wine, Scroggs! It carries no warning; your older kind is like a world-worn coquette whose glances at once place you on the defensive. This maiden vintage, just springing into glorious womanhood, comes over you like a springtime dream."

"Who—who is she?" muttered Scroggs.

"She is not in the scroll you prepared for my lamented kinsman, eh? They are, for the most part, deep red, dark scarlet—that list of fair dames! She doesn't belong to them—yet! No title, man; not even a society lady. A stroller, which is next door to a vagrant."

"Well, sir, she's a woman and that's enough," replied the lawyer. "And my opinion is, it's better to have nothing to do with 'em."

This sententious remark seemed to arouse Scroggs to momentary vivacity.

"Now there was my Lord Hamerton, whose picture is upstairs," he went on quickly, like a man who is bent on grasping certain ideas before they escape him. "He brought a beautiful woman here—carried her off, they say from England—and installed her as mistress of the manor. I have heard my father say that his great-grandfather, who was my lord's solicitor, said that before his death my lord desired to make her his wife, having been brought to a sense of the sinful life he had led by a Puritan preacher. But at that, this woman straightened herself up, surveyed him with scorn, and, laughing like a witch, answered: 'They say marriages are made in heaven, my lord—and you are the devil!' So my lord died without having atoned, and, as for my lady who refused to become an honest woman, I am sure she was damned!" concluded Scroggs triumphantly.

"No doubt! So this wicked lord abducted her, Scroggs?" he added thoughtfully. "A man of spirit, until the Puritans got after him and showed him the burning pit and frightened him to that virtue which was foreign to his inclinations. My lady was right in refusing to honor such a paltry scoundrel with her hand. But it takes courage, Scroggs, to face everlasting damnation."

"They say, too, there was a spice of revenge about her unwillingness to give her hand to my lord," resumed the narrator, unmindful of the interruption. "This Puritan father said nothing but marriage with her would save Hamerton from the sulphurous flames and so my lady refused to sanctify their relations and rescue her lord from perdition!"

"A pleasant revenge!" laughed the land baron. "He made life a hell for her and she gave him an eternity of it. But take a little of this white wine, man. We've drunk to the roses of desire, and now should drink to the sanctified lilies. Her neck, Scroggs, is like a lily, and her hand and her brow! Beneath that whiteness, her eyes shine with a tenderness inviting rays of passion to kindle them. Drink!"

But the other gave a sudden lurch forward. "My lady—refused—perdition!" he muttered, and his head dropped to the board.

"Wake up, man, and drink!" commanded the master.

"Jush same—they ought to have been married," said his companion drowsily. "They lived together so—so ill!" And then to place himself beyond reach of further temptation from the bottle, he quietly and naturally slid under the table.

The patroon arose, strode to the window, which he lifted, and the night air entered, fanning his hot brow. The leaves, on high, rustled like falling rain. The elms tossed their branches, striking one another in blind confusion. The long grass whispered as the breeze stirred it like the surface of an inland lake. Withering flowers gave up their last perfume, while a storm-cloud fled wildly across the heavens. Some of the restlessness of the external world disturbed that silent dark figure at the window; within him, conflicting passions jarred like the boughs of the trees and his fancies surged like the eddying leaves.

"The roses of desire—the sanctified lilies!" he muttered.

As he stood there the stars grew pale; the sky trembled and quivered before the advent of morn. A heavy footstep fell behind him, and, turning, he beheld the care-taker.

"Not in bed yet, Oly-koeks?" cheerfully said the land baron.

"I am just up."

"In that case, it is time for me to retire," returned the master, with a yawn. "This is a dull place, Oly-koeks; no life; no variety. Nothing going on!"

The servant glanced at the formidable array of bottles. "And he calls this a quiet life!" thought the care-taker, losing his impassiveness and viewing the table with round-eyed wonder.

"Nothing going on?" he said aloud. "Mynheer, the Patroon, complained of too much life here, with people taking farms all around. But, if you are dull, a farmer told me last night there was a company of strolling players in Vanderdonkville—"

"Strollers!" exclaimed Mauville, wheeling around. "What are they called?"

"Lord; I don't know, sir. They're show-folks, and that's all—"

"Do many strolling players come this way?"

"Not for weeks and months, sometimes! The old patroon ordered the schout to arrest them if they entered the wyck."

"Is Vanderdonkville in the wyck?" asked the land baron quickly.

"No. It was separated from the wyck when Rickert Jacobus married—"

"Never mind the family genealogy! Have the coach ready at nine—"

"To-night?"

"This morning," replied Mauville, lightly. "And, meanwhile, put this to bed," indicating Scroggs, who was now snoring like a bag-pipe with one arm lovingly wound around a leg of the library table.

The care-taker hoisted the attorney on his broad shoulders, his burden still piping as they crossed the hall and mounted the stairway. Having deposited his load within the amazing depths of a Dutch feather mattress, where he lay well-nigh lost to sight, but not unheard, the wacht-meester of the steyn left him to well-earned slumber and descended to the kitchen.

At the appointed hour, the land baron, freshly shaven, not a jaded line in his face, and elastic in step, appeared on the front porch before which his carriage was waiting.

"When shall I expect you back?" asked Oly-koeks, who had reappeared at the sound of his master's footsteps.

"Any time or never!" laughed the patroon, springing into the vehicle.

But as he drove through a bit of wood, wrapped in pleasing reflections, he received startling proof that the warfare between landlord and tenants had indeed begun in earnest, for a great stone suddenly crashed through the window of the vehicle, without, however, injuring the occupant. Springing from his carriage, Mauville dashed through the fringe of wood, discharging his revolver at what he fancied was a fleeing figure. But a fluttering in the trees from the startled birds was the only result.

Little Thunder was too spry to be caught by even a pursuing bullet.



CHAPTER X

SEALING THE COMPACT

"The show troupe has come to town," said the tall, lank postmaster to every one who called, and the words passed from mouth to mouth, so that those who did not witness the arrival were soon aware of it. Punchinello and his companions never attracted more attention from the old country peasants than did the chariot and its occupants, as on the day after their night in the woods they passed through the main thoroughfare of the village where they were soon to appear.

Children in woolen dresses of red retinet, or in calico vandykes and aprons, ran after the ponderous vehicle with cries of delight; the staid, mature contingent of the population shook their heads disapprovingly, while viewing with wonder the great lumbering coach, its passengers inside and out, and, behind, the large wagon with its load of miscellaneous trappings. Now on the stage throne lolled the bass viol player, even as Jacques assumed the raiment of the Duke of Aranza, reclining the while in his chair of state. Contentment was written upon his face, and he was as much a duke or a king, as Jacques when he swelled like a shirt bleaching in a high wind and looked burly as a Sunday beadle.

The principal avenue of the village boasted but few prosperous-looking business establishments. In the general "mixed store," farmers' implements, groceries, West India goods and even drugs were dispensed. But the apothecary's trade then had its limitations, homeopathy being unknown, while calomel, castor oil and rhubarb were mainly in demand, as well as senna, manna and other bitter concoctions with which both young and old were freely dosed. The grocer, haberdasher, and druggist, all rolled into one substantial personage, so blocked the doorway of his own establishment, while gazing at the strollers, it would have puzzled a customer, though but a "sketch and outline" of a man, to have slipped in or out. Dashing as in review before the rank and file of the village, the coach, with an extra flourish, rattled up to the hotel, a low but generous-sized edifice, with a wide, comfortable veranda, upon the railing of which was an array of boots, and behind them a number of disconsolate-looking teamsters.

"You want to register, do you?" said the landlord in answer to Barnes' inquiry, as the latter entered the office, the walls of which were covered with advertisements of elections, auctions, sales of stock, lands and quack medicines.

"We don't keep no register," continued the landlord, "but I guess we can accommodate you, although the house is rather full with the fellers from the ark. Or," he added, by way of explanation in answer to the manager's look of surprise, "Philadelphia freight wagons, I suppose you would call them. But we speak of them as arks, because they take in all creation. Them's the occupants, making a Mount Ararat of the porch. They're down-hearted, because they used to liquor up here and now they can't, for the town's temperance."

"I trust, nevertheless, you are prepared for a season of legitimate drama," suggested Barnes.

The other shook his head dubiously. "The town's for lectures clear through," he answered. "They've been making a big fuss about show folks."

The manager's countenance did not fall, however, upon hearing this announcement; on the contrary, it shed forth inscrutable satisfaction.

No sooner were they settled in far from commodious quarters than preparations for the future were seriously begun; and now the drama proceeded apace, with Barnes, the moving spirit. Despite his assertion that he was no scholar, the manager's mind was the storehouse of a hundred plays, and in that depository were many bags of gold and many bags of chaff. From this accumulation he drew freely, frankly, in the light-fingered fashion of master playwrights and lesser theatrical thimble-riggers.

Before the manager was a table—the stage!—upon which were scattered miscellaneous articles, symbols of life and character. A stately salt-cellar represented the leading lady; a pepper box, the irascible father; a rotund mustard pot, the old woman; a long, slim cruet, the ingenue; and a pewter spoon, the lover.

Barnes gravely demonstrated the action of the scene to Saint-Prosper, and the soldier became collaborator, "abandoning, as it were," wrote the manager in his autobiographical date-book and diary, "the sword for the pen, and the glow of the Champ de Mars for the glimmer of a kerosene lamp." And yet not with the inclination of Burgoyne, or other military gentlemen who have courted the buskin and sock! On the contrary, so foreign was the occupation to his leaning, that often a whimsical light in his eye betrayed his disinclination and modest disbelief in his own fitness for the task. "He said the way I laid out an act reminded him of planning a campaign, with the outriders and skirmishers before; the cavalry arrayed for swift service, and the infantry marching steadily on, carrying with them the main plot, or strength of the movement."

No sooner were the Salt Cellar and Pepper Box reunited, and the Pewter Spoon clasped in the arms of the loving Cruet, with the curtain descending, than Barnes, who like the immortal Alcibiades Triplet could turn his hand to almost anything, became furiously engaged in painting scenery. A market-place, with a huge wagon, containing porkers and poultry, was dashed off with a celerity that would have made a royal academician turn green with envy. The Tiddly Wink Inn was so faithfully reproduced that the painted bottles were a real temptation, while on the pastoral green of a rural landscape grazed sheep so life-like that, as Hawkes observed, it actually seemed "they would eat the scenery all up." But finally sets and play were alike finished, and results demonstrated that the manager was correct in his estimate of such a drama, which became a forerunner of other pieces of this kind, "The Bottle," "Fruits of the Wine Cup," "Aunt Dinah's Pledge," and "Ten Nights in a Bar Room."

In due time the drama was given in the town hall, after the rehearsals had been witnessed by a committee from the temperance league, who reported that the play "could not but exercise a good influence and was entertaining withal ... We recommend the license to be issued and commend the drama to all Good Templars." Therefore, the production was not only well attended, but play and players were warmly received. The town hall boasted a fairly commodious platform which now served the purpose of a stage, and—noteworthy circumstance!—there were gas jets for footlights, the illuminating fluid having at that early date been introduced in several of the more progressive villages. Between the acts, these yellow lights were turned low, and—running with the current of popular desire—the orchestra, enlarged to four, played, by special request, "The Old Oaken Bucket."

The song had just sprung into popularity, and, in a moment, men, women and children had added their voices to the instruments. It was not the thrill of temperance fanaticism that stirred their hearts, but it was the memories of the old pioneer home in the wilderness; the rail-splitting, road-building days; the ancient rites of "raisings" and other neighborly ceremonies; when the farmer cut rye with a cradle, and threshed it out with his flail; when "butter and eggs were pin money" and wheat paid the store-keeper.

"How solemnly they take their amusements in the North, Mr. Barnes!" exclaimed a voice in one of the entrances. "What a contrast to the South—the wicked South!"

The manager turned sharply.

"We are mere servants of the public, Mr. Mauville."

"And the public is master, Mr. Barnes! How the dramatic muse is whipped around! In Greece, she was a goddess; in Rome, a hussy; in England, a sprightly dame; now, a straight-laced Priscilla. But you have a recruit, I see?"

"You mean Saint-Prosper?"

"Yes, and I can hardly blame him—under the circumstances!" murmured the land baron, at the same time glancing around as though seeking some one.

"Circumstances! What circumstances?" demanded the manager.

"Why, the pleasant company he finds himself in, of course," said the visitor, easily. "Ah, I see Miss Carew," he added, his eye immediately lightening, "and must congratulate her on her performance. Cursed dusty hole, isn't it?" Brushing himself with his handkerchief as he moved away.

"What business has he behind the scenes anyway?" grumbled the manager. "Dusty hole, indeed! Confound his impudence!" But his attention being drawn to the pressing exigencies of a first night, Barnes soon forgot his irritation over this unwarranted intrusion in lowering a drop, hoisting a fly or readjusting a flat to his liking.

The land baron meanwhile crossed to the semi-darkness at the rear of the stage behind the boxed scene, where he had observed the young girl waiting for the curtain to rise on the last act. A single light on each side served partly to relieve the gloom; to indicate the frame-work of the set scene and throw in shadow various articles designed for use in the play. As she approached Mauville, who stood motionless in an unlighted spot, the pale glow played upon her a moment, white on her neck, in sheen on the folds of her gown, and then she stepped into the shadow, where she was met by a tall figure, with hand eagerly outstretched.

"Mr. Mauville!" she exclaimed, drawing back at the suddenness of the encounter.

His restless eyes held hers, but his greeting was conventional.

"Did I not say the world was small and that we might meet again?"

"Of course, we are always meeting people and parting from them," she replied unconcernedly.

He laughed. "With what delightful indifference you say that! You did not think to see me again?"

"I hadn't thought about it," she answered, frankly, annoyed by his persistence.

"I am unfortunate!" he said.

Beneath his free gaze she changed color, as though the shadow of a rose had touched her face.

"You are well?" he continued.

"Yes."

"I need not have asked." His expression conveyed more—so much more, she bit her lip impatiently. "How do you like the new part?"

"It is hard to tell yet," she answered evasively.

"You would do justice to any role, but I prefer you in a historical or romantic play, with the picturesque old costumes. If it were in my domains, you should appear in those dramas, if I had to hang every justice of the peace in the district."

Her only response was a restless movement and he hastened to add: "I fear, however, I am detaining you."

He drew aside with such deference to permit her to pass that her conscience smote her and she was half-minded to turn and leave him more graciously, but this impulse was succeeded by another feeling, ill-defined, the prevailing second thought. Had she looked, she would have seen that her fluttering shawl touched his hand and he quickly raised it to his lips, releasing it immediately. As it was, she moved on, unaware of the gesture. The orchestra, or rather string quartet, had ceased; Hans, a host in himself, a mountain of melody, bowed his acknowledgments; the footlights glared, the din of voices subsiding; and the curtain rose.

Remaining in the background, the land baron watched the young girl approach the entrance to the stage, where she stood, intent, one hand resting against the scenery, her dress upheld with the other; the glimmer from the footlights, reflected through the opening, touching her face; suddenly, with a graceful movement, she vanished, and her laughing voice seemed to come from afar.

Was it for this he had made his hasty journey? To be treated with indifference by a wandering player; he, the patroon, the unsuccessful suitor of a stroller! She, who appeared in taverns, in barns, perhaps, was as cold and proud as any fine lady, untroubled about the morrow, and, as he weighed this phase of the matter, the land baron knew not whether he loved her most for her beauty or hated her for the slight she put upon him. But love or hate, it was all one, and he told himself he would see the adventure to the end.

"How do you do, Mr. Mauville?" said a gay but hushed voice, interrupting his ruminations, and Susan, in a short skirt and bright stockings, greeted him.

"The better for seeing you, Mistress Susan." Nonchalantly surveying her from head to foot.

She bore his glance with the assurance of a pretty woman who knows she is looking her best.

"Pooh!" Curtesying disdainfully. "I don't believe you! You came to see some one else. Well"—lightly—"she is already engrossed."

"Really?" said the land baron.

"Yes. You understand? He follows her with his every glance," she added roguishly. Susan was never averse to straining the truth a little when it served her purpose.

"I should infer he was following her with more than his eyes," retorted the master of the manor dryly.

Susan tapped the stage viciously with a little foot. "She's a lovely girl," she continued, drawing cabalistic figures with the provoking slipper.

"You are piqued?" he said, watching her skeptically.

"Not at all." Quickly, startled by his blunt accusation.

"Not a little jealous?" he persisted playfully.

"Jealous?" Then with a frown, hesitatingly: "Well, she is given prominence in the plays and—"

"—You would not be subordinated, if she were not in the company? Apart from this, you are fond of her?"

The foot ceased its tracing and rested firmly on the floor.

"I hate her!" snapped Susan, angered by this baiting. No sooner had she spoken than she regretted her outburst. "How you draw one out! I was only joking—though she does have the best parts and we take what we can get!"

"But she's a lovely girl!" concluded the land baron. Susan's eyes flashed angrily.

"How clever of you! You twist and turn one's words about and give them a different meaning from what was intended. If I wanted to catch you up—"

"A truce!" he exclaimed. "Let us take each other seriously, hereafter. Is it agreed?" She nodded. "Well, seriously, you can help me and help yourself."

"How?" doubtfully.

"Why not be allies?"

"What for?"

"Mutual service."

"Oh!" dubiously.

"A woman's 'yes'!"

"No," with affirmative answer in her eyes.

He believed the latter.

"We will seal the compact then."

And he bent over and saluted Mistress Susan on the lips. She became as rosy as the flowers she carried and tapped him playfully with them.

"For shame! La! What must you think of me?"

"That you are an angel."

"How lovely! But I must go."

"May I see you after the play?"

"Yes."

"Do not fail me, or the soldier will not transfer his affections to you!"

"If he dared!" And she shook her head defiantly as she tripped away.

"Little fool!" murmured Mauville, his lips curling scornfully. "The one is a pastime; the other"—he paused and caught his breath—"a passion!"

But he kept his appointment with Susan, escorting her to the hotel, where he bade her good-night with a lingering pressure of the hand, and—ordered his equipage to the door!

"Hadn't you better wait until morning?" asked the surprised landlord, when the young patroon announced his intention of taking an immediate departure. "There are the barn-burners and—traveling at night—"

"Have they turned footpads?" was the light reply. "Can't I drive through my own lands? Let me see one of their thieving faces—" And he made a significant gesture. "Not ride at night! These Jacobins shall not prevent me."

Barring the possible danger from the lease-holders who were undoubtedly ripe for any mischief, the journey did not promise such discomfiture as might have been expected, the coach being especially constructed for night traveling. On such occasions, between the seats the space was filled by a large cushion, adapted to the purpose, which in this way converted the interior of the vehicle into a sleeping-room of limited dimensions. With pillows to neutralize the jarring, the land baron stretched himself indolently upon his couch, and gazed through the window at the crystalline lights of the heavens, while thoughts of lease-holders and barn-burners faded into thin air.

At dawn, when he opened his eyes, the morning star yet gleamed with a last pale luster. Raising himself on his elbow and looking out over the country to learn his whereabouts, his eye fell upon a tree, blood-red, a maple amid evergreens. Behind this somber community of pines, stiff as a band of Puritan elders, surrounding the bright-hued maple, a Hester in that austere congregation, appeared the glazed tile roof of Little Thunder's habitation, a two-story abode of modest proportions and olden type. As the land baron passed, a brindle cow in the side yard saluted the morn, calling the sluggard from his couch, but at the manor, which the patroon shortly reached, the ever wakeful Oly-koeks was already engaged in chopping wood near the kitchen door. The growling of the hound at his feet called the care-taker's attention to the master's coming, and, driving the ax into an obstinate stick of hickory, he donned his coat, drawing near the vehicle, where he stood in stupid wonderment as the land baron alighted.

"Any callers, Oly-koeks?" carelessly asked the master.

"A committee of barn-burners, Mynheer, to ask you not to serve any more writs."

"And so give them time to fight me with the lawmakers! But there; carry my portmanteau into the library and"—as Oloffe's upper lip drew back—"teach your dog to know me."

"He belonged to the old master, Mynheer. When he died, the dog lay near his grave day and night."

"I dare say; like master, like dog! But fetch the portmanteau, you Dutch varlet!" Entering the house, while the coachman drove the tired horses toward the barn. "There's something in it I want. Bring it here." As he passed into the library. "Yes; I put it in there, I am sure. Ah, here we have it!" And unpacking the valise, he took therefrom a handsome French writing case.

"Thou Wily Limb of the Law," wrote the patroon, "be it known by these presents, thou art summoned to appear before me! I have work for you—not to serve any one with a writ; assign; bring an action, or any of your rascally, pettifogging tricks! Send me no demurrer, but your own intemperate self."

Which epistle the patroon addressed to his legal satellite and despatched by messenger.



CHAPTER XI

THE QUEST OF THE SOLDIER

Several bleak days were followed by a little June weather in October. A somnolent influence rested everywhere. Above the undulation of land on the horizon were the clouds, like heavenly hills, reflecting their radiance on those earthly elevations. The celestial mountains and valleys gave wondrous perspective to the outlook, and around them lay an atmosphere, unreal and idyllic.

On such a morning Susan stood at a turn in the road, gazing after a departing vehicle with ill-concealed satisfaction and yet withal some dubiousness. Now that the plan, suggested by Mauville, had not miscarried, certain misgivings arose, for there is a conscience in the culmination wanting in the conception of an act. As the partial realization of the situation swept over her, she gave a gasp, and then, the vehicle having meanwhile vanished, a desperate spirit of bravado replaced her momentary apprehension. She even laughed nervously as she waved her handkerchief in the direction the coach had taken: "Bon voyage!"

But as the words fell from the smiling lips, her eyes became thoughtful and her hand fell to her side; it occurred to Susan she would be obliged to divert suspicion from herself. The curling lips straightened; she turned abruptly and hastened toward the town. But her footsteps soon lagged and she paused thoughtfully.

"If I reach the hotel too soon," she murmured, "they may overtake him."

So she stopped at the wayside, attracted by the brilliant cardinal flowers, humming as she plucked them, but ever and anon glancing around guiltily. The absurd thought came to her that the bright autumn blossoms were red, the hue of sin, and she threw them on the sward, and unconsciously rubbed her hands on her dress.

Still she lingered, however, vaguely mindful she was adding to her burden of ill-doing, but finally again started slowly toward the village, hurrying as she approached the hotel, where she encountered the soldier on the veranda. Her distressed countenance and haste proclaimed her a messenger of disaster.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she exclaimed excitedly. "Where is Mr. Barnes?"

"What is the matter, Miss Duran?" Suspecting very little was the matter, for Susan was nothing, if not all of a twitter.

"Constance has been carried off!"

"Carried off!" He regarded her as if he thought she had lost her senses.

"Yes; abducted!"

"Abducted! By whom?"

"I—I did not see his face!" she gasped. "And it is all my fault! I asked her to take a walk! Oh, what shall I do?" Wringing her hands in anguish that was half real. "We kept on and on—it was so pleasant!—until we had passed far beyond the outskirts of the village. At a turn in the road stood a coach—a cloak was thrown over my head by some one behind—I must have fainted, and, when I recovered, she was gone. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

"When did it happen?" As he spoke the young man left the veranda. Grazing contentedly near the porch was his horse and Saint-Prosper's hand now rested on the bridle.

"I can't tell how long I was unconscious," said the seemingly hysterical young woman, "but I hurried here as soon as I recovered myself."

"Where did it occur? Down the road you came?"

"Ye-es."

Saint-Prosper vaulted into the saddle. "Tell the manager to see a magistrate," he said.

"But you're not going to follow them alone?" began Susan. "Oh dear, I feel quite faint again! If you would please help me into the—"

By way of answer, the other touched his horse deeply with the spur and the mettlesome animal reared and plunged, then, recalled by the sharp voice of the rider, galloped wildly down the road. Susan observed the sudden departure with mingled emotions.

"How quixotic!" she thought discontentedly. "But he won't catch them," came the consoling afterthought, as she turned to seek the manager.

Soon the soldier, whose spirited dash down the main thoroughfare had awakened some misgivings in the little town, was beyond the precincts of village scrutiny. The country road was hard, although marked by deep cuts from traffic during a rainy spell, and the horse's hoofs rang out with exhilarating rhythm. Regardless of all save the distance traversed, the rider yet forbore to press the pace, relaxing only when, after a considerable interval, he came to another road and drew rein at the fork. One way to the right ran gently through the valley, apparently terminating in the luxuriant foliage, while the other, like a winding, murky stream, stretched out over a more level tract of land.

Which thoroughfare had the coach taken? Dismounting, the young man hastily examined the ground, but the earth was so dry and firm, and the tracks of wheels so many, it was impossible to distinguish the old marks from the new. Even sign-post there was none; the roads diverged, and the soldier could but blindly surmise their destination, selecting after some hesitation the thoroughfare running into the gorgeous, autumnal painted forest.

He had gone no inconsiderable distance when his doubts were abruptly confirmed. Reaching an opening, bright as the chapel of a darkened monastery, he discerned a farmer in a buckboard approaching from the opposite direction. The swift pace of the rider and the leisurely jog of the team soon brought them together.

"Did you pass a coach down the road?" asked the soldier.

"No-a," said the farmer, deliberately, as his fat horses instinctively stood stock still; "didn't pass nobody."

"Have you come far?"

"A good ways."

"You would have met a coach, if it had passed here an hour ago?"

"I guess I would," said the man. "This road leads straight across the country."

"Where does the other road at the fork go?"

"To the patroon village. There's a reform orator there to-day and a barn-burners' camp-fire."

Without waiting to thank his informant, Saint-Prosper pulled his horse quickly around, while the man in the buckboard gradually got under way, until he had once more attained a comfortable, slow gait. Indeed, by the time his team had settled down to a sleepy jog, in keeping with the dreamy haze, hanging upon the upland, his questioner was far down the road.

When, however, the soldier once more reached the fork, and took the winding way across a more level country, he moderated his pace, realizing the need of husbanding his horse's powers of endurance. The country seemed at peace, as though no dissension nor heated passions could exist within that pastoral province. And yet, not far distant, lay the domains of the patroons, the hot-bed of the two opposing branches of the Democratic party: The "hunkers," or conservative-minded men, and the "barn-burners," or progressive reformers, who sympathized with the anti-renters.

After impatiently riding an hour or more through this delectable region, the horseman drew near the patroon village, a cluster of houses amid the hills and meadows. Here the land barons had originally built for the tenants comfortable houses and ample barns, saw and grist mills. But the old homes had crumbled away, and that rugged ancestry of dwellings had been replaced by a new generation of houses, with clapboards, staring green blinds and flimsy verandas.

In the historic market place, as Saint-Prosper rode down the street, were assembled a number of lease-holders of both sexes and all ages, from the puny babe in arms to the decrepit crone and hoary grand-sire, listening to the flowing tongue of a rustic speech-maker. This forum of the people was shaded by a sextette of well-grown elms. The platform of the local Demosthenes stood in a corner near the street.

"'Woe to thee, O Moab! Thou art undone, O people of Chemosh,' if you light not the torch of equal rights!" exclaimed the platform patterer as Saint-Prosper drew near. "Awake, sons of the free soil! Now is the time to make a stand! Forswear all allegiance to the new patroon; this Southern libertine and despot from the land of slavery!"

The grandam wagged her head approvingly; the patriarch stroked his beard with acquiescence and strong men clenched their fists as the spokesman mouthed their real or fancied wrongs. It was an earnest, implacable crowd; men with lowering brows merely glanced at the soldier as he rode forward; women gazed more intently, but were quickly lured back by the tripping phrases of the mellifluous speaker.

On the outskirts of the gathering, near the road, stood a tall, beetling individual whom Saint-Prosper addressed, reining in his horse near the wooden rail, which answered for a fence.

"Dinna ye ken I'm listening?" impatiently retorted the other, with a fierce frown. "Gang your way, mon," he added, churlishly, as he turned his back.

Judging from the wrathful faces directed toward him, the lease-holders esteemed Saint-Prosper a political disturber, affiliating with the other faction of the Democratic party, and bent, perhaps, on creating dissension at the tenants' camp-fire. The soldier's impatience and anger were ready to leap forth at a word; he wheeled fiercely upon the weedy Scot, to demand peremptorily the information so uncivilly withheld, when a gust of wind blowing something light down the road caused his horse to shy suddenly and the rider to glance at what had frightened the animal. After a brief scrutiny, he dismounted quickly and examined more attentively the object,—a pamphlet with a red cover, upon which appeared the printed design of the conventional Greek masks of Tragedy and Comedy, and beneath, the title, "The Honeymoon." The bright binding, albeit soiled by the dusty road, and the fluttering of the leaves in the breeze had startled the horse and incidentally attracted the attention of his master. Across the somber mask of melancholy was traced in buoyant hand the name of the young actress.

But the soldier needed not the confirmation, for had he not noticed this same prompt book in her lap on the journey of the chariot? It was a mute, but eloquent message. Could she have spoken more plainly if she had written with ink and posted the missive with one of those new bronze-hued portraits of Franklin, called stamps by the government and "sticking plaster" by the people? Undoubtedly she had hoped the manager was following her when she intrusted the message to that erratic postman, Chance, who plied his vocation long before the black Washington or the bronze Franklin was a talisman of more or less uncertain delivery.

The soldier, without a moment's hesitation, thrust the pamphlet inside his coat, flung himself on his horse, and, turning from the market-place, dashed down the road.



CHAPTER XII

AN ECCENTRIC JAILER

"For a man who can't abide the sex, this is a predicament," muttered the patroon's jackal, as the coach in which he found himself sped rapidly along the highway. "Here am I as much an abductor as my lord who whipped his lady from England to the colonies!" Gloomily regarding a motionless figure on the seat opposite, and a face like ivory against the dark cushions. "Curse the story; telling it led to this! How white she is; like driven snow; almost as if—"

And Scroggs, whose countenance lost a shade of its natural flush, going from flame-color to salmon hue, bent with sudden apprehension over a small hand which hung from the seat.

"No; it's only a swoon," he continued, relieved, feeling her wrist with his knobby fingers. "How she struggled! If it hadn't been for smothering her with the cloak—but the job's done and that's the end of it."

Settling back in his seat he watched her discontentedly, alternately protesting against the adventure, and consoling himself weakly with the remembrance of the retainer; weighing the risks, and the patroon's ability to gloss over the matter; now finding the former unduly obtrusive, again comforted with the assurance of the power pre-empted by the land barons. Moreover, the task was half-accomplished, and it would be idle to recede now.

"Why couldn't the patroon have remained content with his bottle?" he grumbled. "But his mind must needs run to this frivolous and irrational proceeding! There's something reasonable in pilfering a purse, but carrying off a woman—Yet she's a handsome baggage."