Titan Agonistes
page: 0 (TitlePage) [View Page 0 (TitlePage) ] TITAN AGONISTES: THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. NEW YORK: OSDONR OFLO, SON O CO. page: 0[View Page 0] Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1867, by G. W. CARLETON & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. DEDICATION. MY DEAR SISTER: It is my wish that every eye that shall ever look into this book shall rest first on a page that speaks of you. As I turn over the finished leaves to-day, the recol. lection of your love and fortitude effaces from my mind all thought of my own claim, and even constitutes the book yours by the noblest of all possible tenures. Others may look on your scarred face, my darling, and see only the sad ruins of its queenliness-on your crippled hands and broken form, and imagine they are beholding weakness; but there is a better instructed and more effectual perception which discerns in them a strength and dignity that the world cannot match, and a beauty which will not be marred in heaven. page: 0[View Page 0] PREFACE., THS book treats of a time which will be regarded hereafter as peculiarly rich' in materials for romance. I have ventured to touch only a very few of the more re- tired parts of the field. Its prominent- features must be yet further mellowed by distance before the romancer's shadow-loving pencil can be applied to them. I trust that a certain disdain of all manner of shams, hypocrisy and hollowness, which the first duty of the artist has required me to set in strong colors, will neither be misunderstood nor considered coarse in any part. It is not possible, in all cases, to rise to our subject. page: 0 (Table of Contents) [View Page 0 (Table of Contents) ] CONTENTS. BOOK IL CHAP. PAGE L-MOTHER AND SON ............................................... " II.-A TANGLE OF VIPERS .............................................. 17 "I.-PUNDITS AND PARIAHS ...... ............ .........................23 IV.-A NIGHT FOR ALL TIME ........................................... 49 V.-AN EXEMPLIFIER OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST ...................... 62 VI.-PIETY AND CHARITY GOING HAND IN HAND-A MELTING PICTURE 69 VIL.-A CONSECRATION .................................. 74 VIII.--TWAIN MADE ONE FLESH.. ....................................... 81 IX.-AN OMNIBUS NOSE ..................................... .... 86 X.-THE DEVIL TO PAY IN A MATRIMONIAL POINT OF VIEW.......... 91 XI.-INNER BEAUTIES OF A HOME.................................... 99 XII.-BEGINNING OF DESOLATION.... ................................. 1" XIII.--HOW TO MAKE A BOY MSERABLE WITHOUT THE HELP OP HS MOTH- ERGS RELATIONS ............ .... 128 BOOK II. I.-THE LAST OF THE TITANS ......... ........... ..................... 140 II.-MORE THAN SUNSET . ............ ................................. 152 "I.-TWO CAVALIERS-CONTRASTS ........ ................. 164 IV.-A WOMAN'S PORTRAIT ..................................... ....... 168 V. -DII SUNT SIMX ................................................... . 1" VI. --A CONFERENCE OF PATRIOTS .......................... ............ 179 VII.-MDNIGHT AND MORNING. ..... ............... ......... 187 V1II.-A PARTY OF AMERICANS TALK OF SOMETHNG BESIDES POLITICS... 192 IX.--A WOMANS PHLOSOPHY ......................................... 195 X.-TURNING THE TABLES .......... ... ................................ 202 XL-A SINGULAR VISIT ........... ..... ................................. 211- XII.-CHESS AND OTHER GAMES....... ...................... 219 XIII.-CREME DE LA CREME AMERICAINE ................................. 234 XIV.--THE FAREWELL .................... ............... ..... 256 page: 8 (Table of Contents) -11[View Page 8 (Table of Contents) -11] 8 - CONTENTS. BQOOK IIL CHAP. PAGE I.-RETURNING INTO EXILE ........... ............................... 2" II.-SKETCHNG A SCHOLAR. .......... .............. ....................... 24 "I.-RATHER EMBARRASSED ........................................... 292 IV.-SAINTED PHL HOWELL ............................................ 309 V.-SWEET HOME, WITH VARIATIONS ................................... 320 VI.-THE SLOUGH ON THE MOUNTAINIS SIDE ............................ 330 VI.-THREE OBSCURE WOMEN ......................... 341 BOOK IV. L-THROUGH AUTUMN ................................................. 356 II-A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER ................................ 374: "I.-SPITE, SPICE, AND "STATESMANSHP . ............................. 401 IV.-ONE DAY'S PEDAGOGING ....................... 419 V.-THE PRESIDENTIAL QUESTION AGAIN ...... ......, ............... 432 VI.--AN OLD FRIEND IN A NEW DRESS.... ................ .............. 442 VIL.-THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN ...................................... 450t VII. -VERY SOU'HN ..... ...467 ]TX.-NEMESIS USES THE "RULE OP RIGHT "FOR ONCE ................... 476 X.-HOW THE ANCIENT DEMOCRACIES WERE GOVERNED ................. 487 XI.-WHAT BECAME OF AUSWURF'S MANUSCRIPT . .....4................. 403 XII.--MOBBING AN ABOLITIONIST.................. ................. 504 XIIL- ONE-SIDED DUELLING ........ ............................. ......... 514 XIV.-LAST STEP OF A PROCESS ........................................... 524 XV.-BEGINNINGQFOP THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE ................................ 628 XVI.-PHL HOWEuLLS RECOMPENSE ......... .... ............. .... 533 S XVII-A NATIONAL BEREAVEMENT ....................................... . 638 I Xi THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. MOTHER AND SON. HAD you been born of this mother, you would have thanked heaven ceaselessly that, of all women who have ever lived, it had given you for a mother precisely her whom it gave. As the daughter of the stiffest and dullest of the buckram aristocracy of Germany, a flower which none could match, a winning card to be played for a splendid stake, her gifts and powers of mind, the extent of her attainments, the grace of her manners, the sweet- ness of her temper, the perfect womanliness of her spirit, were sung and honored with cheap praises everywhere. But when she would have converted these advantages of birth and wealth into a higher genesis and better riches, and have grown up out of them into the grand, true life for which she yearned, a state of society whose instinctive and constant policy was one of patchwork and repression, and which regarded the highest right and inmost prerogative as but a heap of rotten straw, calmly and as the merest matter of course sold her as so much merchandise to the highest bidder, and called the crime marriage. Not waiting for the birth of her child, but spurred on the more by -the deter. page: 12-13[View Page 12-13] 12 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. mination to save it at least from the glare and fetor of a hearth- stone whose evils she never traced to their real causes, she rose up in strength born of- the sickness of her pure womanhood, anrd fled, with no definite aim except to go as far away as pos- K sible; and at last, before her time was full, she found in the centre of America the only spot on the earth where her son should have been born, and should have his home. The world only said S of her that she was insane-that it was a wild distemper of the 0 sensibilities which had impelled her; and, indeed, as the world , reasons and as the world is, if this world were all, she was mad. ? But must it not have been a celestial madness which made this ti weak woman brave poverty, homelessness, pain, slow decay, and 1 the bitterness of early death, rather than stain her conscience- I which made her prefer to work her fingers to th e b one rath er than eat the bread of lawful impurity? I But, shame on human nature and society-when the reeking covert from which she fled had once been scorned and abandoned, there was no place in all the world where, she could find rest. Her unprotected beauty raised up for her no friends-no, not one- but only enemies who would have made it and its defenceless- ness the means of her ruin. Assailed by fraud or threatened by violence, she fled from place to place, securing now and thben brief and uneasy respite. In vain she recrossed the sea, in vain I sought refuge under unknown stars; on every wave of the ocean the devilish face of human lust still threatened and pursued her; even in the most secluded retreats it hunted her out; in un- resting flight was her only sense of safety, perhaps her only a - safety. Meanwhile her child grew up in the light of her sorrowing eyes to look at her in mourning wonder, and contrast her in his 3 childish thought with all other shapes of human clay. The first fact in her nature was its exquisite sensibility and responsiveness. Everything around her-beauty and deformity, climate and the weather, adversity and prosperity, squalor and splendor-was always mirrored in her face, in pleasure or in pain, with the i instantaneousness of thought. External nature exercised an almost despotic influence over her, She was & prisoner gazing upward with anguished and fading eye, out of the depths of a bondage to the universe which she could not break. Gloom, if I MOTHER AND SON. 13 long continued, always sickened and deranged her. She loved the sun, and exulted in his light, and did not wonder that the Orientals worshipped him. To her he was, indeed, the very fountain of life. When his face was hid, it was as if she were separated from the source of her being, and were gasping for life; and with his first returning gleam, her rapture and almost infan- tile delight would break forth like a sparkling stream. Also; with a deeper, and more important responsiveness to nature than this, she loved to indulge in gentle and full-souled melancholy, and would linger about the scenes which inspired it in her, as if she could not part from them. Her stand-point, in all respects, was that of exquisite sensibility and inner strength lacking exter- nal control. The key to her whole life, with all its lofty and disastrous heart-throbs, was the mingling of power and purity with the weakness and incapacity of servitude-was the crush- ing back of her beautiful and aspiring spirit by the iron hand of fate. Cast entirely on her own resources in a wandering and unset- tled life, her gifts and rare accomplishments scarcely availed to keep bread in the mouth of her child. The anxious and strain- ing effort, the anguish, failure and disappointment which make up the lot of all heavenly purity in this world, made up hers. Her son could never in later life think of her bitter but heroic struggle, and of the motives which prompted it, without his heart filling almost to bursting. Her thousand pathetic little expedients of economy, her hard and drudging toil, so far beneath her; the cunning of the fingers which made their rags a moral of neatness. on a fable of dress, the unreckoning and self-abnegating love whose confirmed policy of privation for his. sake only constant watchfulness on his part could defeat, afforded a cloud of reminis- cences which, to the last hour of his life, darkened all the depths of his soul. It would be vain to attempt to describe either the depth or the height of 'her love for him. The moment she had felt the first stirrings of life in the germ she nursed beneath her heart, she already tenderly and sweetly loved it; and when it came into the world to meet her, a living gift, her own, a boy, all the wealth of her pent-up heart gushed out to him like a long-sealed foun- tain. He was all that she had ever had to love supremely and page: 14-15[View Page 14-15] " THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. i without reservation. Her love for him was the first perfect life - and rest her great and beautiful heart had ever known. Out of her life was crushed forever every joy sLave what she found in him, every aspiration save what her instinctive faith in him sup- plied, every consciousness and experience of grandeur save her ,heroic devotion to him. Her being seemed to have passed over out of herself into him in larger proportions; and fairer promise bloomed where the roses of her hope had been blighted. In her g heart, as with a seal of flame, was set a prophecy of sublimity and fruitfulness of life for him; and her conception of her own i life was, that she had been sent into the world, and made what she was, in order that she might be fit to bear him, educate him, and, above all, to love him as he deserved. This feeling was no weak delusion of a fond heart, but a grave and earnest conviction to which she would gladly have sacrificed her own life and all of earth. Destitution and pain became peace and bliss when she thought that God had laid them on her for the good of her son. She even felt that without the depth and tenderness imparted to her nature by her discipline of sorrow, she would have fallen infinitely short of either fitness or worthiness to be his mother. And the sweet breath of this flattery was but one kiss from the life-giving s winds that came to him ever from the ocean of her love. Often, even after her heart was at last utterly broken, she would still heal and comfort it by clasping him to it, and while still and softly- gliding tears of darkest and bitterest anguish rained from her eyes, would thank God for giving him to her. But with the ful- ness and tenderness of her love for him was mixed no foolish fondness. Its beginning point was infinitely above this, and it extended thence upward into the supremest beauty of human affection. For between them were not only the love and tender- ness of such a mother and her son, but also the relation of a spotless and lofty spirit standing as guardian and tutor by the side of another younger and as yet-unfledged. She made a companion of -him from his earliest boyhood. She did not conceal from him the highest part of hpr own life as something to which he was not equal, but took him freely and fully into it to dwell with her. From the time he was a elinging little child in her arms or at her side, she began to talk to him of subjects which few parents ever think it worth while to mention to their children. She did not MOrEht-- AND SON. 15 deem that dry platitudes and the husks of the commonplace were fit meat for his mind and soul, but that the highest and most vital truth within her reach was what he needed and would most profit by. Exacting, with a rigor which would have seemed out of char- acter only to those who did not truly know her, an apparently undue proportion of the severest studies, she prevented the inter- mission of this rigid discipline by making the acquirement of the rudiments of other branches a consequence of their wandering life. In every land and among its people, she. taught him its language, its geology, its political and intellectual history, the form and working of its institutions, its physical and spiritual relations in the past and in the present. And she taught him, too, in all the lands through which they wandered, to behold in every human being, of whatever state or degree, as well among those who despised and spurned him as among those who pitied and loved him, among the surfeited. and misguided children of wealth and power, among the meek and lowly who yet await their emancipation, among the down-trodden and- broken-hearted,. the erring and lost, the beautiful and amiable, and the stainless and immortal kings of - thought, a closely-linked and inalienable brother. She taught him scorn of all meanness, burning, per- sonal, particular love of all that is pure and noble, passionate devotion to truth and goodness, prompt and overflowing fulness of soul. The feeling of the boy for his peerless and unhappy mother was the tearful adoration of pity and passionate love. His rever- ence for her was unutterable, but there was in it neither distanee nor fear. He knew her too well to either doubt or fear her for an instant. A suspicion that he had incurred her displeasure, that so much as a shade had flitted between them for a moment, made him feel as if the universe had fled away. ] From a strange, vague consciousness of a larger origin, he always dalled her his little mother," and delighted to caress her. He -fondled and petted her, rather than she him, except when she talked to him seriously for the purpose of instructing lim. Then hers were the soft caress and tender kiss. He loved to kneel at her side and lean upon her lap as she talked to him of things beyond his years. He felt then that she was indeed his own mother, entirely and page: 16-17[View Page 16-17] 16 THE STORY .OF AN OUTCAST tangibly his own. The instinct of which this was a sign showed itself afterwards in all'the experiences of his life. At last, after years of flight and pain, her trials began to tell fearfully upon her physical and mental health. She became so thin and white that, as she flitted through the world, she looked : like a transparent ghost denuded of even the coarser spiritual elements. The nervous disorder consequent upon the toil amnd terror to which she was constantly exposed, became appalling, and led her to expect, at no distant day, the entire extinction of her reason. Her faded eyes became unnaturally large ; her figure shrank away; her white, care-pinched face almost ceased, except upon occasions of unusual excitement, to express anything but blank and stingless suffering; while her soft and beautiful'brown i hair, alone unchanged, deepened the sad contrast of all other change, as it fell over her forehead like a halo of crepuscular and sinking light crowning a marble cross. Never before on any sweet and noble countenance was sealed the sadness of such utter undoing. Never before from deep, meek eyes looked forth such brokenness of heart. As she felt herself thus -daily fading more and more away, and slowly sinking into darker gulfs, and knew that she was certainly dying, her heart reverted with yearning and importunate remembrance to the peaceful and secluded val- ley in the far western land where her child had been born, and 'piteously pleaded to cross the sea to-it once more, to rest at last beneath its peace-instilling sod. This wish now took complete possession of her mind. In all her dreams she saw again that happy Arcady, and in the casual noises that fell upon her sleep- ing ear heard there sweeter music than the strains of Martha or Lucia di Lammermoor. Visions of it haunted her imagination l by day; she thought she could not lie still in her grave if she were not buried there ; and so at last, from sheer inability to resist the craving, she resolved to go thither or perish on the way. In her state of health and utter indigence, the attempt was little ' short of madness. But at, last, by dint of fearful exertion, she succeeded in reaching the British seaboard, and embarking in an, emigrant ship, landed, in the last stage of exhaustion and disease, at the :wharf of a city on the eastern shore of the border-land, which we -will let the symbol Y- stand for. But even then, still hundreds of miles from the spot so tenderly remembered, with- A TANGLE OF VIPERS. 17 out a penny, and almost in the article of death, the prospect of her ever reaching that pillow of repose seemed dim enough. She still possessed a jewel, an heirloom, which she prized on account of its associations and its possible value to her child at some future day, and which hitherto, in all the extremities of her indigence, she had religiously preserved. But now the wish to reach that rest was so overpowering, and seemed so sacred, and her ability to labor was so hopelessly gone, that she resolved, as -the last resort, to part with even this treasured relic. It was then that a Protean villain, at that particular time wearing the shape of an emigrant-runner, and lying in wait for just such chances, becoming acquainted with the value of the jewel by pretending to bargain for it, trumped up a lawsluit and attachment, and, by a process which we vigorously insist on showing up, succeeded in robbing her of her last earthly possession, and defeating her last earthly hope-that of lying down to sleep in the peaceful valley where she had brought her son into the world. CHAPTER III. A TANGLE OF VIPERS. THE Protean villain just alluded to represented a class, and for that reason only deserves attention. His name was not Phipps, but we choose to call him that, because it repeats three times the final letter of his name and of that enigmatical part of him which sounds like his name. There was nothing in him which a brief physical description will not include. He consisted, then, of skin and bones, and possibly of bowels. The last item is conjectural. To look at him, you would say unreservedly that he consisted of skin and bones. Farther than that, being a prudent man, you would not feel it safe to go. The most pitiful thing in all nature was his little, thin, pinched, double-snub of a nose. At first glance you would sayf that it lacked character; but instantly you would modify this judgment, and say ihat it was singularly characteristic, indicating as it did a total lack of character. Phipps was, by this token, extremely page: 18-19[View Page 18-19] THE STORY OF AN- OUTCAST. versatile, but his versatility never approached the frontier of honesty. His eyes were cold, grey and expressionless. Unlike many pas- sionless eyes, they had no look of depth about them. The only light that ever appeared in them was a kind of flickering blue flame, like that of a chemist's lamp, which you almost expected to emit a stench. Around the corners of his eyes there was a labyrinth of deep and peculiar wrinkles. They looked like webs of his own villainy, which retribution had broken up and spread there. On his left cheek-bone was a mark like the print of a cat's foot, as if Craft, on bringing home his character, had left her trade-mark on his face. He was not without energy, of that ignoble sort which all upstarts have. That is, there being no soul in him, what there was of him was action. He was first a cobbler; afterwards a car- penter. Later, he was one of the first to learn the art of adul- terating liquors with poisonous drugs, and to let himself out to more considerable villains, at so much a month, to make and sell these mortal draughts. At the age of thirty, deserting special- ties, he became a swindler on general principles, and was admit- ted to the bar accordingly. He never came into contact with any one whom he did not plunder. No tie of blood or honor restrained him for a moment. He would have gone in with Judas on the shares, have swindled the apostate out of his fifteen pieces, and then have helped him hang himself. He would then have congratulated himself on having made a complete thing of that. You would judge that this creature, in his own experience, knew nothing of the passion between the sexes-that he was too cold and mean for that. But Nature, who bestows noble blisses on noble hearts, does not forget, either, her purpose in the propa- gation of the vile. Wherefore, she sent a female Phipps, who, appropriately, was a cobbler, and a carpenter, and a swindler, let us say. These two cohabited and thought it marriage. A priest had said some words over them, and the clerk of a court had charged them half a dollar for a piece of paper with a seal on it. This woman was bone of Phipps's bone and flesh of his flesh. She was in womanhood what he was in manhood; nature, there- fore, manifestly made them for each other. She was diminutive in person, supple, alert, sinewy, pert. She had a complexion like the Missouri River, prominent cheek-bones, thin, stringy hair, a long, sharp nose and chin, and eyes like an Indian's. Her head was flattened down on top and bulged out at the sides. She had a quick, shuffling, slipshod, undulating walk, and as she approached you, you almost expected her to get down and crawl, and hiss, and slaver out hertongue. She exulted in Phipps's swindling exploits, and decoyed her own kindred into his hands as victims, arid helped him fleece them. Gold was her Supreme GOD, and she could never understand why the I was not always used in spelling the Divine name, while Je- hovah was regarded as a celestial understrapper of questionable merit, but uncomfortably powerful, and therefore to be at once cheated and fawned upon. She could not even pronounce the word " money" without a snaky gleam coming into her eyes. She had a way of clinching in the first syllable between her tongue and her teeth, as if she could not possibly consent to let it go, and when she finally got the word out, she always licked her lips as if it had left a sweetness on them. She was a woman that never felt an unselfish emotion in her life-that never did a deed, proposed a plan, or spoke a word which did not look to some interested end. Whenever Phipps perpetrated any particularly unprincipled act of villainy, she commented approvingly: "Mr. Phipps is so energetic." If the full name of her husband had been Philpot Curran Phipps, she would, without doubt, always have enthusiastically designated herself as "Mrs. Philpot Curran Phipps." Now, the question is, is not that romantic? Of these two enlightened spirits, it would have been difficult to say which was the more enthusiastic politician. His sagacity was equalled only by her decorum. Bedlam itself was never half so full of statesmen as their " villa"--- whatever that was; probably, the name is etymologically connected with the word villain. Statesmen of the family of Phipps in inexpressibles, statesmen of the family of Phipps in petticoats, statesmen of the family of Phipps in diapers, directed the affairs of the nation; but, perhaps, the nation didn't know it. You smelt a copperish scent in the air, you heard a snakish hiss at your feet, you looked down and beheld a statesman of the family of Phipps striking at you most venom- ously, because, forsooth, nature had not made you, too, an en- page: 20-21[View Page 20-21] 20 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. lightened statesman. The fathers of the Republic were not much, by the side of the statesmen of the family of Phipps. You might think that, living on the waning and departing bor- der, where even the beasts of the field might be expected to see -the heinousness of slavery, under the influence of the teachings of the great Clay and Benton, compelled to labor or to steal for a living, it was only the most depraved wickedness that could prompt them to desire the overthrow of God's great rock to whose sweet shade the weary and heavy-laden of all lands flocked for rest. But hold!----they owned .a single slave--a female too, who might be expected, and, in point of fact, was anxiously expected, to bear other slaves to lift the family of Phipps to yet sublimer heights of greatness. See, now, how narrow an escape-following the lead of the barbarians of Faneuil Hall, and of the Wilberfor- cian Pequods generally-you have made from damning yourself with a hasty judgment in this great argument. The back-stab- bing treason of the Border, which you were about to brand as more atrocious and cowardly than the hot-blooded suicide of the Cotton States, becomes, when you have an esoteric view of it, the test of respectability, the shibboleth of the ton. By negroes' stripes are its reeking sores vicariously healed. And as the theologians tell us that a single drop of Christ's blood would have been enough to save the whole world, so have we known whole tribes of crouching jaguars converted into aristocracy of the first water by the owner- ship of one little negro not five years old. That is to say, with a single lively cowhide, you could write forty patents of nobility on one little back, if it were black enough. Treason, reinforced by perjury and murder, needs, therefore, in the present instance, no other apology-the statesmen of the family of Phipps owned among them an entire "nigger"-jet black, ignorant, abject, helpless, a poor thing of weakest clay, by law the property of an afflicted and defenceless child, and by whose villainous conversion to his own use Phipps had ennobled himself and all the statesmen of the family of Phipps. Besides politics, these despicable creatures had two other speci- alties. Whoever knows anything about the affinities of moral meannesses, has already guessed them-matrimony and religion, so-called. Human imagination has located the Elysian Fields under the earth, upon the earth, and in every conceivable point i A. TANGLE OF VIPERS. 21 I of space; but all these imaginings have strangely misplaced the I blissful region. It consists in getting married-no matter when, X where, why, or to whom, provided you only marry. The passion- ate affinity of hearts, the sacred associations of home, the repose and crowning usefulness of a complete and fully rounded life- : these were nothing. The only point to be considered was simply I to get married as expeditiously and conclusively as possible. Woe i to the defenceless bachelor and unappointed maiden who came j near these obscene matrimonial kites. In less than half an hour, Mrs. Phipps asks them, with a gentle sigh, whether they have ever read "Pollock's description of love," and of course receiving a negative answer, straightway, book in hand, she marches them off to themselves, and with many tender commentaries and sigh- I ing injunctions leaves them to peruse the wondrous lines. Woe, then, to any infant statesman of the family of Phipps who, im- pelled by too great curiosity, should interrupt the honeyed lection. Sly peeping at a distance, through crevices and windows, was n'ot only allowed but encouraged, as a sort of "secret service" which furnished the Commanding General with quick information from the camp of the enemy, and with minute details as to the disposi- tion of his forces, and also as instructing the young hopefuls with frequent glimpses of heaven by the time they should be called to enter it. Never was there a trace of happiness or ease in that house unless there was a courtship well in hand. Mrs. P. was always the confidant and trusted friend of both parties; that was always understood, and she tolerated no interference with her prerogative; only she occasionally employed Phipps to sound the young gentleman's mind or spur his lagging ardor with timely hints and owlish counsel. On her tender bosom, in some secluded walk in the garden, or up stairs in the privacy of the best bed- room, the forlorn maiden laid the burden of her blushing hopes and fears, and their sympathetic tears mingled like capsicum and aloes, as they fell. Into her heedful ear, the disconsolate swain, half an hour later, in the obscurest corner of the parlor, poured the doleful story of his perplexities and diffidence, and received from her maternal tongue soft instruction and encouragement in nicely measured doses. And then the crying and sighing and howling, the long walks and long talks, the conferences and coun- cils of war, the tragic despair and ridiculous condolence, the furi- page: 22-23[View Page 22-23] 22 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. ous indignation and denunciation and the gentle simmering-or sizzling--down into fortitude and Christian resignation, which followed each other as the thread began to tangle-as it invariably did under Mrs. P.'s management-and the disgusted lover began to open his eyes and see what a mess he was in and what an ass he was making of himself. For, of all the matches that Mrs. P., in the course of a long life laboriously devoted to the business, planned and manipulated and worried over, only one was ever known to take place. The Phillips Extinguisher would not put out a pile of burning shavings with more certainty than her tender auspices put out the flames of Cupid. But the pale faces and melancholy eyes of many sweet and tender maidens, and the early graves of some, and the loveless and unhallowed after-mar- riages of others-these would have haunted the conscience of any human being save only the iron-clad matrimonial monitor, Mrs. P. Of course, these people did not have to look long through this land of assorted gutta-percha religions, before they found a creed to suit them. The sect which they embraced, purely local but particularly tremendous in its way, was the smallest and most ig- nominious of the entire litter of runts which the unhallowed womb of Schism has slinked in America. The peculiar beauty of this creed was that it converted the spiritual life from an expe- rience into a pettifogging action of assumpsit, and-was specially designed to bring the Divine Vengeance back to taw, and make it knuckle down whenever it plumped at a sinner. Brother and sister P., possessing the leading characteristics of the sect in an eminent degree, became forthwith great lights in the church. It would have done Voltaire or Dr. Faust's friend good to hear them "expashiating," as they called it, about the "T-e-ruth," send- ing all other sects to perdition with a summary syllogism, and proselyting zealously for the one fold of God recently opened. Earth has rarely beheld quite so worshipful or so worshipped a band as the preachers of these venomous schismatics. Every one of them was to his people a new avatar. Since Luther-perhaps since Paul--the-vorid had seen no such man as each several ass cf them. Sister P., with the fine enthusiasm of the sex, ran wild after each one that came along; and as each successively turned out to be a particularly ravenous wolf in sheep's clothing, she calmly dismissed him to oblivion and looked out for a new apostle PUNDITS AND PARIAHS. 23 and prodigy to feed her zeal and furnish her a new object of ad- miration, demonstration and palaver. Brother and sister P. had not yet established their I' villa" and I begun to stock it with statesmen of the family of Phipps, at the I time they are first introduced to the reader. But we have adopted this synoptical method with them in order to economize space, and i to rid our pages of the incumbrance and pollution of their pres- ence as expeditiously as the truth of history will allow. CHAPTER mI. PUNDITS AND PARTARS. THE den of justice and of thieves where Mr. Phipps worked out, under strictly legal forms, the scheme of plunder just alluded to, was not a stately temple built with money filched from honesty's b slender store to pamper hireling, debauchers of the moral sense, and to add splendor to their villainy; but preserving the impartial genius and spirit of modern law, which places facilities for extor- i tion and rascality within the reach of even the humblest scoundrel, it was a little, old, dilapidated frame building standing endwise to the street. A narrow strip of japanned tin at the entrance, bear- ing the words, "Benjamin O'Fee, Justis of the Pease," indicated the holy spot. Stuck at various places about the front of the sanc- tuary were no less than six attorneys' "shingles," all most appro- priately dingy, worded and pointed thus: "C. Screw, Att'y;" "Judge McSmash --- Office;" "H. Mann Flayer, Att'y. at Law;" "D. O'Connell Cocktail, Law Office;" "J. Skinner Overshot, Attorney;" "Slocum Jecur, Atty." From these startling inscrip- tions, you would have drawn an idea of the contents of the temple which subsequent experience would have failed to verify. E. g., you would have found that Mr. D. O'Connell Cocktail, instead of being a law-office, as his shingle declared, or even a law library, was merely a plumpish little villain with a marvellously red face-- in short, one of the very reddest of a particularly red profession, into whose bibulous rubicundity courtesy has slipped a perfunctory a and thus given rise to the delusion that they are well-read. page: 24-25[View Page 24-25] 24 THE STOBY OF AN OUTCAST. "At first blush"-the only use the lawhooks have for a blush is to make it a metaphor for green and innocent conjecture-an un- instructed observer might be astonished to find the ermine wallow. ing thus in the same sty with six learned counsellors; but a very slight initiation into the modern works and ways of the blind goddess would relieve his surprise. As the lion and the jackal hunt in partnership, and the rattlesnake and the prairie-dog keep house together, in like manner Mercury and Astraea often find it convenient and profitable to burrow in the same den. Within a wooden railing which separated the sacred penetralia of ' justice" from the profane precincts allotted to the crowd, judicial greatness sat arrayed in the person of Mr. Justice O'Fee; and here in its august presence, "my brother Screw," "my brother Cocktail," and the "profession" generally harangued with feed fervor, and lied, with good conscience, for hire. His Honor was a learned jurist from Limerick, who, having left off breaking heads in his own country and commenced breaking stones in this, had been suddenly invested with the ermine by the impartial suffrages of a free and enlightened constituency His shaggy pow was freely sprinlded with the pepper, and salt of middle age; his face, nose, eyes, and little corrugated crab- apple brow, were what propriety required they should be after having been battered and bombarded for half a century by hostile shillalahs and flying particles of rock and blasting powder. His speech was a curious mixture of Irish brogue, legal lingo, and the local patois. His-entire presence was a Praxitilean embodi- ment of that Minervan offspring of the thunderous brain--"the dignity of the bench;" words which will be quickly understood in all their boundless implication of ridiculous arrogance and sycophantic vulgarity in all happy lands where justice is a spavined nag in the political race-course. For more wonderful than all the achievements of the magicians of all ages are the. transformations which the American people work every day through the sorcery of the ballot-box and the War-Oifice-sttupen- dous conversions of specks and motes from the political dust- heap into giants tall as steeples, by conferring on them some sort of function which carries the title "Judge" or "General" along with it. Then, as greatness goes, Mr. Justice O'Fee's dig- nity was not disproportionate to his position; for, gods! was he not a justice of the peace? I PUNDITS AND PARIAHS. 25 At His Honor sat upon a kind of rostrum, with one leg thrown up ! over his desk, and every beholder saw at a glance that the learned : man was a cripple. His Honor's attitude might have struck you at first as being somewhat out of character in a grave and stately I magistrate, but you would soon have learned an explanation which would have been perfectly satisfactory. Election-day was approaching, and his Honor was a candidate for re-election. Accordingly he hung out his crippled foot, as at Rome aspirants t to the consulship displayed their scars, and said: "Behold my qualifications." When his Honor was a candidate before-though his misfortune had never been known to interfere with his pert ?: and frisky locomotion-for several days prior to the election, as he circulated among the voters, his lameness was excruciating to behold, and on the critical morning he could scarcely walk a single step. When his competitor, hardly his inferior in chican- ery, saw him at the polls, after they were opened, limping around and soliciting votes, he went home and to bed, sick with morti- fication, and died two days afterwards; and his last words, worthy t of an American statesman, were: "Old Ben has got the heel I of me this time." Sensitive fellow! another "blessed martyr" ! to the cruel fact that, demagogue as he was, a whole man stands no chance for office against a cripple. The six learned counsellors were as genuine phenomena in their different ways as the "bench." I Mr. Jecur had a stomach like a bay-window, and a most spirited expression, like a ploughed E field in February. The only salient point in his character was an ardent love of XXX ale. Colonel Overshot was a very tall and dignified gentleman, with a grave and thoughtful counte- nance, and a long, flowing beard of sandy hue. Among his brother attorneys he was commonly called St. Jerome, from his striking resemblance to the pictures of that worthy. Of course it is impossible to explain why he was ever called Colonel. Mr. Flayer had a short bull-dog face and nose, a head like a cube with the corners knocked off, coarse, stiff, black hair, and ears 'like a stingy pair of sugar-tongs. As a matter of course, being a lawyer, he never paid his debts, but he carried the art of avoiding payment to a perfection never surpassed by even the most learned of his profession. If you requested payment to- day, he would tell you to call to-morrow, and to-morrow he 2 page: 26-27[View Page 26-27] 26 THE STORB OF AN OUTCAST. would be out. If you were lucky enough to catch him on the third day, he had forgotten all about the matter, and you had to begin all over again. He would then appoint a time of pay- ment several days off, when he was certain to be absent from the city.: After badgering and tantalizing his creditors thus for a sufficient length of time, he always concluded the matter, with the small-sized ones, by knocking them down and beating them, solacing his outraged sensibilities thus for being compelled to pay the large-sized ones. Mr. "C.' Screw, Att'y.," the grammatical Screw & screw, was a wiry little man, with a strong cast of features, a bald head, and a thin, skirmish-line of iron-gray locks just over his ears. The. firmness of his carriage contrasted wonderfully with the noiselessness of .his tread. Around his mouth played an eternal simper, a parody on complaisance, contrasting hideously with the lean dryness of his face. BMr. Screw's little, jet-black, deep-set eyes never winked under any circumstances, and never looked at you while you were in a position to look into them. At all other times they looked at you with a hard, search- ing gaze, as if they would delight to first ransack and then get- rify you. But if you happened to turn suddenly upon them thus engaged, they instantly dropped to the floor, yet never for an instant betrayed the slightest embarrassment. Every county- town in the Union has at least one " . Screw, Att'y. ;" and if your eye has the least speculation in it, you need never have any trouble in discriminating the learned man simply by the aspect and punctuation of his shingle. The almost illegible "C. Screw, Att'y." always stands on a worn and faded ground, metaphor- ically covered with the rust of quaint old tomes, to know whose very titles argues an- amount of erudition bordering on the black art. Do you imagine that the learned man, absorbed in his profound studies of -hair-splitting and fee-grabbing, is unaware of the potent spell which hangs around his shingle? Far from it. He 'would not kill his wonderful goose by exchanging that dingy old sign for a new one of gold. He knows very well, though the parties themselves are unconscious of the thought, that a bright and flaunting sign would be regarded by all wary plaintiffs and defendants as a bid for practice, as a confession that he does not already have twice: as much business as he can do. Even in his autograph, ubiquitous, inscrutable, possessed, PUNDITS AN PARIAHS. 27 I he scrupulously preserves the charm of mystery. "C. Screw, Att'y.," looking as if grated down by the rigid hand of a skel- I eton, is affixed, not only to his pleadings, motions, notices and S inexorable correspondence, but also to every paper he drafts for I others to execute, and even to his notes to his legalized and gris- i tled wife, whom he writes to warn her that he has wheedled a I rich client into coming home with him to dinner. Pry never J so perseveringly, and you will never find out what that "C." I stands for. Of course, there is no family record to appeal to; Y for these creatures never have any domestic ties until after they have married to promote their professional prospects. You are at liberty to surmise that the name is Cornelius, Coriolanus, j Christopher, Cinderella, Chesterfield, or what not. Even call him Cork Screw, if you will, and it is all the same. The words are not actionable, and therefore make no difference whatever with him; and ten chances to one you will never know in this world j whether your guess is right or wrong. The same inscrutable, i grammatical, and imperturbable "C. Screw, Att'y." is he, for ever I more. The only thing he worships is a rich plaintiff; the only i thing he loves is an obstinate defendant; his heaven is a fat I fee, and his only romance a thrilling writ of ejectment. But the most striking figure in the group of learned counsellors was Judge A{c Smash, a jurist of gigantic size, with a pumpkinish i head and a skedaddling forehead. From his chin depended a thicket of tangled and neglected beard, which reached to the w vaisthand of his pantaloons. His face, firom his beard to the i roots of his hair, was a field of purple blossoms, from which his muddy and bloodshot eyes looked out like squashy mushrooms in a bed of violets. His nose was red and rum-burnt. Hair of the hue of a soiled cavalry-stripe fell about his face and neck. His dress was of a piece with his person. His coat, like the renowned cul-de-sac in which the rebels were always about to be bagged, was a " big thing" full of holes. It was full, also, of grease-spots, and stained with sweat and dust. His corduroy pants were worn, greasy and dirty, and the left knee was covered with a green patch, which extended at least eighteen inches up and down the leg. This infamous and disgusting beast had actually held the office of Circuit Judge for six years; but had been "rotated" out of office at the expiration of his first term and returned to " the practice." He had never possessed any legal attainments, but he page: 28-29[View Page 28-29] 28 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. had a bullying confidence, a swaggering bravado, which answered Go just about as well. While upon the bench he had been accus-! : tomed to decide questions in the off-hand jockey style. He went ; at a judicial fence as my Lord Palmerston does at a political one, i and as luckily there are but two sides to a law-point, he was just as apt to be right as wrong, which is a good deal to say for any judge. The bar raised no objection to his Honor on the score of ^ capacity; but he was given to a certain little irregularities which rather displeased them. He would slip into the jury-room during i the dinner recess, and tamper with the jurors in favor of a pet 1 suitor. He had favorites among the attorneys, against whom he :: never rendered an adverse judgment. He preferred the cereals in 1 a fluid state, and was a munificent patron of bottled pomology; and it was- a common expedient of " counsel," when delay was de- \ sirable, to drink his Honor dead-drunk by ten in the morning, ' and persuade him to go to bed. If a party desired a continuance, - the best showing he could make was of a liquid nature, and took ; place before court opened; and a present of a flask of superfine i! "dew"-of the peculiar kind the legal landscape affords-would [^ at any time so melt his Honor's heart, that he would browheat 5 witnesses, storm at the jury, and curse the lawyers, until a verdict ,ii agreeable to his grateful mind was reached. The, five learned i? * counsellors, who now officed with him, had been his especial I cronies. He had raised them from the very dregs of the profes" a i sion, and the knowledge of his partiality for them had brought them a prodigious run of business. They fastened themselves on him like leeches, and allowed no rival clique to approach him, flattered his vanity, stimulated his depraved appetites, played ; upon -his frailties, and dragged him down, not to, but below the : dogs. To Cocktail, more than any of the rest, had he been i affectionate and gracious. That young gentleman had been a M tailor's apprentice, who, having the good luck to get on a spree " with his Honor at one of his circuit towns, had so won his Honor's 3 heart that he admitted him to the bar next morning, without any examination or previous study-as the State law gave him the right to do,-and continued to show him such marks of favor that M Cocktail's star mounted rapidly to the zenith. Bat with the close X of his patron's term of office came a sudden collapse of Cocktail's A greatness. All of his Honor's favorites, and his Honor with them, relapsed at once from commanding influence into utter nothing- : ;is PUNDITS AND PARIAHS. 29 ness. For a while at first, after his Honor's return to the bar, the fact and reputation of having sat on the bench brought him con- siderable practice; but his amazing stupidity and incapacity soon drove it away. His first suit, after re-entering upon "the prac- tice," was replevin for a town-lot, his second, injunction against slander. Don't destroy the effect of these statements by imagining that they are either in the least fanciful or exaggerated, they are literal facts. After the latter littlefauxpas, the ex-Judge always associated with him in the chance cases into which he succeeded in worming himself, some young practitioner to do up the law, while his ex-Honor devoted himself exclusively to browheating the witnesses and bullyragging the jury. Of all his associates, he had most confidence in Screw; but there unfortunately existed a feud between him and that learned counsellor, growing out of political rivalry. Afraid to trust any of the rest of his professional brethren, who always took care to absorb all the fees, the ex-Judge gradually became a mere puppet in the hands of the villain Phipps, who availed himself of the lingering spell which hangs around the name of "Judge" to turn many an honest penny. He " pirooted" a practice for the Judge, as the lawyers call it: that is, whenever he heard of a stray case among inexperienced parties likely to be influenced by a sounding name, he crowded the Judge upon them and pocketed the bulk of the fee. And so this miserable old crea- ture was reduced to be a pitiable tool in the hands of this low villain-not yet become a lawyer-rather than to be fleeced and spit upon by sharpers of his own profession. The picture is from real life, and probably can be realized in many instances in every State in the Union-especially, a grim satirist might add, now that the South, which claimed to have preserved honor among white men by enslaving black ones, has conquered her way to a Territorial condition by the bold strategy of a general surrender. The bailiff of the Court was a thoroughly de-phlogisticated in- dividual, with a palish freckled face, hair lile dry corn-silks, and a phthisicky, cracked-kettle voice. His legs began an astonishingly short distance below his shirt-collar, his hands were like palm-leaf fans, his eyes were weak and ran water like a tail-race. Mr. Icor Ictus, too, was a candidate for re-election, and consequently whenever he squeaked out "Order in Court," he appended a meaning leer which said "sweet electors, do just as you d- please." He was universally known as the Inevitable Ictus, page: 30-31[View Page 30-31] 30 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST and was so flat a fool that he almost passed for an honest man. It should be remembered that there were just six learned coun- sellors hived in this temple of the starry virgin, along with Mr. Justice O'Fee. No other learned counsellor could any more have es- tablished himself there than he could have turned the world over. Six was precisely the right number, and always made the contest lively without making it too long. For there never was a case tried in that court in which all six of the learned counsellors were not employed and paid. This was a matter well understood among them. Whenever one of them was employed to bring a suit, the whole six, in conclave, discussed the matter, arranged the cast, and then set to work to get the consent of the parties to the arrangement. One of them would go to the defendant that was to be, and tell him very mysteriously that something was going on " up at old Ben's office," in which the said embryonic defendant was deeply interested,-and that he, the learned coun- sellor, being there all the time, and thoroughly "posted" as to the works and ways of that villainous set, would see that said, sprouting defendant should be kept informed of the progress of the rascally affair. As soon as the callow defendant was caught, the erudite emissary would return and report accordingly, the declaration would be filed straightway, and the writ served in hot haste.- Then the plaintiffs counsel would go to his client, and inform him in mysterious confidence that the defendant was going to make a most devilish fight of it; that he had declared he would spend his last dollar in the suit rather than lose it; that he had already employed three out of the six learned counsellors; that these three were known to be among the very ablest, and most successful leaders at the bar, and that their influence over "old Ben" was alarming; and then he would suggest that common prudence dictated that the remaining two should be employed by plaintiff. This point being gained and reported accordingly, the defendant's counsel would go to his client with precisely the same story, and obtain permission to associate with himself the two learned counsellors who had already been reported to the plaintiff as so associated. Sometimes these snug arrangements would be consummated in short order, and then the case would be put through, and the fees reached in double-quick time. Sometimes, however, plaintiff or defendant would nibble very warily at the PUNDITS AND PARIAHS. 81 hook, and then the case would drag along, and be postponed, and continued, and laid over, and badgered about in every conceivable way, until the parties should be at last worried into compliance. For no case was ever tried there, or could ever be tried there until the programme was fully submitted to. "The Court" was fully in the secret, and heartily co-operated in various ways, in working out these little plans. He soon let it be seen that it was not worth while for any lawyer, save only these six, to come into his court to practice. Whenever an intruder brought a suit there, his Honor would begin with him at the first question raised, and decide dead against him on every point, until he had dicked the case out of court. He would end by fining the presumptuous lawyer for con- tempt, on some pretext or other, and piling up punitive costs on the client. Frequently, also, his Honor would button-hold a party whose case seemed to be in an unsatisfactory condition, and whis- per to him that the best thing he could do would be to employ such and su h ones of the six learned counsellors. This advice rarely failed of the desired effect, the cast would soon be completed, and the case crowded through. But the learned counsellor did not always wait for the consent of "the parties" before entering themselves as "counsel." If ignorance, non-.residence, absence, or any other reason permitted their doing so, they would at once divide the case among them. In the present "case," the plaintiff had employed three of the learned counsellors, to wit: Flayer, Overshot, and Cocktail. The defendant had employed no counsel, preferring to submit to be robbed without the degradation of a contest. The six learned counsellors, giving a single glance at her, saw very clearly that they could do just as they pleased, and have a very gay time indeed over the case. Three of them, therefore, forthwith had themselves booked as defendant's counsel. The upshot of the arrangement was that, if the defendant lost, as she had no other effects, these three. learned counsellors would lose their fees. They might, therefore, be expected to make a vigorous fight, so. as to get the property in dispute, in order to appropriate it them- selves. But the plaintiff, who had already bribed the bailiff to return a false description of the goods, by promising to vote for him now, out of pure generosity of heart, assured defendant's counsel that, if he gained the case, he would see that they did not lose their fees on account of his success. It is only a lawyer, page: 32-33[View Page 32-33] 32 TIIE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. whose profession teaches him to deal in fihtions, makes right a mere matter of convention, and alleges one thing where another is meant, that ever completely succeeds in couching a villainous arrangement in severely virtuous terms. The plaintiff's motive for wanting these three learned counsellors in the case as defend- ant's counsel is by no means inscrutable. In the first place, he knew that, under the circumstances, they were certain to go in anyhow, and if they got in freely with a motive to gain the case, they might scrutinize matters closely enough to ruin his calcula- tions. Therefore, he put them into the case under his own eye, in order to keep them well in hand all the time. Again, it is always advantageous, and saves after-claps, to make it appear that a party has vigorously contested an issue which you have gained. It deserves to be observed that the plaintiff, by a slight anachlron- ism, entirely attributable to the warmth of his impulses, had declared his benevolent intentions towards defendant's counsel before they had been entered on the docket as sucllh. Thus, late in the afternoon of a dark November day, the "case" of "Phipps vs. Auswurf, No. 2909, Attachment, before O'Fee, J. P.; Flayer, Overshot, and Cocktail for Plaintiff; Screw, Jecur, and McSmash for Defendant," being duly docketed, pleaded, and set for trial, was reached and called. As the attorneys began to get ready to put this little grist through the legal mill, which, like the mills of God, grinds 'slow but exceeding small," they became most egregiously amused at something, as lawyers always do in the opening of a "case," when they have it all snugly arranged as to which party "the glorious uncertainty of the law" is going to fleece for the mutual benefit of the profes- sion. The rabble had, as usual in that court, collected in quite a crowd outside the wooden railing to witness the trial, and seeing the learned counsellors laugh their black-letter laughter, now giggled in sympathy. It was a high and enjoyable privilege, a thing to talk about afterwards at home, to see those great men relaxing their grave and powerful minds and indulging the ami- able simplicity of our common humanity in the awful precincts of the court-yea, even to see them now, in merriment as exces- sive and mysterious as their learning, surpass the attainments of ordinary mortality, and so consolidate their whispers and giggles that not even the great lawyer who pleaded before Eve could have separated the knavish elements. PUItDITS AND PARIAHS. 33 Thus the lawyers chatted, and whispered, and tittered together for a while, first one of them examining the papers and almost splitting with laughter, then another doing likewise, then one saying something very witty indeed, in a low whisper, then unother doing so, till it began to seem doubtful whether that ridiculous case would not burst all the buttons off their precious breeches. But suddenly, in the midst of the gay good humor of the learned counsellors, while all was going merry as any number of marriage bells, a new spirit was evoked. Had the change been the work of a fiend, it could not have been more distinct and startling. Mr. Screw's prying eye had become aware of a differ- ence between the goods described in the writ and those actually in the hands of Mr. Ictus, and he instantly conceived the purpose of defeating the plaintiff and holding fast to the property himself. His "brothers" did not know the nature of his discovery, but they perceived that the odorous rodent you have heard of was in the wind, and the most ludicrous consternation prevailed from the instant that Screw suddenly slapped his long, bony forefinger against the papers in his hand, as only lawyers know how, and swore by the shade of Lyttleton, with Coke on top of him, that he had got it. Each villain of them was suddenly thrown from the acme of comfortable certitude into that most unpleasant of all pickles for a lawyer, to wit: when he sees that he is about to be either betrayed by his colleagues or beaten by his own adversary, but is not certain which. So they button-held each other, and consulted, pumped, quizzed, and expostulated, each obfuscated villain trying to find out what was the matter, yet laboring to make the others believe that he knew all about it. Mr. D. O'Con- nell Cocktail, whose specialty was swearing, did up the profanity on the occasion in a spirited manner. Of course, according to all the rules and precedents governing such cases, the proper thing in Screw's co-counsel would have been to pretend that nothing was at all out of joint, and try to allay the suspicions of their opponents, hoping thathe would take them into his confidence presently, and divide the spoils with them; and, as far as natural plhlegm would allow, Mr. Jecur played the part very well, confin- ing himself principally to strategic winks and masterly grimaces. Judge McSmash, however, made a muddle of it, as usual. His fixed idea being fees, he was sure that all this commotion grew (ut of a conspiracy on the part of his brothers to swindle hi:m no1A page: 34-35[View Page 34-35] 34 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. out of his share of the proceeds. He was not absolutely certain of this till Mr. Jecur had winked three times; then he knew the very deuce was to pay somehow, and of course that meant he was to be plucked. "I'll not stand it," he bellowed ; "I'll not stand it, you horn-swoggling shenanigers. Where's your professional honor? Where's your gentlemanly urbanity, and the sweet rose of courtesy? Extinguished, defunguished in the loud-roaring main of irrepressible sculduggery. You swallow the plaintiff between you, and leave me, defendant's senior and most distin- guished counsel, to whistle my fees out of a d-d Dutch beggar." At that, Colonel Overshot, who always contrived to look spe- cially sanctimonious whenever .he happened to be entirely at his wit's end, and had gained many verdicts and decisions in that way, took occasion to return one of Mr. Jecur's winks. "Don't wink at me, Saint Jerome," bawled the Judge; don't think that you can wink me out of my fees, sir l" And then, in spite of their individual apprehensions, all the rest tittered extravagantly at the muddle poor old McSmash's stupid brains were in. "Oh, you dirty purps," howled his ex-Honor, "no more shall you press the friendly hand, no more be clasped in the paternal embrace of the Honorable Charles Johnston McSmash, ex-Judge of the Fifth Judicial District, commonly-known as the Bloody Fifth. " "Well, I am satisfied," drawled" the contented Jecur. He meant that he was satisfied with the arrangement in regard to fees; but-the application of the remark, like that of most others that he made, was equivocal, and, therefore, the rest laughed louder than ever. The lively Cocktail improved -the jolly moment to go whisking up to Screw and to pipe: "Dang it, Screw, show your-hand, if you hold the aces, and we'll all cave at once; and if you haven't got 'em, stop bluffing, and let's go to work." "What's the matter with you?" asked Screw, dryly. "Ain't you Wafe in any event-you who went in for the plaintiff so fast?" There was where the shoe pinched, and Mr. Screw intended to' punish them for taking the advantage of him. "No, I'm not safe, if I am on the opposite side from you and you are satisfied," was the conclusive reply. "Gentlemen," commanded the Court with dignity, giving his lame foot a tap with the hickory stick, "you positively must persade with this here case. Mr. Ictus, prasarve orther in court. " PUNDITS AND PARIAHS. 35 Ardor in this court!" squeaked the Inevitable. And then he leered on the dear voters beyond the railing, to show them that he didn't mean them. Thus admonished, the lawyers cleared finally for action, and the farce began. Mr. Jecur first rose to address the court with infinite gravity, pressing both hands against his stomach. He proceeded to read what he called a motion; that is, he called upon the court to do something, no matter what, for the same -reason set forth in a' dozen different ways. But before Mr. Jecur got his motion read, Cocktail had frisked in and read one of his own, and at once securing the ear of the Court, was half through his argument in support of it. Now, it is a rule with these "courts" to decide the first question that is raised in favor of the party whom they intend to cast in the final judgment. That is a way they have of giving the defeated attorney an easy fall. In their merciful and dispassionate pre-eminence, they consider that the poor fel- low has a sort of equity to the first decision, since he is to be beaten in the end. It costs nothing to give it, and then it is such a comfort to the poor fellow! But the conclusive reason for this humane practice is, that it increases the dramatic doubtfulness of the issue, and, therefore, enhances the importance of the Court. For this reason, the lawyers have a habit of making petty motions at the opening of the case to "test the feelings of the Court;" and after a furious contest over the ffirst decision no further resistance is made to manifest destiny, unless the motive to fur- ther resistance is very strong. It is a particularly sharp expedi- ent of the attorneys at times to take the initiative, and make a foolish motion which cannot but be overruled, and thus hold the court bound in honor to give them the final judgment. But an experienced justice is, like an old bird, not to be caught with chaff. . g., we remember a somewhat remarkable "case," where twelve learned counsellors, six on each side, fought fiercely for two whole days over some sort of a silly motion, the proper decision of which conflicted with the programme of the Court as to final judgment; and at the end of the argument, the indig- nant Court struck all the pleadings on both sides from its files, fined all the lawyers for contempt, and divided the costs equally between the parties. But-this was manifestly a freak of the judi- cial mind. The rule is to begin by deciding the first question- page: 36-37[View Page 36-37] 36 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. no matter what it may be-in favor of thile party you intend to cast, and then to go on regularly to the end, deciding time about in favor of each. Should the number of questions be odd, the rule is to give the extra decision to the lawyer who has flattered the Court most successfully. Cocktail's motion gave rise to a heated discussion, running through six flamiing orations. Judge McSmash's "argument," certainly one of the most extraordinary forensic efforts that ever shed lustre on the annals of the American bar, soaring, as it did, far out of sight of the motion and all terrestrial things, would confer immortality on any ambitious histrion who should exactly reproduce it. "Gentlemen of the Jury," he began, balancing himself with difficulty in front of the rabble beyond the bar. He thought they were to decide the case, and, indeed, seeing that it was "election times," he was not so far wrong. Then he raised his purple face and smiled. "Yes, gentlemen of the jury, " he repeated, in a tone whose insinuating softness said if tkat jury were not gen- tlemen, you need not look anywhere else for a dozen graceful legal pythonesses in pantaloons. Then he paused, readjusted his bal- ance, and smiled till his whole face was one hideous drunken con- tortion. "I have got them now, gentlemen of the jury," he whispered in blandest confidence, "precisely where I want 'em, and all you've got to do is just to watch me skin 'em. Tell me that it's -Wrong," he bellowed, suddenly raising his stentorian voice until the very rafters trembled. "Tell me that it is not law! If any man calls ne a poltroon/--I'll hang him higher than Old Hickory hung Haman! 'Where is your black letter? Look in your blue-books; I helped to MAKE the ijAW!! I am the Hon. Charles Johnston McSlmash! ex-Judge of the Fifth Judicial Dis- trict! commonly known as the Bloody Fifth! Gentlemen of the Ju-reell Did Dan Cocktail prove it? No; the cabbaging cuss- never, never while eternity shall roll its ample round. Will you lend yourselves, can such a J Uty lend itself to the base purposes of nefarious scalawags, and ratify with your verdict the prepos- terous rascality of their lean-witted dicker? You heard the evi- dence. They vainly sought to impeach our noble witnesses. Then, will you oppignerate the holy evangelists of Christ in scan- dalous bailment to the perfidious combinations of insatiable pirooters and blood-thirsty sponges, who are only playing sharp? PUNDITS AND PARIAHS. 37 Whiere's the rule in Shelley's case. It tells you my fees were guaranteed by Magner Carter-wrung from the hands of British despots by the Putnams, Runnymedes, and other rolling stock of the Revolution-that brought our fathers to this gullorious land of lib-but-tee! Wlho dares impugn the immortal heroes of '76? Show me the traitor, that I may cram Yankee Doodle down his aqueduct. I admit he is a young man; so much the worse for him; quite as sharp as tacks. But me, gentlemen of the jury, 5M-E, M-E. Presidents and Senators pat ME on the backl, and CALL me JOHNNY! Said old Billy Harrison to me in '40, when he appointed me first consul to the Sepoy Indians, ' Johnsy, you made me President. ' 'Yes, Billy,' says I; 'me and hard cider;' and he laughed. Can they deny it? Heed them NoT!! You'll find it in HSTORY!!! Who declined the Supreme Bench of these United States? Who but ME in '44? That was a hard fight, gentlemen of the jury," dropping his voice abruptly to a whisper, "we all know it was a devil of a hard fight, and we all know we whipped 'em. Says the President elect to me one night on the classic banks of the Potomac, after our four- teenth whiskey straight, and he paid for 'em all-says he 'Johnsy, my lad, if I may take the liberty, you are the--MATTHEW 1wATX O THE NINETEENTH CENTURY!!'" Again the rafters quaked. "Says I, 'Jimmy K."' -with a horrible smile and the confiden- tial whisper again--"says I, 'Jimmy K., I know it,' and he laughed. And now," suddenly melting from humor into tearful pathos--"and now, gentle-men, with glorious Old Zach at Buena- Vista, and Harry of the West, and the Little Giant to lead us, and the hero of Lundy's Lane supping his hasty plate of soup in the halls of the 3lontezuamers, and onon-intervention as our battle-cry--yes, gentlemen, with the Union and the Constitution in our hands, alas for my unhappy client! There's no- such word as fail! Oh, no! Forever float that standard sheet-O, Yankee Doodle! Yes, gentlemen of the jury, Excelsior. I repeat it, gentlemen, repeat it boldly in a land of lib-but-tee, Excelsior. If any man disputes it, serve, as the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress done when they killed the fatted calf and danced over him in the cool of the evening. Set the brand of Cain upon his brow, and senzd him a-scooting back to the land of Nod. Where are their authorities? All on our side! I can lay my finger on the paragraph, videlecat. Oh, say, can you see page: 38-39[View Page 38-39] 38 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. , by the dawn's early light. Or recall the oh-bitter dictum of the great Mansfield to the same effect-one of the few, the immortal names that were not born to die. That means me, gentlemen of the jury; that means my injured client, including my fee. Have you the hearts of MEN in your bosoms? Wtlee are your own wives- and little ones? This matter comes home to you all. Then give us our verdict an-d--our fees. Gentlemen of the jury, give us what the sages of the law say is our right, and hand the memory of your virtues down to generations yet unborn; or band yourselves with the minions of British despotism, and sink into obscurity forever beneath the dark rolling billows of a west- ern wild." When the "argument" was done, the rabble all looked anx- iously at his Honor, and his Honor seeing himself thus conspic- uously observed, forthwith gave his crippled foot a smart tap with his hickory stick, and said sharply: "Divil a bit is this Court a-going for to listen to any such tomfoolery as that motion. No, no, shulah. Divil a bit--hoot!" This decision rendered it certain that, in spite of Mr. Screw's new-born energy in the defence, the final judgment would be for the plaintiff; and the exultation and disappointment of the counsellors respectively was a new sensation in physiognomy. Reader, perhaps you never saw a lawyer's smile of triumph, or grin of disappointment. In each there is an element of the ghastly which Pandemonium cannot rival, and it is not in human flesh not to weep when it sees the two at once on the faces of the successful and the defeated attorney. A kind of green undu- lation like the agitation of a foul mill-pond, rolls from the eyes to the lips of the one, while the meagre face of the other becomes so ireful and spiteful as to be absolutely demoniac. Mr. Screw leaned back in his chair in a deep study as to what he had better do next. Mr. Phipps, the plaintiff, stepped softly to his- side, and whispered in his ear: "Oh, if you will do so well as that," said Mr. Screw at once, "you may have the case without further ceremony." Meanwhile the Court sat tapping his qualifying foot with his hickory stick, and repeatedly clearing his throat, as if he were about to say something very important, and desired to give every- body fair warning, so that not one precious syllable should be lost. Having succeeded in riveting all eyes on himself, he said, with X PUNDITS AND PARIAHS. 39 judicial severity, still tapping his foot with the hickory stick at the end of every two or three words, "IEf this here Court aint moightily out av it, 'taint worth while to persade any furder with this case, Mr. Phipps!" "Your Honor," said the plaintiff, rising and making a profound bow. "Who is this furrin divil that is giving you so much trouble with this case?"For his Honor, being already perfectly secure of the "Democracy" by reason of being an Irishman, had a way of ham-stringing the opposition, in those days when the "Great American Party" was germinating, by grinding the faces of the foreigners on all occasions. "A mere vagabond, your Honor, with no effects but this trumpery." "Jest as this here Court expected it wur, by gosh," said the justice severely. "Right here"--giving his crippled foot a -tap with the hickory stick-" right here's a pint in the case which none av the attoorneys didn't see at all, at all. But old Ben, if this here Court may take such a liberty with himself-for popu- laxity's sake these election times, as to call himself by such an un- dignified title without -fining himself for contempt-can see deeper into a mill-stone than any av 'em, d-n 'em." And then he gave his crippled foot a rousing smack with the hickory stick. "-The conceited old hypocrite!" sneered Screw in an under- tone. "Did anybody ever know him to decide a case on any point that had been raised in ther gaument?" Just at this spot there is a slight soreness, a pang of jealousy, between courts and learned counsellors. The former consider -it the essence of ju- dicial dignity and profundity to ignore the shallow and ex parte arguments of hireling brains, and to look on all occasions into immeasurable reaches of wisdom far beyond the ignoble ken of let acumen. A back-woods Mansfield has been known to exhaust the whole learning of the law in relation to real and personal property, estrays, flotsam and treasure-trove, salvage, torts, -crimes, misdemeanors and the domestic relations, in a case where two - fellows had got into a fight over an egg which one party's fowl had very inconsiderately laid on the other party's land. And who shall presume to deny to, these sages the prerogative of talking these profound views of things? No charitable and unprejudiced mind will do so, certainly. Nevertheless, learned counsellors are page: 40-41[View Page 40-41] 40 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. wont to become a little restive when the plummet of judicial research, sinking a thousand fathomns down, converts their argu- ments into mere buoys to show that there is a shallow place there. And it makes no difference whatever with learned judges whether the arguments whose futility they so ably demonstrate, have any bearing at all on the matter in hand. A learned court will kick you contemptuously out of its jurisdiction, and then calmly pro- ceed to give reasons why( it would hang you if it only had you back. And why should not Mr. Justice O'Fee be indulged in these judicial antics as well as any other potent, grave, and reverend seignior? "I'm a-going fur to dacide this case," said the learned man, tapping his foot with the hickory stick, " on a pint which none av the attoorneys didn't see at all, at all. But afore I come to that pint, I'm a-going fur to turn back and raview the argooments av the counsel on the motion which this here Court has jest over- ruled. It would not be respectful to this large and intelligent au- dience, these election times"--and then he gave his foot an unusu- ally energetic rap with the hickory stick--" nor to the respected and endfiaentious plantive"--repeating the rap with the hickory stick-" not to show what asses all the attoorneys have made av 'emsel." He then proceeded to review the " argooment" with an amount. of tautology and inversion that would have passed anywhere for the very quintessence of legal learning. "But here," said he, after completely demolishing all the lawyers, "is the pint which none av the attoorneys didn't see at all, at all. Divil a bit did any av 'em see it, but this Court. This defendant is a poor divil of a she-furrin vagabond, with nothing but this blasted trumpery to make costs out avat all, at all. If she had anything else, she had ought to 'ave told this Court av it, and'this here Court would have took judicil -notice av it fur her to wanst. But this here Court ain't a-going fur to let she-furrin vagabonds that have got nothing to make costs out av to a certainty, consume the valyable time av this here Court. Divil a bit, yer worship. No, no, shulah. That's agin the whole policy of, the law, and this here Court won't do it. Somebody might say, ' The plantive haint got no case at all, at all; throw the costs onto him.' God forbid! This here Court '1 niver make so endflaentious a gintleman pay costs these elec- tion times. Somebody else, respectfully advisin' av the Court, PUNDITS AND PARIAHS. 41 might say, ' Make your costs out av these here goods av the defen- dant.' But this here Court aint no pinchbeck court, and won't lean on no seech a stick as that, for his costs. Divil a bit. No, no, shulah. Whereas, it is considered by this here Court in the premises, the Court also a-bein' in 'em along av the endflaentious plantive fur his costs, that all av the defendant's pleadings be took off av the files av this court and burnt up, to keep the higher- court from gettin at 'em, d-n 'em, and that a confission av judg- muent be entered by defendant, and that these goods be given over to-the endflaentious plantive in fee simple fur iver and iver, and that the plaintive-God bless him for a fine gintleman-pay this here Court his costs afore the goods is removed at all, at all." "Hoo-ro-ar!" cried the mercurial Cocktail, unable to repress his violent admiration, and rising and swinging his arm around his head. "This here court is now adjourned ad infinitum, or something else that is very high larnt," said the justice, giving his lame foot another whack with the hickory stick and then lifting it demon- stratively, with both hands, from the desk. "Hoo-ro-ar, " repeated Cocktail, slapping his Honor on the back. "Come, Old Ben, come to my loving heart-come to my cool arbor. Let us wander together afar. In short, let's get drunk." "Excuse me, gintlemen," said the justice, with dignity, giving his lame foot a poke with the hickory stick. "It would be highly immoral for this here Court to get drunk these election times." Phipps and Screw, who' had nothing of the bon-vivant in their composition, took the "Court," each by an arm, and departed with him closely hugged in between them, while the rabble beyond the bar, detained by the rain, remained as spectators of the merry doings of the remaining learned counsellors. Cocktail, Jecur, Flayer, McSmash, and Overshot swept the books from a coarse poplar table, and took their seats around it. A dirty tallow- candle was already sputtering on the table; for it was now, at four o'clock, quite dark. A pack of greasy cards was produced; four very small piles of coppers, pewter dimes, clipped halves, smooth quarters, and ragged bills were brought forth ; and they began to play; a bottle of fiery poison, which seemed to flash its rancor even through the walls of its vitreous prison, meanwhile circulating rapidly from lip to lip. Its effects soon began to tell on the poor, pitiable Judge. He held his painted pieces of paper listlessly in page: 42-43[View Page 42-43] 42 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. both hands, as an idiot might hold a primer, a melancholy and disgusting picture of inanity, while the other learned counsellors fleeced him unmercifully, in the most hilarious merriment. For the ennui and idleness which attend the first years of his profes- sional life, the amazing length of time that a lawyer always re- mains " a promising young man," and the necessity which every young attorney labors under of setting up for a-genius, conspire to produce the brutalizing and destroying vice of drunkenness; gaming follows as a necessary consequence; and one low'disposi- tion begets another,'until, at length, the walks of professional life are strewn with loathsome wreck, caricatures of manhood, living satires on-intellectual attainments, and every studious pursuit. "Ha, ha, Colonel," laughed jolly Cocktail, at length, after a particularly brilliant streak of luck. "I must tell you of Jecur's grand oration this morning in the Police Court. You see we were trying a case under the act of last winter in relation to mutilating evergreens in cemeteries. Angels and devils must have giggled in concert over Jecur's eloquent effort. He expatiated most feelingly on the piety of the Legislature in enforcing respect for the dead, instancing our sensitive brother Screw as a member of that pious body, and then he cried: 'Ever-greens-ah, evergreens-ah, oh, your Honor-ah, what is ever-greens-ah? Evergreens-ah is-ah what blooms-ah over the graves-ah of our immortal ancestors- ah. " "Screw!" broke in Judge .icSmash, aroused from his stupor by the hated name. "Screw respect the dead! Give him a chance and he'd dig up his grandfather's bones and sell them for soap- grease at a fip-penny-bit a dozen. "At this the crowd laughed, and that infuriated Cocktail, who was telling the story and did not like to be robbed of the applause. "By the gods, old KMack!" he cried in a great rage, " you must not interrupt me again when I am telling a story. All that makes you hate Screw is his beating you for the Legislature." "You are an impertinent, ungrateful dog, Dan Cocktail, to re- mind me of my defeat. Where would you be to-day, you poor picklouse, if it had not been for the Hon. Chas. Johnston McSmash, ex-Judge of the Fifth Judicial District, commomly called the Bloody Fifth? You would still have your d,-d pitiful shanks crossed on the tailor's bench, instead of being here among professional gentlemen to insult your benefactor." PUNDITS AND PARIAHS. 43 "Do you think, sir," sneered Cocktail, "that because I was once a tailor, I don't know the difference between an accidental judge and old Johnsy McSmash?" "You are a villain, Dan Cocktail," cried the Judge; "and I'm going to whip you. Oh, ingratitude more sharp than traitor's arms it is to have a thankless child." "You have filed your declaration," retorted Cocktail, spring- ing up and smacking his fists together in the most courageous manner, "'and now I'm going to plead to it with a punch on the head that will knock you forty rods out of the court-room with your ancient lights obstructed." As Cocktail delivered himself of this valorous speech, Colonel Overshot and Mr. Flayer both winked at Mr. Jecur-a wink is the lawyer's telegraph-and Mr. Jecur, placing his left hand on his right and his right upon his stomach, serenely awaited the catastrophe. Meanwhile, Judge McSmash sat motionless, with his eyes riveted upon the ceiling,'the image of lamb-like gentle- ness and forbearance. It seemed that the "plantive " in the case of McSmash vs. Cocktail, had made up his mind to take a nonsuit. The valiant Cocktail, seeing that the enemy did not show fight, cut a few triumphal curvets around the table, smacking his heels and fists, and subsided into his chair. Then the Judge sprang to "s feet with a roar like a lion's, and gave his chair a kick which sent it whirling across the room. Every separate hair of his tan- gled beard seemed to be alive and trembling with wrath. He threw himself -into an attitude and shouted: "Lay on, Cocktail, and damned be he who first cries, Hold, some ale!"His heroism elicited loud cries of "Bravo!" from the crowd. Just at this critical pinch Cocktail's pugnacity evaporated quite as suddenly as the Judge's had been condensed out of airy indif- ference. Far from pleading to the Judge's furious replication with an equally warlike rejoinder, he chose to make default. He seemed to be perfectly oblivious of any dispute or cause of dis- pute, any action pending or likely to be brought, between himself and any party whatever. In a word, Mr. Cocktail did not seem inclined to honor his own favorite, oft-repeated and very valorous sentiment: "D---n a party that cannot stand fire." On the contrary, he was engaged in observing the manipulations of the unsuspecting Colonel, who appeared to be carelessly shuffling the cards. page: 44-45[View Page 44-45] " THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Overshot, you sanctimonious cuss," cried he, dextrously twitching away the deck before that gentleman was aware of his intentions, "you are stealing cards." "Is he cheating, Dan? eh, Dan, my bully boy?" palavered the Judge, coming out of position. "Yes,",said Cocktail, "St. Jerome has feloniously taken and carried away all the aces." And he flirted off the dirty bits of paper, one by one, to show that he was correct. "St. Jerome is a dirty dog," bawled the Judge. "That is the way he has been fleecing me all night." "Oh, let Overshot alone when there is any overshooting to be done," laughed Cocktail. "St. Jerome? Divil a bit. No, no, shulah," he continued, mnimicling "the Court," amid universal merriment. "He's a gay gambolier, though a saint he appear, and he cut his eye-teeth on his mother's nipple." The evidence against the Colonel was conclusive; so, instead of flying into a rage, he acted the philosopher and saint, and quietly drew the aces from' his sleeves, with an air which said quite dis- tinctly: "Really, now, it is not worth your while to make me give them up, for I shall have them all stolen again presently." But wounded sensibility, even in saints and philosophers, requires solace. Accordingly, the sweet saint took up the bottle, and slowly inserted a large share of the neck into his mouth and throat; but the size of the draught which followed, -or what it consisted. of, neither gods nor men. could guess. When the Colo- nel's draught was at length done, Cocktail jerked the bottle unceremoniously from his hand and waved it towards the crowd. "'Sweet friends," said he, "you fear that this ungodly draught will prove mortal to our illustrious saint. My heart bleeds at your distress, but I do not share your apprehensions. Of the self-same cordial will I take forty drops without counting, that in my act you may have an assurance of the Colonel's safety." a After an almost inseparable embrace, his lips and the bottle at last parted, and then he rolled up his eyes as if in terror and mortal pain, pressed his hand against his chest, and gasped: "Sweet friends, H-I--was mistaken, sweet friends. Dan Cocktail is doomed, and all for love of Overshot." "Of tangle-foot," suggested Mr. Flayer. And then there was abundant laughter. '"I'3m saved, saved, savedl" cried Cocktail, triumphantly flour- PUNDITS AND PARIAHS. 45 ishing the bottle. "Come, glorious Homoeopathy, and save Dan Cocktail, whose rash generosity hath imperilled his life. Divine Similial Similibus, thee I invoke. Hecate's deadliest liquor is harmless if you but repeat the dose." And he took a longer and stronger pull than before. "Aye, repeat's the word," cried Mr. Jecur, with an energy quite out of character, grasping the bottle with both hands around the middle, while Cocktail held fast to the neck. "It's empty-yes, empty," mouthed Cocktail, with solemnity, relinquishing the bottle to Mr. Jecur. "Out, out, brief candle! Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well, Flayer-a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. I have borne him in my stomach a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination; my gorge rises at it. Here are those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your jibes, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of ' pizen' which were wont to knock the table off the floor?' Not one now to mock your own grinning--quite chop- fallen. Now get you to Phipps's whiskey-factory, and tell each twenty-gallon cask to this favor it must come. Pray thee, Flayer, tell me one thing." "What's that, my lord?" "Dost think Alexander's bottle looked this fashion when 'twas empty?" "Even so." "And smelt so?--paugh." "I hope not-p-h-e-w." "To what base uses whiskey-bottles come, Flayer. This flask, now drained, some reeking scullion may , Fill with foul slop and rudely cast away." "Hooray, my Lord Hamlet!" cried the Colonel, in a maudlin way. "Whose treat is it?" "Yours," sobbed Mr. Jecur, overcome with tender emotion. "Yours-ah, because you were caught cheating-ah." The Colonel recovered his dignity at once; his face grew pain- fully saint-like, and you could see penance written in every line. "Jecur, you d --d grave-digger!" he thundered, "you are always putting yourself in scenes where you don't belong!" "What, my Lord Polonius," cried the sportive Flayer, "do page: 46-47[View Page 46-47] THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. you call our tender Jecur the grave-digger ? Why, you fool, he's the chaste Ophelia!" The house exploded, of course. "Oh, come, Colonel, come," coaxed- Cocktail, "stand up to the rack; you know the rule." "Gentlemen," said the Colonel, with impressive dignity, "if I were not at present suffering from prescriptive impecuniosity, it would afford me pleasure to comply with that time-honored cus- tom of the legal profession, which requires, not him who cheats -for that would include all of our card-party to-night-but him who is caught cheating, to stand the drinks." "He lies, the Apollo-faced pinch-penny," exclaimed the Judge. "He has won at least a double-handful of fips and levies from me to-night." "Gentlemen," responded the Colonel, with even more dignity than before, "I protest that I am two months in arrear for board, and that my landlady will certainly kick me into the street, unless I pay something this week. I submit whether I am not excus- able, under all the circumstances, for not obeying the rule." "Let him off, let him off," cried the generous bystanders, with one voice. "Can he prove his allegation? Don't take his word for it," insisted Cocktail. "What he says is true-ah, to-to-to my certain knowledge," wept pathetic Jecur. "That's no proof-none at all," answered Cocktail, who wanted another drink. At this moment a rap was made on a window in the side of the little house, near where the learned men were prosecuting their social drunk. They all looked somewhat anxiously towards the window. The sash was slowly raised, but the intruder seemed to stand aside from the stream of light purposely, and was not vis- ible. A small, fair hand pressed up the sash, in great agitation, yet its possessor restrained by timidity, still hesitated to reveal herself. "Get out of that," shouted Cocktail, impatiently. "Begone from there, and let professional gentlemen enjoy a serene and uninterrupted drunk. "Who the dickens are you?" he cried, still more petulantly, as the window remained up, yet no one could be seen. "Only a drunmcikrd's wife," said a voice without, and then a PUNDITS AND PARIAHS. 47 face, which must have been very beautiful before sorrow had marred its freshness, appeared at the window. "Only a drunk- ard's zwife, looking for her husband, whom a party of disinter- ested gentlemen have led to utter ruin. 0, Johnsy," she continued, "come away from these vile and wicked men. Do you not know me, Johnsy? It is your wife who calls you. It is Mary, your own Mary, calling you to go home." The den, but now so full of boisterous merriment, suddenly became as still as the grave, and shame bowed many a head that never could be bowed for sympathy. The wretched husband, the most loathsome wreck of all, as if impelled by a divine command, rose to his feet and staggered towards the door. But the' brutalizing poison which he had swallowed had now become stronger than his will, and his bewildered intellect refused to guide him. Unable to go further he leaned against the railing and looked around with a melancholy, imploring stare, as if striving to break the spell which bound his faculties. None of his boon companions, or of the rabble, offered to assist him-perhaps none of them ddred to go into the presence of that suffering wife- but a child who was there sprang forward with eager.. step and full heart, and took the drunkard's hand, and led him out of the den to the faithful wife, who was already at the door and waiting. "Oh, I thank you, sweet boy," she sobbed, bending down and kissing the fair and eagerly lifted face. "I would not have entered that pit of darkness myself, and my poor husband could not get out alone. Lean on my arm, my husband," said she to him, in a tone whose forgiving tenderness contained no mixture of reproach, "and let me lead you home-home, Johnsy, home. Does not the word thrill you even now ?-home, to the sweet unhappy babes that God has given us." He obeyed her as if he had been himself a child; and then she led him away through the drizzling rain and "misty darkness, under the streaming lamps which could not dispel the-thick- gathering gloom-not thicker, and darker, and more cheerless than the gloom of her faithful and devoted life. This incident threw a momentary-only momentary-damper over the spirits of the boon pettifoggers. Mr. Jecur stopped snivelling, and snuffed the candle very sedately; Mr. Flayer pat- ted the top of his head with his hand; and Colonel Overshot- page: 48-49[View Page 48-49] 48 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. as if all was certainly over for that night-again drew the aces from his sleeves and returned the deck to the table-drawer. Cock- tail alone retained his usual sprightliness. "By the gods, it's wonderful," chirped he, "how that woman still sticks to the old corpus. And she's a- fine-looking woman, too. But -there's no telling what a woman won't do when she once imagines she loves a fellow." "Ain't there some sort of a yarn about their courtship?" inquired Mr. Jecur, one of whose peculiarities it was that he never knew anything definite about any subject that could be mentioned. "Of course there is," replied Cocktail. "There is a yarn about every woman's courtship." "Tell us the story about old Mack and this woman," requested several of the crowd. Cocktail declared, in true lawyer-like fashion, that he would tell the story if somebody would get him some more whiskey. The request was complied with, and then followed a tale of love and injury, of patient suffering and slowly rendered justice, which entertained the rabble admirably, and was commented on by them in the style you might expect. But one heard it whose young cheeks grew hot with indignation, and whose sensibili- ties, intensely shocked by even the small part of it which he understood, made him speechless, until another pale, sad face, well-pleased at once with his anger and his sensibility, bent down and praised him with a kiss. "Don't kiss me, mother," said the boy, turning away his face. "I'm too low-flung. And don't look at me, please; for I don't want you to find out how mean I feel." "What makes you feel mean, my darling?" asked the mother, with a smile. "Why, being here, and feeling so sorry, when I just despise them all-and even that poor, poor lady, because she loves him." "Repress your sorrow, my manly one, but not your pity. The history of the human heart is written in blood which its errors spill.. Despise not too entirely, my suckling Hercules, the weakness of unworthy love, which will never menace thy stalwart heart; for, alas, many of the most steadfast and unselfish loves are unworthy. In religion, in affection, in ambition, in philan- thropy, everywhere, how disastrous is sublime emotion, and hitherto how wasted, yet not therefore the less grand." A NIGHT FOR ALL TIME. 49 "But are we going to love mean people unless we are mean too? And, then, it makes us feel so mean. You don't know." "If we are noble we cannot love meanness, my darling; but we may love the nobleness it debases. Love lifts up its object, and transmutes it with its own nobleness. 'Tis it that is redeem- ing the earth, my darling. If it waited till we were worthy, should we ever be worthy ? Think how even the poor, weak- human heart clings, and clings, and cannot give up its love, and see -even in its perversions a likeness to the holiness and strength of the Infinite heart. Forgetting the guilt and shame of the world for which they labored, forgiving its neglect, and lies, and injuries, and with eternal constancy still loving and toiling on-this has been the lot of the great hearts of whom the world was not worthy. A mother's fear looks far, my darling, and foreseeing a time when righteous scorn will heat your heart to whiteness, I would have you never, forget this woman's holy love, and the loathsome scene it has redeemed." ''Yes, mother," said the boy; but that was all. CHAPTER IV. A NIGHT FOR ALL TIME. THE incident just narrated was the signal for the general breaking up and dispersion of the crowd; and our two outcasts, who had remained there because they had nowhere else to go, were now compelled to depart. Night had long since' closed .in, and floods of November rain, intermiangled with hail, were pouring from the extinguished sky, through almost impenetrable mist and gloom. Without a penny, a crumb of bread, or a pre- tended friend in all the wide and desolate world-ah, God! we are sunk low when not even one human being deems it worth while to prey on us longer-and with the skeleton arm of Death locked tight around the few thin rags which covered the mother's wasted frame, they went out into the soaked and overflowing streets. It reaches the climax of intensification to say that 3 page: 50-51[View Page 50-51] 50 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. never before in all the years of their vagabondage had they been in so desperate a strait as this. With every step they took the air grew thicker, and the freezing floods poured down in- torrents that bit and stung the shrivelling skin with colder, fiercer and more bitter teeth. The bewildered light struggled feebly out of the misty lamps, and then, incapable of penetrating the thick darkness, dropped down, as if spent and weary from the effort, on the wet, glistening bricks. The befogged and slender jets of gas seemed to be unusually far apart, and looked like a troop of emaciated and disconsolate will-o-the-wisps. The trees that lined the pavement, as you looked towards the lamps through the branches, became great burrs of vapor, with alternate ribs of light and darkness radiating far out on every side. In the long lines of drenched and noiseless houses, with their dark, dripping fronts and roaring spouts, selfish Comfort. had mewed herself up on purpose that not a ray from her happy sphere might glint through to cheer or madden the wanderer. Wherever, here and there, the shutters were not closed, the light streamed out of the tiers of windows in benches of misty dimness rising one above the- other, with layers of darkness between and banks. of gloom on either side, like balconies for mouldy demons of the night to walk upon. Rayless and full of desolation seemed all the world. Language has never told, and never can tell, how the human heart sinks away, and seems to utterly die out of all exis- tence, as the fullness of such a scene rolls in upon it, as a per- sonal experience, like a sea of liquid ice and darkness. A lamp-post with a vaporous white ghost struggling in its mist-clogged glass, stood on the corner of the nearest street. The mother, propped by the puny shoulder that tried to swell up to manhood in its eagerness to support her, reached this, and leaned against it. e Yet it was scarcely so much fatigue that madei her pause there, as the pitiable indecision of aimless despon- dency, hesitating where there is a choice of ways. Her palsied forehead pressed into deeper dents against that iron post-her soft brown hair falling loose over her cheeks of waxen hue and numbness--the snow-white lids, and long, dark lashes drooping heavily over her downcast eyes-one chilled and nerveless hand feebly attempting to relieve the pressure of her head against its 'hard support, the other extended- to her child-and sighs that must have pierced the bosom of God, breaking from her blood- less lips-it was thus she stood. A NIGHT FOR ALL TIME. 51 The boy was speechless till she moaned: "My poor child, surely this will kill you." Then he replied stoutly: "Pshaw, mother, this isn't much of a pickle. Forty such storms couldn't make my little finger cry enough. If they would only hit on the outside all the time," he added, ruefully. "Mother, darling," he continued, very eagerly and rapidly, "it doesn't chill you very much, does it, sweet, sweet mother?" "Yes, my son, it is chilling me to death." "No, no, mother, it can't do that. Don't you think of such a thing as that, mother. But let's find a flight of high steps some- where, and get under them right quick." "I cannot go," she replied. "If I leave the post I shall fall." "But I can hold you, mother, darling. Don't you know I can? Lean on me, and let's go, right now, sweet mother. Oh, but don't it cut keen now!/" in an undertone. "Did a hailstone strike you, darling?" solicited the mother. "I don't know. I think SOMr'I',-NG threw a lump of ice at me very hard, from just up there where it is darkest. Oh, I wonder if God knows how this storm is going on down here, and why He don't stop it." 'lHush, my child," was the only answer which she could give efthe puzzle the child had started; for she felt what a perfect mockery the usual explanation would be then. Just then a man passed by. The boy looked curiously and enviously at the man's great umbrella, and comfortable shawl and rubbers; and when he saw with burning eyes that it was Phipps-for it was he-a savage impulse to murder him, and take his things for his mother, flashed through him like a stream of lurid and infernal fire. The robber, protected by ample cov- erings from the storm which beat pitilessly upon his victims, as the subterfuges of the law protected him from justice, strode on in complacent comfort without noticing them. Then suddenly the mother became aware, as if by instinct, of the presence of some other foe. A shudder, not wholly born of cold, passed through her frame; alertness and power came in with a spasm, and cast out lethargy and weakness. Casting rapid glances around on every side, while her son, well knowing from former experiences what she was looking for, followed her eyes with his own, she indeed soon beheld, near at hand and approaching, page: 52-53[View Page 52-53] 52 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. the one being whom she most dreaded, and had most reason to dread of all on earth. Instantly she sprang away like a fawn, dragging her child onward so rapidly that his arm seemed to him to be parting from his shoulder at every step. They flitted through alleys, and by-lanes, and around many corners, and then finding themselves in a wide, long street, they flew on and on down this until it was street no longer, but a road with open fields on either hand. There they stopped running, and the mother,-dropping the child's hand, reeled to a bank at the side of the road, and fell down on the soaked turf convulsed and strug- gling for breath. So sudden was the action, that the boy for a moment had lost his mother, and was groping towards her in the darkness, guided by the uncertain direction of her groans, when a glimmer of diffuse wintry lightning quivered up and down before his eyes, illuminating the long, dark threads of rain and hail; and by its cold, unsteady glare he saw his mother, peer of the angels, lying there beside the highway, a homeless beggar, with a few dripping rags clinging to her person, her bonnet fall- ing limp and shapeless over half of her ghostlike face, her sodden dress besmeared and whitened by the gray sludge of the road, and the pitiless sky still drenching her with its freezing floods. - The boy sturdily choked down his heart, and then as he tried to lift her up, entreated: "Mother, darling, please get up lright now. You may take cold if you lie here this way. Get up, sweet mother; for the sake of heaven, do please get upfast, and let me take you some- where where it isn't raining-if it isn't raining everywhere in all this world." "Don't conjure me for the sake of heaven," she moaned; "heaven cares nothing for a wretch like me." "Oh, yes, it does, sweet mother," he protested earnestly. "I know that the good angels all love you, and would be sorry if you were to take cold;" for he would not admit that any greater calamity was possible. "But I'm afraid they can't help us much." "And I know, too, that the angels love me," she said, con- vinced by his innocent love, "and I will try to do as they wish." So saying, with his assistance she struggled to her feet, and, supported by him, staggered to the nearest house-a palatial villa, -.1 A NIGHT FOR A L TIME. 53 a gilded burrow of surfeit and profligate pride. She crept up the steps and rang the bell; for, city fashion, the door had a bell. Low as she was now sunk by indigence and incurable disease- far lower than ever before-she still tried to trim between neces- sity and self-respect, and instead of appealing for charity, which might possibly have been thrown at her in some fashion, she passionately implored the Congo Brummel who answered the bell, to ask his mistress if she would take them in out of the storm, and let them pay for their entertainment in any kind of work whatever, from teaching every language and every feminine art, down to the menial services of the kitchen. The fellow looked at them for a moment, as if he could not quite get it through his skull what they wanted; then comprehending that they actu- ally wanted to come in, he gave an astonished whistle, slammed the door in their faces, and, went back to his interrupted doze by the fire. Then the mother dragged herself with difficulty back to the road, and they went on from one to another of the clustering villas--there were no poor men's houses along there, where the fellow-feeling that makes us kind might have taken them in--and were repulsed from all. They then tried the barns and out-houses, thminking to stop in one of these till the freezing rain should be over; but they were all locked. Finally, prompted by despair, they adopted the plan of going first to the servants' quarters- of the great houses and imploring the yawning and frolicking negroes to bear word to their mistresses that a sick woman and a little boy wanted shelter, and food, and work, no matter what, to pay for them. Generally they were ordered by the sleek and insolent slaves to get out at once, for poor white trash from the city were always coming along there, and their mistresses would not be bothered with them. But sometimes, in response to the wretched mother's entreaties, they went, with broad grins on their nitid faces, and then they always returned with the answer that their mistresses said she must clear out. At length they had passed in this manner, and with the same unvarying result, the thick country-seats, and reached a vicinage where the farms were larger and the houses more sparse. The rain had been somewhat checked by the increasing cold, and the clouds, preparing to break away, filtered down a shimmering light on the drowned world. To the right, at a distance from the road, they saw a magnificent mansion, with gloomy front and page: 54-55[View Page 54-55] 54 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. shadowy turrets, towering through the dappling mist. Oaks and chestnuts, stripped by the dirges of "the melancholy days," threw up their bare arms around it, like ranks of skeletons. The outcasts stood side by side at the great gate, leaning against it and gazing wistfully between its iron bars, up the long, white, winding roads, through the naked grove, towards the mansion; and then in the mother's mind, suggested by the magnificence before her, rose the proud home where she had reigned. She who had been the peer of queens, what was she now? A with- ered leaf, whirling in the keen and bitter blasts of the soul's November, fallen on her so early and forever; a bruised flower snapped from its stalk and floating on the cold wild waves; a thing of frail, exquisite beauty, dying away out of an inhospit- able world; and the first snow would be her winding-sheet. Urged by reflection, and still gazing through the iron gate at the bare grove, she spoke aloud: "All hail, November! Gloomy king of seasons and of human souls, thy slave kneels and salutes thee." As she spoke, the waning moon thrust the sharp tip of one silver horn through the brown-papery clouds, and a single thread of light unwinding thence and being prismed into floss by the thick atmosphere, fell on her hair and seemed to weave itself into a halo there. And beyond the clouds, though no man heard them, a chorus of angels sang: "Peer of the angels, -thy sisters await thee above the clouds, eager to transplant thee to the celestial gardens of God, where the failures of this world blossom out into the fairest flowers of heaven," The mansion before them was evidently their last hope, for no other dwelling was in sight, and the last remains of the mother's strength, supplied by terror, were now entirely spent. They passed through the gate, and up one of the long, white, serpen- tine roads, through the stripped grove, to the mansion, and ascended the granite steps and knocked. -After a long time a sable Adonis, spruced and bedizened manifestly within one nar- row inch of his life, obeyed the summons and opened the door. When he saw their forlorn condition, he would have shut the door in their faces, but the mother, rendered desperate by repeated disappointment, pushed resolutely past him. She sank upon a sofa in the hall, and told the negro to inform his mistress that a lady-how sad the word sounded as she unconsciously used it- was in the hall and wished to see her. He asked what her busi- A NIGHT FOR ALL TIME, 55 ness was, but knowing that the mention of it would lead to instant ejectment, she declined to give it. He hesitated and finically "dem-me-ed" considerably, but finally went off up stairs mutter- ing to himself. How splendid that hall looked to these poor, poor wanderers. The spacious walls, covered with paper of a dark, suggestive hue, figured with rude Levantine and Venetian sketches; the wide rotunda, with its works of art; the magnificent staircase which ascended to the second floor; the massive, dark-grained doors; the sofa, which seemed to spurn the pauper and her dripping rags --what feverish hunger these stirred afresh in those hearts which so loved elegance and culture, and were so fitted for them, yet were crushed down into the mire of the gutter by indigence and sorrow. How exalted the owner and occupants of that mansion seemed at that moment-how favored, how blest, how happy-how down in their starved and aching hearts they envied them! Presently, the woman already described in the second chapter of this history, came gliding down stairs, drew up to them with an air of curious contempt, and demanded: "Well, woman, what is your business here?" "To implore shelter from this awful storm, and something to eat, and employment in any capacity to pay for them." "Neither shelter from this awful storm, nor something to eat, nor employment in any capacity to pay for them, can you get here," Timicked the woman, insultingly, "for my aunt allows no 'piblions' in her house; and so the quicker you clear out the bet- ter." "Then you are not the mistress of the house?" inquired the mother, eagerly, as mention of an aunt gave her one more straw to grasp at. "Please, madam, say to your aunt that I implore her to come here for a single moment." "That is altogether unnecessary,"' said she of the nose and chin, with insulted importance. "I can dispose of you." "But, madam," pleaded the wretched mother, "you do not know the importance and urgency of my request. Will you not ask your aunt to come down, when I entreat you so earnestly to do so?" Luckily, the woman misunderstood her meaning, and thereby hangs a trait. She hesitated a moment, and gazed with her great, Indian, would-be-shrewd eyes, first at the mother and then at the page: 56-57[View Page 56-57] 56 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. son. Their faces and manners had, unknown to her, produced an effect on her, and, like all people of her class, unable to admit the fact fully into her consciousness on account of their present lowly estate, and incapable of tracing it to its real source, she mixed it up with the impressions which were sharpest cut in her own mind, and had been for years the substratum of mystery with which she- had associated every unaccountable event. "It hap- pened once," she soliloquized; "who knows but it might happen again? She is sixty, but the imp, from his looks, may be forty just as easy as four. How old are you, little boy?" "I am very old," replied the child, saying a very pathetic thiing, while only trying to be non-committal. "If I ever was young I can't remember it, and I didn't mean any harm by it, madam." "So, so," went on the little woman's thoughts, "there is some- thing back of this, sure, and I should commit an unpardonable blunder to oust them without further ceremony." So she suddenly conceived for the mother a respect she had not felt before, and in the first impulse of the new emotion said, with great deference: "Since you request it, madam, I will tell my aunt that you wish to see her in person." So true is it that a mean mind must first misconstrue and debase you before it can have the least respect for you. E. g., if you are Colonel of a "Nigger Regiment," people will think more of you if they believe you went into it for $250 a month, than if they believe you went into it from principle. Starting off, she took about half a dozen rapid steps; but the moment she no longer saw their faces, the charm which had been at work was broken. With every step she took away from them, the more she felt that she was treating them with entirely too much consideration, and the more she felt ashamed of herself for doing so. She took out her snuffbox: it was her Secretary Sew- ard and Oracle of Delphi., She fell into a slower pace, and walked o on slowly and in meditation towards the foot bf the stairs, her slippers tapping furtively as she waved onward leisurely like a snake. Between every two steps she took a pinch of snuff, and every time she sniffed her nose she sniffed up a fresh suspicion. She stopped at the first stair-step, and turned around and looked at them again. "Might I not just as well go back and put them out at once?" she asked. In order to decide, she took a pinch of snuff. The association before awakened in her mind reasserted A NIGHT FOR ALL TIME. 57 its influence as she stood looking at them and sniffing her nose, and so she concluded to go on upstairs. But she so far modified her original promise as to resolve not to ask her aunt to come down, but to discover, if possible, by dint of shrewd inquiries, whether her aunt knew such a woman as this. She faced to the front again, and ascended the first step. Then she faced to the rear again, and cried out, with a sort of simper, full at once of fawning and malice-a union often seen in people of her kind: "Ain't it too bad now, I say, for people who have got wealthy aunts, to be pestered to death in this fashion, carrying messages to them for low 'piblions' like you?"And then she disappeared up the steps. She remained a long time. When at length she came down, there was-a luminous satisfaction in her face which showed that she felt sure she could now kick them out without the least risk. Swooping down upon them, she stated, in very "energetic" terms, that her aunt had refused to come down, and that they must clear out. "But did you ask her, madam?" persisted the mother's desper- ation," whether she would take me as a seamstress, simply for the food my child and I would eat? Will you not please, good madam, to ask her whether she will not take me as a seamstress on those terms? My child and I eat very little. If you will go, kind madam, and ask your aunt about it, oh, I shall be very grateful to you." The little woman brought down her heel with a furious smack against the floor. The miserable beggar, see- ing the rising impatience which, like steam in a valve, began to force apart that nose and chin, went on, before the nose and chin could get far enough apart for the torrent to break out: "It is possible-I am sure it is possible, madam-that your aunt may want a music-teacher, too. Has she not daughters who take music and French lessons? I will do all their dress-making and embroidery, and teach them French and Italian and the harp, the piano, and the guitar. And I will work very cheap, madam. I will work for what my son and I may eat, and. she will find no one, madam, who will eat so little, as we." "Daughters!" screamed the matrimonial monitor. "Daugh- ters! Don't you know, you poor idiot, that ladies don't have daughters for you to teach your French flummeries and fiddle- sticks to, within six weeks after they are married? Get out; get out, I say; get out." page: 58-59[View Page 58-59] 58 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. Then the child, feeling that he would far rather die than see his mother go out into the mire and darkness again, went up in front of the little woman, and looking straight into her eyes, asked, with a feeling which was a droll mixt ure of audacious honesty with courtesy: "Please ma'am, tell me, you awful wicked little woman you, would the large wicked woman upstairs like to have a little boy to do anything?" "Have a little boy?" screamed the little woman. "Get out yon fierce little cock-sparrow; I'll not submit to it; shoo-get out- get out;" and out they went. She locked and double-barred the door after them. Standing on the cold, wet granite outside, they heard the harsh bolts rattle, and a moment later heard her complacent step tip-tip along the hall and up the stairs. How bitter, how fraught with madness was the contrast, when she was so blessed and they so utterly accursed. They crept down the steps, and, with many pauses, down the long lawn to the road, and then the mother sank down on a pile of broken stones utterly unable to go further. Her child crouched down beside her, and propped her head from the icy stones with his shoulder, and sheltered her freezing hands in his little bosom; and then in her nervelessness and weakness melted at the sight of his care, she wept as only the heart-broken weep. "Don't cry, sweet little mother," he entreated, with fervor of appeal'and condolence which would have graced the lips of a cherub; "don't cry, mother, darling; for you know when I am grown, you shall never have any more trouble then." That was drawing comfort from a distance, but it was all the case admitted. "Yes, my boy, but it will be a long, long time before you will be able to work for me." "Oh, no, mother," he deprecated vigorously, "not so very long. I am almost a man now; I'm three feet high already, and you don't know how fast Igrow. There, don't cry, dear mother; please don't cry any more; for I'll get to be a man just as fast as ever I can, and then I'll take care of you. " Feeling that she would gladly endure far more than this, if possible, for the sake of witnessing his pathetic earnestness in her behalf, and of being comforted by him, she said: "If you say, my darling, that I must not weep, I will dry my tears." And when he repeated the injunction, with many childish and peculiar A NIGHT FOR ALT TIME. 59 arguments to support it, she not only ceased weeping, but even thought she was smiling as she kissed him. Presently they heard some one come splashing along the road, through the mud and water, and saw a shadowy figure approaching. The person passed by without seeing them, and was turning in at the gate, when, in the failure of his other senses, the instinct of prey seemed to inform him of their presence, and he went back and found them hovering there on the bank. Stooping down, he curiously scanned them, and then exclaimed, in astonishment: "Drasshopper shoot me, if it ain't the Dutch defendant!"And suddenly, too, it occurred to him that this was "the party" for whom the ruffian he had encountered in the outskirts of the city was inquiring, and for whose apprehension he was offering that fabulous reward. With a few sympathetic phrases, he wheedled out of them a passionate appeal for help. Having accomplished this, he raised the mother from the ground with every demon- stration of pity and respect, drew some other man's handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the sleet from her numbed face and hands, and declared "by jolly"--whatever that is-his intention of finding them food and shelter, and procuring them some dry "tlose." Supporting the mother on his arm, and sheltering her with his umbrella, he led them up to the iron gate again, and raised the latch to go in. Never before in all the world had the heart of a child felt such a weight lifted off as this boy's at this Good Samaritan's first offer of food and shelter to his dying mother. He could have fallen upon his knees and worshipped this unknown benefactor. But when the latter led them back to the gate again, the boy's heart recoiled with a perfect sickness of disappointment, and with an inexpressible sense of degradation, he explained: "Sir, we have just been driven away from there." "Who drove you away?" asked the gentleman, in the most matter-of-fact manner imaginable. "A little woman, all muddy in the face, and very wicked." "Who else did you see?" "A mulatto dandy, all curls and boot-heels, and neckties, and things like that." "Ah, the mellifluous Tobe. Any one else?" "Well, I hardly know about that, sir. There was a Turk- hearted Highness upstairs with forty little Satans done up in her page: 60-61[View Page 60-61] 60 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. hair, like rats and mice,"----the gentleman laughed--"but we- didn't go where she was. I saw her, though, and she's an awful hag,"-- the gentleman laughed loudly--"with a nose like the Duke of Wellington's "- the gentleman laughed immoderately- "iron-gray hair, and slate-colored eyes,"--the gentleman still laughed-" and on the forefinger of her right hand there is a big claw that she kills little babies with." The gentleman snarled. "Well, it's all so, " persisted the boy, " whether you like it or not." "All so? Of course, it's all so," said the gentleman, recovering himself. "Well, come along,- come along," he continued, in a very bold voice. "I happen to have something to say as to who shall enter here." "Are you the gentleman of the house?" asked the boy, still smarting at the thought of returning to the house whence they had been expelled. "Much the same," replied the gentleman with the blandness of tone which marks a rich man's modesty, and which meant he was the very same. But his lie kicked back at him like an old musket, as he let it off, and punished him severely. It started associations which made him cry out a moment afterwards, in a voice so sharp and impish, so like a burnt young devil's screech of pain, that it made the boy jump: "I am-yes, by the longest poker in perdi- tion, I am and will be the gentleman of the house." Just then the gate went to after them with a clang which said: "safe in at last." But instantly it seemed to the child's palsied heart that in the hollow echo of that clang he heard a legion of November ghosts among the bare oaks and chestnuts on the lawn, gibbering; "Safe in at last." For in that instant, looking curiously at their deliverer's face to see why he was so suddenly changed, he recog- nized in him Phipps, the villain who had robbed them. But he said nothing to his mother of the discovery he had made. Following one of the pebbled roads, Phipps conducted them around the mansion to the negTo-kitchen, which in such weather as this served as a general room for all the slaves except the older ones; these were permitted to have fires in their own cabins. The door was standing open, and a blazing fire within threw a broad red glare far out on the dead, sleet-stiffened, glittering grass. Half a dozen negro men stood around the hearth drying their gray, fulled suits, which had been thoroughly soaked by the rain and sleet. They stared at the new-comers with their great white eyes, but manifested no disposition to give them room. ;'. A NIGHT FOR ALL TIME. 61 "SMake way here," cried Phipps, his skinny cheek becoming livid with rage. "By thunder! till I rule you by a better right I'll do my share of hectoring." The woman retired, and the children scampered to the back of the room, and the men huddled towards the far end of the heartli, vacating the nearer. "Here," said Phipps, placing a shuck-bottomed chair before the fire, " sit down and dry your tlose, and rub the mud off, and look decent if you know how, by the time I come back." That was the way he got them some " dry tlose." And then he went away. The little negroes, with their bright black faces glistening in the ruddy light of the fire and of the grease lamp which sputtered on the dresser, now came crowding around the strangers with eager interest, looking with wonder on their pale faces and reeking clothes; but as soon as their curiosity was satisfied, they drew off in disgust, evidently of the opinion that they were not much. The negro men at the other end of the hearth also felt free now to display their contempt for them, and were not slack in the exhibi- tion. Phipps's protection, not particularly efficacious in his pres- ence, invited insolence the moment his back was turned. "Wonder whar he picked 'em. up," whispered one thick-lipped fellow, rolling up the whites of his big eyes. "Some of his set, I 'spect," decided another gruffly. "P-o-o-r white trash," drawled the wit of the party, and then he groaned as if the idea had given him the colic. The rest snickered and grimaced, and said that was pretty good, and the perpetrator of the "joke," seeing its success, guffawed incontrollably. But, though the objects of this insolence received it with unruffled composure, the facetious-hero's triumph was short-lived. A negro woman seized a stick of wood, and by a well directed blow laid his forehead open; and when his companions would have interfered, the woman's husband, a determined and fierce-looking negro, i drew a bowie-knife from his pocket and stepped to her side, and quiet was instantly restored. This negro husband and wife were remarkable specimens of their race, and will reappear frequently in the course of this his- tory. He was a man of powerful frame, possessing every feature of his race except the flat nose, blubber-lips and peculiar extremi- ties, and having stubborn power of endurance stamped all over his page: 62-63[View Page 62-63] face and form. She was so short of stature and so great of girth that she seemed to be almost as broad as she was long. Her face was broad, fat, flat and black as jet. Her hair was a mat of grisly bristles, black at the side, but yellowish red on top from having been scorched in carrying out pans of hot ashes. Her habitual Iress, winter and summer, was a blue twilled-cotton frock, and a white apron of ample proportions and spotless hue. At the be- ginning of spring, she always rolled up her sleeves so as to leave her enormous arms bare; she was then in summer costume. In ;he fall, she rolled them down again, and then she was i-n winter tress. That was all the regard she ever-paid to the changes of the reasons. Her name was Cleopatra, in honor of the famous beauty Af Egypt; but somehow she was never called anything but Pats. Eer husband's name was Jerry. The negro woman, going up to the pale stranger of the white 'ace and saluting her deferentially as " mistress," made offer of ier services. She removed the sodden bonnet, and shook the long rtown hair free from water, and brushed it over the waxen brow, and rubbed the grit of the macadamized road from the drying Iress still lank and drooping from the rain.- Presently, Phipps returned and conducted the strangers into the mansion and down he eastern hall to the door of the library. He opened the door or them and bade them enter, but he remained on the outside and softly closed the door behind them. CHAPTER V. 4 AN EXEMPiJb- OF THE IE OP CHRIST. A GFENTTi AYN in studying-gown and slippers sat by a bright coal re, with a lamp on the table at his side. He had an open bible pread upon his knees, and a sheet of paper partly covered with totes lay on the book. He held a pencil in one hand, and with it ubbed ever and anon the tip of his nose, while in the other he rasped a poker with which he punched the fire abstractedly, like man delving an infertile mind for ideas. This was Saturday ight, and he was to preach on the morrow in one of the great hurches in the city. He had already stolen from various sources AN EXEMPLIFiB OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 0k the body of his discourse, and was now engaged in the irksome and hated task of composing the original portions which must seam the fragments together and constitute the medley a whole. As the wanderers entered, he looked up hastily from his urgent task, which despite Phipps's call and their expected coming, he had still pursued with vigorous application to the last moment-this was characteristic of him-and fixed on them a look which, for searching, penetrating power and stealth, the world might have been defied to equal. This was intended to supply him with ma- terials for answering the two-pronged question which was always the first this holy man asked on looking at any human being-- "Are they worth using? Then, how can I use them?"The woman's wonderful though faded beauty, the delicacy and refine- ment of her features and manners, the noble cast of her counte- nance and the touching sadness which rested upon it, told him she was no common beggar, nor even an ordinary character. His gaze then passed on to the child, and after a scrutiny that made the boy's flesh creep-so cold, so brutally selfish, so stealthy, so hideously devilish was it-the decision, as the boy read it in the gentleman's eyes quite aslclearly as the gentleman himself read it in his own consciousness, was: ("You are but a little stray, while I am lord of this magnificence; but I have use for you, and for reasons of my own I am glad that you are here." But he, stand- ing there in his wet rags, on the rich carpet, and not blenching under this terrible scrutiny-though his heart quaked and shud- dered, as it always did to the last hour of his life in the presence of a vile and brutal man or woman-with busts and hangings and the tall shelves filled with a world of books, and every sign and means of culture glowing with a light almost divine, before his yearning eyes-felt a sinking away of the soul; and though he did not fear this man, and would have died rather than quail before him, yet, oh, he abhorred him, and sickened at the sight of him, and would have given the universe to to be out again in the cold and darkness, lying on the pile of broken stones beside the road where Phipps had found them. Disgust, repugnance, detestation, and fierce and flaming hatred sprang at once to full stature in his heart. An impression in whose deep furrow execration dropped her bitter seed, to bear fruit through all the coming years, according to the stages of his growth, was ploughed into his soul. page: 64-65[View Page 64-65] " - THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. The impressions of the holy man, to whom on the morrow precious souls were to be given as his hire, were conclusively ex- hibited by one thing he did not do and two things that he did. First, he did not ask them to sit down; because he saw how ex- hausted, how scarcely able to stand, the mother was, and he did not care to abate for one instant her weariness and weakness, or to make her feel at ease. Secondly, he arose from his own seat, and gave his shoulders an unconscious shrug, like a cool and col- lected yet apprehensive logician who is about to argue some hard and doubtful point, while his singularly retentive countenance as- sumed additional retention, and Circumspection doubled her chain of sentinels over all his face. Thirdly, he closed the sacred volume, 'set it on end upon the table, just under the shaded lamp, in such a position that the large gilt letters, " Holy Bible," should be distinctly before the eyes of the strangers, kept his hand clasped over the edges of, the book, and gave them a most archi- episcopal survey. Now, it is a misfortune which often befalls " great men" in this world, that just as they have settled themselves in magnificent pose well calculated to impress our littleness with a sense of their greatness, the human nature that is in us improves the occasion, not to adore the great man, but to stick him full of critical pins; and if he could but arrive at our ,secret thoughts, at the precise moment when the judges we are effectually done for and ready to worship him, he would often make discoveries that would astonish him. Therefore, while this gentleman is standing in position, let us see whether we can command venom enough to tell you how great he is. To make a thorough dissection of him would be no easy task for even the keenest and nimblest pen. He is unusually tall, but it requires a second look to make you quite sure that he is so. His frame is large, jaggdd and incompact, but juiciest flesh iswells out and softly covers every angle, and sinews strong as steel but pliable as silk knit every joint and grapple every bone; and his carriage, while slouchy, is wonderfully alert. You notice at once a singular contradiction between his hair and his eyes. The lat- ter are coal black and piercing, the former a muddy, frowsy, unclean and stupid white. His face is shaven to the smoothness of a peeled onion, but under his chin and around his throat he wears a short, frizzled, black beard, with here- and there a strand AN EXAMPLER OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 65 of gray. His cheeks are broad, heavy, protuberant and copper- ish; resembling the smoky, yellow and rounded swell of a country ham; yet, in spite of this vulgar prominence, they possess an indescribable appearance of retention, as if not half the character or of any sentiment is ever disclosed. Let us now explain these contradictions by including them in longer and tougher ones. Mentally and morally, not less than physically, he is made up of nicely dove-tailed and mutually ancillary opposites. Traits entirely antagonistic, and you would suppose necessarily exclusive of each other, supply each other's deficiencies and make up a complete and faultless whole, upon whose like may the world never look again. You wonder how these opposite qualities can coexist in such perfection; but you might as well wonder how vertical angles can be equal, or how a balance can have two equal arms. The holy man's full name is Reverend and Honorable Theospo- lophilus Greed, D D., M. C., which symbols being interpreted for the benefit of plain people mean, in God's honest English, that he is a whining and ravenous politico-clerical hybrid, leprous with the uncleanness of his monstrous origin. : We happy democrats, contemptuous of soap-soft-soap excepted--can count it among our privileges, though the slaves of tyrants cannot do so, to understand how it is that the ministers of a pure religion which is refused an establishment may be at once the dirtiest and -the most successful spoilsmen in the scramble of politics. Nemesis loves a grim joke. While you are dancing with pain and remorse, she plays your own wicked tunes on a cracked fiddle for you to caper to. When the Americans turned Good out of their govern- ment, she sent polymorphous Satan up the back stairs in a cas- sock, and distributed him into more seats, let us piously hope, than his blackballed rival would ever have wanted in such a place. Wherefore, it is metaphysically possible, and doth come to pass, that this holy man is at once ponderous and lithe, pachyderma- tous and feline; no rhinocerous ever had so tough a hide, no cat so velvety and adroit a paw. In the hard head of a somewhat superannuated lamb of the fold, he has the eyes of a lynx, the fangs of a serpent, and the tongue of the very devil himself. On one side he is barren as Sahara, on the other fruitful as the Delta; on one side inflexible as granite, on the other facile as a reed; on page: 66-67[View Page 66-67] " THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. one side as slow as the Louisville and Portland jog-trot express, on the other quicker than a Yankee creditor. He is at once the hardest and the most perfectly lubricated substance in the uni- verse. He slips over you so softly that you do not feel him, but wherever he touches you the skin peels off and the poisoned flesh rots from the bone. Trap-rock steeped in oil, bone and - marrow interpenetrated, a kitchen lamp soaked and reeking in its own dirty grease, are feeble images of his combined slipperiness and hardness. A trip-hammer could not crush him, and a vice could not hold him; theology indurates him and politics grease him, You could not lay your finger on him anywhere without encoun- tering the cold, rough point of some petrified theological dogma, well lubricated and assuaged by the slippery drippings of fat office. His disposition is intolerably peevish, irritable and violent, and intensely selfish, yet no man's passionswere ever so docile when his interests require that they shall be so. Unequalled wariness marks everything he says or does, even in his most violent moods. He has reduced dissimulation to a fine art. If anger is a short madness, he has brought its method to perfection. When the exhibition would injure him, he gulps down his rage, and serenely replies to an insult with a quotation from the gospels; when he has nothing to fear or something to gain, his tongue can slit a heart at every slash. He is the adroitest strategist that ever con- cocted or engineered a swindle. Craft- never forged a weapon of which he is not master. The archfiend himself would pick up many useful hints by observing the manoeuvres, and especially the conversation, manner and expression of face of this clerical knave while endeavoring to carry a point by artifice. When he lowers his voice and fixes his stealthy eyes upon your face, and yet with an air of perfect indifference and nonckalance puts the decisive point in some vague, obscure circumlocution, in some antithesis but half expressed; then, if you understand it all, or the half of it, you feel as if all Hades were looking on in breathless admiration. If he meets with a rebuff, he instantly withdraws all his forces-not a vestige of the purpose remains visible; but presently his scouts come stealing up again along some unguarded road. Apparently careless, apparently aiming at nothing, he is the most indefati- gable of men or demons, and rarely gives up a purpose unaccom- plished. When he sees that he has utterly failed, and that fur- AN EXEMPLII'EB OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 67 ther prosecution would be entirely futile, he weans himself directly, with remarkable acquiescence, from the project, raises the siege at once and forever, and devotes himself to new schemes with the same zeal and artifice, without giving his late failure a thought. The ease, completeness and contentment with which he detaches himself from objects which he has pursued with untiring zeal, is one of the most wonderful things about him. It seems inconsistent with both the violence and the petulance of his passions; nevertheless, it is not less a fact than they. It is his constant boast over the lay politicians, and it is true, that he "can change front faster than any. of them." He can abandon a cause with less remorse, and return to it again with less shame, than any other "great man" of them all; and as that is the test of greatness and success in modern "statesmanship," he swallows at least two loaves and a corresponding number of fishes to any other statesman's one. Firmly believing Jesus, the Saviour, to be divine, and denouncing in devout fury the whole piebald tribe of infidels as worse than heathens, he would yet swap him off any day for the German vote; and he adores the prophets most when he thinks how they could have cleared the corners if they had been American politicians. Whenever he wants an office, he swears he intends "to be on hands with 'em," meaning the people, or the nominating convention, as the case may be. Whenever he is about to take a step that he knows will increase his popularity--the word should be vulgarity-he always coquets, and smirks, and pretends to hesitate, after the fashion of politicians, and says he is "afraid it will injure him-ruin him to do so." Whenever he sees the political straws-the blessed office- arguing straws-beginning to fly in any direction, he makes haste to rush ahead of them, and then at once claims all the credit of raising that breeze; but as soon as the breeze dies out, and the straws begin to tumble into the ditches, he asserts that he has been at heart opposed to the whole movement from the first, and yielded his scruples only to the earnest entreaties of his "friends" -the common lie of politicians when they have guessed wrong-- and in order to secure harmony among "the friends of the country. " He understands perfectly how to manipulate a public senti- ment, or, which answers just as well, to create a seeming one. He employs a hundred different channels to work upon the public. page: 68-69[View Page 68-69] 68 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. The more remote the means, the more certain he is to employ it- at any price. He keeps a corps of lick-spittles constantly in his-pay. These he uses as long as he requires them; but the instant connection with any one of them begins to work him injury, he casts him off and forgets him. He is as relentless as Fate in taking advantage of the necessities of those whom he can make serve him. As a tempter, Mephistophiles is a mere bungler beside him, so plausible, so oily, so disinterested, so kind, so sinuous; and when he has used his victim, when he is entirely done with him, he spits upon him, and breaks him in pieces, and throws him away. But he never does this until for some reason- crime, misfortune, or dark, and melancholy fate-the wretch is too completely in his power ever to attempt revenge. He has enjoyed no adlvantages of early education or culture. His majority beheld him a great ignoramus, whose deep and wily shrewdness showed him near at hand a certain means for better- ing his condition. A candidate for the ministry, he entered an American patent-right college of suitable calibre and dimensions, and in an incredibly short time came out a flaming and astound- ing man of God. The name Scacius, given him in derision by his classmates, because he always pronounced the name Caius so, seems not to have followed him beyond the walls of his beloved and congenial Alma Mater. But the amazing boldness and skill in plagiarism, the literary Napoleonism in short, which enabled him to steal from Chalmers, Wayland, Paley, Hopkins, Channing and Blair, the- essays, sermons, and orations which excited the admiration and boundless predictions of the learned Faculty and the envy of his brother beneficiaries-this adhered to him through life. This mongrel priest and-politiclan had acquired the magnifi- cent mansion and estate which he now possessed, just as you might have guessed he would, by the prostitution of his soul and body, that is to say, he had married them. Being a political priest, his marrying for money, sooner or later; and more or less, was assured by the vile instincts of his hybridism; but unlike most of this foulest and lowest of all classes of prostitutes-the white-cravatted, meek-faced, clerical, strumpets-he did not sell himself for the first, batch of plunder with a woman attached that lay in his chaste and magnanimous path. The artful and ambitious politi- cian-with infinite difficulty, it must be confessed-held the cheap A MELTING PICTURE. 69 and greedy priest aloof from many tempting messes of pottage, and conducted him at last to this glittering prize. Then the priest repaid the favor of the politician by supplying him with a lying formula, a fiendish parody on the divine law of marriage, by means of which, in formally renouncing an estate of manliness which he never possessed, he acquired a baser slave than himself, and a fortune. Up to the time of his marriage he had hypocritically observed the proprieties of morality in his "walk and conversation." But now, freed from the restraints which had formerly kept him down he began to give loose rein in secret, at home, to his native impulses so long repressed; and at the time we introduce him, being in the first flush of freedom and exultation, he was more bent on indulgence and more reckless of consequences than ever before or afterwards. CHRAPTER VI PilltY AND CHARITY GOINO HAND IN HAND-A NIWTiTTTG PIC'l'lI^. A rilru)siZiNG after the fashion we have described, as he saw the wanderers enter, the holy man considered with what words of lofty and pontificial sound he should open the performance. He who was lately so busy, and felt such petulance at the slow pro- gress of his task, now put that aside as a matter in which he had no immediate concern, and thought of nothing either in heaven or on earth but finding out who this woman was, and what sort of ground he stood on. For the holy man shrewdly suspected, the moment he laid eyes on the outcasts, that there was not a particle of truth in the fine story Phipps had been telling him. "Mr. Phipps tells me," pronounced the holy man, with a fine unction-Phipps, however, had told him just the reverse'-"that you are one who, like the Son of Man, the divine Founder of our most holy religion, have not where to lay your head, and that you come asking food and shelter of Christian charity." All that the mother saw in this was a coarse insensibility, and so with a flush playing for an instant over her white cheek like the red rays of a wintry sunset crimsoning a snowy peak, she page: 70-71[View Page 70-71] 70o THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. replied, meekly: "Your information, is literally correct, sir. And your extreme frankness renders it the easier for me to say that, for the sake of my child, I can now not only endure the pain and degradation of public begging, but be very grateful for even the most Pharisaical relief." "Aha!" thought the holy man, "So Phipps's fine story is dis- posed of at a single blow; but what is this? The woman is giv- ing me a slam on the other flank.- I must set this right by means that will not conflict with my high-flown exordium." He, therefore, gave her a hard, wide-eyed stare, as if he did not know what in the world she could possibly mean, and Cleared his throat two or three times, as though he had a right to feel hurt in his tender Christian sensibilities, but was determined to ventilate a prime quality of sugar-cured Christian fortitude. He raised his hand from the edges of the Bible, and laid it back again with a quick, spiteful gripe that was wonderfully indicative. Then he said with a manner that implied a stinging antithesis-as he often did when he tried to be elaborate: "This Gospel, of which I am a minister, makes it my duty to shelter even the vilest scum of all God's earth." "Leave the antithesis unexplained, reverend sir," she replied, perceiving, with a woman's quickness, that he was preparing to interrogate her as to her personal history, and hastening to beat him by tact, womanlike. "While it must pain you to- say so, none can deny that you have a right to set whatever limitations you choose to younerous hospitality." "Hem-very -a-hem/ Under Providence, I hold a high position as teacher in Israel, and even in the gentle deeds of char- ity must carefully avoid the scandalous. You must perceive that it is impossible for me to receive you under my roof until I know that you are not destitute of character, as you unquestionably ares of everything else. In short, madam, in short, to stop this palaver once for all," he demanded, petulantly, "who the devil are you?" "A lady, sir, such as your mother or your wife is, and not worse than they." "God help you," he ejaculated, "If you are no better." "Say amen to that, mother," whispered the child, naively, yet scornfully. "I am sure, mother, you ought to say amen to that." A MELTING PICTURE. 71 "Pish!" sneered the gentleman, scowling at the child, whose whisper he had overheard. But he saw in an instant that he could not notice what the child had said. Yet his irritation must have a vent of some kind. So jerking his hand off the Bible, and darting it out suddenly at the mother, he exclaimed: "But who are you, I say, and what are you? I know you are not what you seem. Where did you come from? What are you doing here at such an hour? See what a plight you are in. That child with you no doubt is spurious. What sort of a mess, pray madam, in the name of all decency, what sort of a mess is all this?" As he tthrust out his hand at her with such vehemence of gesticu- lation and utterance, she jumped as if she had been shot at, and as he proceeded with his mean harangue, a brilliant and, scathing flash of anger and indignation mounted for a moment to her pale cheek and faded eye. But her spent energies of mind and body, and her broken and desperate fortunes, could not long sustain so strong an emotion and policy as resentment. Before he had finished speaking, all trace of self-assertion had vanished from her face; and back in its old place, in intenser form, had come that sad, vacant look of feebleness and utter woe which repels no insult. Like Lear saying, "Pour on; I will endure," so she looked then. The divine demonstrator in morbid anatomy looked at her for a moment in silent self-gratulation on the progress of his work, and then said; "Ah, I ought, perhaps, to explain the cause of my curiosity. I was thinking of offering you a permanent situation in my family." The arrow sped straight to the mark. "Oh, sir," she cried, raising her clasped hands in an imploring attitude, as if he had been a god, give it to me, give it to me, and, oh, I know that all the angels in the universe will bless you!" "By your accent, madam, as I notice it in your unguarded warmth, you are German," said he, coolly, rubbing the tip of his nose with the penciL She recoiled as if she had struck an iceberg, her -hands dropped, the light died out of her face, and left it wan, weary, and almost lifeless. "Alas!"I did not know," she sighed, "that any vestige of the Fatherland still clung to me." "But it is not often that you meet so quick an ear and so keen an eye as mine," said he, with a smile. page: 72-73[View Page 72-73] 72 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "But the situation, sir," she returned, faintly. Paying no attention whatever to what she had said, but still rubbing the tip of his nose with his pencil, and striding back and forth before the fire, he continued, as if to himself: "Yet she speaks almost as pure English as a native. No one but me would detect the difference." Then looking up at her suddenly, he said, as if the question was very important: "I presume you have been in this country many years, madam?" "I have had much practice in speaking the English tongue." "Then am I to infer that you are newly arrived in the coun- try?" he returned, with an air of great disappointmenS, "Yoiur evasion says as much. But, at all events, let me see your recom- mendations. " "Good sir, H-I have no recommendations." "That is truly unfortunate," said he, solemnly, still walking to and fro, anLd Mbbing the tip of his nose. "If you had recom- mendations, I might overlook other objections and give you employment, but how is it possible for me to do aught now but kick you out of doors again?" Her fingers released their clasp on her child's hand, and she sank down upon her knees, and rested her cold, white cheek against the table and groaned aloud. What emotions then, think you, filled the breast of this holy priest of God? Was it infinite pity, and pure and tender, compassion? Was he smitten with remorse for his cruel and perfldicus trifling with her weakness and disorder? No; but he chuckled inwardly with infernal glee at her weakness and helplessness, so plainly developed by his exper- iments, and thought that now he-whose only chdream had been a. life-long impure dream of beauty, who had hitherto sacrificed' for money the attainment of this base ideal, who had been the laughing-stock of his less fortunate brethren of the cloth, on account of his eccentric marriage-was about to rowel their envi- ous withers afresh with a scornful and triumphant "Aha, aha," and having first' obtained gold and honors, was about to realize the one remaining success of hislife. She rose to her feet and was iabout to withdraw. "Hold on," said he very quickly. "You are to have the situation." She gave a single cry, "Oh may the outcast's God reward you," and then fell at his feet, and seizing his hand kissed it while her tears fell on it. Oh! it was a sight to turn the blood to gall-this A ME LTING PICTURE. 73 heavenly spirit, crushed by misfortune born of her own. purity, disordered by disease sprung from her sensibility, debased by poverty the fruit of her nobleness, covering with holy tears and kisses of mistaken gratitude the hand of this scheming beast and prosperous devil. Yet such is the order of this world. "Oh, may heaven bless you for this relief. I have long trembled on the verge of madness, and felt myself going down; down into I knew not what. But now I shall have repose and peace, shall I not, sir? No evil shall molest me here; for you will shield me with your powerful protection-will you not, sir?" "Of course, of course," he replied curtly. "Satan himself could scarcely get you away from here." "Oh, thanks, noble sir, again and again thanks," she repeated. "Foryears, I have longed for security and protection, and now I have found them at the very moment when they seemed farthest away. Heaven help me to thank you and it, sir! I shall now re- cover my health-I know I shall,-and live to educate my child and bless your name forever, noble sir." "Come, come," he said, with some impatience-for display of true emotion always annoyed him--" business first, and heroics afterwards. Well, I have not employed you for any menial office, but for one worthy of your gifts and accomplishments." And then he smiled at the very absurdity of his complimenting her. "The wife of my bosom is afflicted with a melancholy mental dis- order," and here he raised his handkerchief to his eyes and snivelled like a low comedian burlesquing the "Stranger." "My solicitude on her account no language can describe. Her mono- mania is, I fear, incurable, but duty and affection alike prompt me to do all I can to palliate it. To that end, I engage you to be her companion and attendant. She now has one of her own choos- ing, whom I shall speedily dislodge, by the grace of God. Tobe," -to the gizzard-footed' beau who had answered his ring in time to hear the last sentence- "show these people to the cham- ber in the northwestern\ angle. When the supper-bell rings, madam, I shall expect to see both you and your son at the table. Be sure to bring the boy with you. I will see that your toilet is improved. Remember my wife's idiosyncrasy,"-Tobe thought fromthe size of that word that the Doctor was paying his wife a great compliment-" and think strange of nothing that may hap- pen at supper, nor of anything I may say. It is often necessary 4 , page: 74-75[View Page 74-75] 74 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. to deceive persons situated just as the wife of my bosom is, in order to surprise them the more pleasantly. You will pass for the widow and son of a deceased friend of mine, a clergyman, and your name will be Spencer. Tobe, when you come down stairs, come in here to me again. I have half a dollar for you." The poor outcast could scarcely believe her ears, that it was in- deed true she was to have not merely a night's lodging, but a se- cure and permanent abode in that magnificent mansion. What sudden, -what miraculous deliverance was this? The days of genii and of Arabian romance seemed to have returned. Her happy heart throbbed--music, and her light feet kept step to it, as she followed Tobe down the cross-passage to the intersection of the halls, and up the broad, grand staircase, and on to the chamber. Fidelity is the virtue of those who are either above or below the white man; yet the most mercenary creature on earth is the negro beau with his extravagant toilet and limited exchequer. Take the resultant, and you have the moral diagonal that connected the mellifluous Tobe's embroidered neckties with the one honest spot in his heart. He was devoted to his mistress; and at the same time he detested the Indian-eyed interloper with her airs and orders. Consequently, in less than five minutes after he came down stairs again, he had been first dexterously punctured in the larynx with a half-dollar and then relieved of a detailed account of the meeting between the two women in the hall earlier in the evening. iHAPTER VII. A CONSEVIATTON. SIntGuTALY enough, the apartment assigned to the beggars was one of the most elegant in the mansion. But it was thus that this priestly manipulator did everything. He now aimed to impress them deeply with a sense of the elegance and comforts which a life at Druid Hill would afford them. Presently, a bright fire was shedding its warm glow through the room; and ye outcasts whom a rich and splendid civilization-per- mits now and then to behold the winter cheerfulness of flame through magnificent windows and from the wrong side of costly A CONsECRATION. 75 walls, you know what an inward warming up that implies. A quadroon girl, bringing a change of clothes for each of them, ar- rayed the mother in a wrapper whose loosely falling folds served to heighten, in a wonderful manner, her weird and spiritual beauty. One of the saddest sights in the world is the unconscious relief of a refined and delicate woman when, long depressed and clothed in rags, she is at last permitted to put on something that makes her feel less degraded. A great change, due partly to the extreme responsiveness of her nature and to the sweet sad beauty of her weakness, and partly to the adroit management of the man of God, now took place in the mother's tender heart and face. She had long been reduced by disease and suffering to that degree of pallid weakness where, the moment mental relief is experienced, almost unearthly purity and transparency are seen, and the reac- tion from despair becomes a gentle ecstasy. The artfulfinger of the man of God had touched the chord which waited for him, and whose vibrations now sent forth from her bruised heart the last weird, sweet lyric of her life. By a pathetic fallacy often witnessed in such cases, she instantly transferred her own unanalyzed emotions into objective facts. The contrast between her late desperate condition and her present physical and mental relief was so great as to obliterate from her mind for the time every unpleasant thought. Her feeling, as she looked back through the storm, was the one so apt to come over a weary, weakened, resting spirit in such circumstances,-that she had left her pursuer as far behind as if an ocean or many years rolled between them. It seemed scarcely possible that she should ever again see or hear of him, and if she should do so, why, with the strong protection of this holy man, she would boldly set him at defiance. Sirened by the music-breath of Weariness--that chief of the sirens--she sank into a sense of security and rest, like the dove that folded her sprained wing safe in the ark after her long flight across the deluge. She even forgot, for the moment, in the lightening of her heart, her own nearness to death, and her resolution to seek her child's birthplace, that she might die there. She felt that she had exaggerated her illness; that, prob- ably, she was not very sick after all-was, in fact, quite well, excepting weakness; and she began to look forward, with touch- ing infatuation, to tranquil and contented years in this refined and elegant abode. What sweet repose and peace she should page: 76-77[View Page 76-77] 76 THE STORY OF aN OUTCAST. enjoy-what advantages for the education of her son--earth held nothing more of happiness. She fell at once into the feeling of soft, delicious melancholy which she loved so well, and of which -weakness and repose are necessary conditions. In the luxury of gentle sadness there was for her a sense which coarser spirits never know--a sweet meek- ness and pain which seemed to translate her into a higher sphere and to bring her very near to an estate of grandeur, truth and goodness which she could not comprehend. While waiting to be called to supper, she sat down by the west window, and, as her habit was under similar circumstances, looked out at nature. The boy knelt down at hdr side, and half rested on her lap, as he loved to do, and looked at her with emotions all spell-like and various, like wind-spots on an April sea. It was to this attitude that she always called him when she wished to talk to him seriously; and it was joy, relief and promise to hear her call him again to come and lean upon her knee in veneration and affection, and receive her soft caress and tender kiss. The great clearing-up which she felt within had fallen also on external nature. Nay, without her knowing it, this very change in the weather'had contributed largely to the inward change and lightening of the heart which she experienced. The rain had ceased, and the wind now whistled sharp and cold through the trees which surrounded the mansion. The ,clouds, woven in the loom of the winds from their late diffuse and sleavey condition into compact sheets and then sharply rent apart, now lay in scowl- ing black patches about the sky, and here and there between their pitchy, ragged edges, bright, half-conscious stars glittered in fath- omless abysses of darkest blue. As the rifts between the clouds lengthened and widened, cleaving the first dark masses into smaller fragments, floods of irregular moonlight broke out of them and rolled away across land and sea in confused and spectral bil- lows. The ocean, too, was now dimly visible through mist that hugged it, and the dashing of the waves was a drum-beat for the evolutions of the thick battalions of shadows. Occasionally the wind rose to a gale, and dashed the clouds apart with gaping chasms, and let down mountain billows of light, rolling one upon the other; and then the waves of the ocean would consolidate their murmurs, and with -a tumultuous rush burst in thunder- shocks against the shore. A CONSECRATION. " This grand and wondrous scene at once arrested the motier's attention, and enthralled her impressible heart. She put aside the curtain, and presently even raised the window, and gazed out, absorbed and lost in the emotions of her reviving being, like one inclining memory's haunted ear to recall a long-forgotten song. For years she had been denied by suffering and overlying care the privilege of such experiences as this, in which her pensive girlish spirit had once so delighted; and now, in a kind of bewil- derment and sense of newness which was also dim reminiscence, she hungered for words to express the sweetness and grandeur of her joy. She felt as if she had, some years before, slowly swooned away out of the universe, and now had but just been restored to it and to the paean of the newly-born rejoicing in existence; and this in a soft, delicious weakness, almost resembling convales- cence, which increased her sensibility. It seemed that she had just been born afresh, out of Erebus into the realm of the blessed God, full-grown yet impressible as an infant; nay, it seemed rather, in her sense of emancipation and fresh endowment, that the universe itself was being born afresh' and that she was standing on its wondrous shore and gazing out upon a mystic and eternal sea, out of whose bubbles worlds were breaking, and from whose yeasty waves, as the starlight of God's smile fell on them from His far-off mystery, ranks of spirits were rising with ringing harps to greet their Father. The faint likeness of a smile, like the first soft blushes of an April dawn on the rippling edges of a transparent wave, came over her face. Then another and another followed timidly and like wondering strangers, until her counten- ance was lighted up with gentle enthusiasm, like a delicate vase of porcelain glowing with softest fire. Her face, but lately beaten bloodless by the storm, was now drenched by a different flood-a chastened and ethereal effulgence like the radiance of the whitest stars; and to her spirit-haunted eyes returned subdued gleams of that original lustre which had been almost faded out forever by their tears. It seemed that the transforming hand of the sorrow- ing Saviour she loved so well had touched and etherealized her. She presented to the mind the image of a spirit-like white cloud, drifting through dreamy summer skies and losing itself at last in the depths of heaven. "O Father," she murmured, "it has been years--many and long and bleak and weary-since my crushed spirit was able to lift itself from the dust and look up into Thy page: 78-79[View Page 78-79] 78 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. face and at Thy beautiful world! Yet I have owed Thee at every moment in all these desolate years all that my full. heart is offer- ing now. Pity the weakness of Thy creature, Father, and accept in this overwhelming experience that unpaid adoration!"And did not the pitying Father find in her simple utterances and the light of her adoring eyes a better worship than clouds of incense, the blare of organs, fasts, penance, long-drLawn prayers, and all the vanities of creeds? The boy, unable to endure the sight of his mother's emotion, averted his fce, but at the same time laid his cheek down softly on her lap. Understanding both parts of the action, and quickldly touched by it, she lifted up his head and kissed him most ten- derly. Then respecting his sensibility too much to notice it fur- ther, but feeling as if she had lost something even in her joy and her worship by not having him to share them, she said: "I am lonely without you, my darling, even in this experience. Let me take you into it with me, for I yearn for the patter of your little feet in all my paths." "You haven't been alone, dear mother; you are never alone where such little feet can follow you. I have been here looking first at you, just this way--don't you see, pretty mother-doesn't that look like I loved you?-and then at that out there." "Two objects, one so grand and the other so insignificant, must be inharmonious." "No, no, dear little mother. I'm too small to tell you exactly how it is, you know"-for his part now was very different from what it had been in the storm--"but I know you are a link, not a wall, between me and what I see out there." "What is it, then, that you see, my darling?" "Something beautiful like you, sweet mother, and which you, my own beautiful little mother, can make me understand. " Then .understanding a large part of his emotion, and telling him she would interpret it to him, she began to talk to him in tones which never ceased to echo in his memory. Her voice, always unrivalled for plaintive music, was now more than usually tremulous and thrilling. In every cadence breathed a sigh, in every inflection lurked the spirit of tears; and in its unsteadiness there was an emphasis which abided in his heart forever. Taking the order of her speech from her own mood, and from the sad wis- dom which her own life had taught her, she first spoke to him of the A CONSECRATION. 79 errors, weaknesses and sins, through which lies the blood-stained "path to the highest grandeur. She told him that all the deeds which history calls heroic, all epics and all lyrics, all bloody chap- lets, all glittering crowns, all gleaming sabres, pale away and ut- terly die out of estimation, when compared with the achievement of the humblest soul that treads the tragic path of excellence, and that when the human spirit has truly reached the goal she feels no pulse of exultation, but sits down in dust and ashes, wringing her hands and weeping tears of blood. "Beware, then," she con- tinued, "of any miserable success in this life which shall stand in the way of your attaining the true;, end and destiny of spirit. Experience is the first and highest success, and achievement is the next and lowest. The high truths on which the world's pro- gressive life is moulded must always be first, and in some sort, according to their nature, experience before they pass into achieve- ment. The world' tends towards an age when the two shall be united. MTould your own life on the model of that age. Expect nothing of this world nor in it; expect all things of the divine Father and in his endless ages. I know that this will be your chosen path, my strong, brave boy; I know that you would tread no other, and I would fain warn you of its perils. When the icy finger of Despair, beginning with the slenderest branches, shall creep along your arteries, freezing the red currents back to your heart, and then shall clutch your heart and wring it, let her break it if she must, but oh, my darling, never let her freeze it. When the raven shah be your only companion, solitude your only home, and elegy your only speech, forget not that the men who scorn y6u for your nobleness are yet your brethren. Through all this and more, Selric, through death itself, retain the calmness, fervor and sweetness of true greatness. Through anxious days, sleepless nights, and lonely years, through sickness, indigence and pain, through bloody sweat and-brokenness of heart, through danger, privation and loss of all things, still pursue the path of true sub- limity, the path of blood, which is the path of love, my darling, not less than of st-rengtl, and which only the greatest spirits can tread. Tell me again, my son, to satisfy no doubt, but only to delight me, that you are equal to this destiny." While she was yet speaking, the evening star broke through the clouds, and rode in wild indescribable beauty, like a winged angel fresh from the bosom of God, into a broad clear space in the page: 80-81[View Page 80-81] 80' THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. heavens. No language can describe the emotions whose long and billowy sweep rushed through the boy's soul, as with his mother's words still in his ears he looked at that far world in its vestments of light, glittering in the dark abyss a flame-clad messenger of the far-off and infinite Unknown. Black clouds like birds of prey were flaunting their dusky wings around it. The wind, subsiding from its shrill whistle, was chanting through the trees a mystic requiem. Scattered and melancholy moonbeams just then were threading the scene like films of silver in the sable plumes that nod above the dead; and the broken thnlder of the ocean boomed like funeral guns with the artillerists sobbing beside their pieces. A darker and profounder yearning, a sublimer insight and deeper sympathy than any the feminine soul of his mother could ever know, electrified him. Just above him, just beyond his reach, there passed a meteor, which, as it rushed onward, burst over his hear' a- scattered i;^: sacred fire around him. A rapture and a glory which no words can describe swept like a whirlwind of fire and splendor across the sympathies of his soul, and beckoned hmr away ; and he stretched out his unfledged impatient wing for ' ta: :: 'munderstood estate of good and grandeur which the spirit iof . as sought beneath a thousand misnomers. A migh;ty thrill, an uncomprehended and unorganized sense of the relation of all these sublime and beautiful things to himself, shot through him. It seemed that out of the depths of that wild beauty the key-note of whose utterances his mother had touched so well, a voice was saying to him: "Look on the stars, child of the universe, and on earth, ocean and sepulchral moon, and listen to the sough- ing winds; and know that when the winds are dead, and the ocea is a frozen mist, and earth and moon are empty tombs, and the stars are sloughed and faded, dust like the scales around a smith's forge, thou shalt survive. Let those worlds of flame be hereafter forever in thy coldest hour of thought, as they are at this impas- sioned moment, prophets who prophesy by their own death. For thou and such as thou shall be the successors of these stars when they have faded out forever."'; The blood fled from his cheeks and lips, and his frame shook as if convulsed with pain. Then look- ing up as calmly as if he had never known emotion, he said: "Yes, dear mother, I am equal to that destiny." "Then," she said, " that gleaming star, symbol of all beautiful and glorious things, bursting ouit of the abyss, is the fit emblem of TWAIN MADE ONE FLESH. 81 your destiny. In its presence I consecrate you to the pursuit of that excellence of which we have been speaking, so that when I am gone and can no longer speak to you, you may look at it often and remember your consecration." "Mother," he replied, "when you are gone, Iwill look at it often and remember my consecration." After these words they talked no more, but in silence watched the broad mild Vesper sail down the sky, while heaven sprinkled down its golden sands from burning sieves, and mountains of mist rose out of the sea, and shrouds of fog and moonlight wrapped themselves around the skeleton trees. Such was their last communion on earth; for out of his life now soon departed forever her angelic and satisfyinglove, the restrain- ing spell of her gentleness, and the healing companionship of her beautiful soul. The clang of the supper-bell called them down stairs. CHAPTER VLi. TWAIN MADE ONE FLESH. WHEN they entered the dining-room, five persons were already there. With three of these, to-wit: Phipps, the Indian-eyed woman, and the man of God, we are already acquainted. The latter was standing near the gate, talking in the sedatest and most godly style allowable, to a gaudily dressed lady, who, we may as well admit at once, was no other than the " wife of his bosom." He was resting his ministerial hands on the back of a tilted chair which he had lifted from the head of the table, with matrimonial attention tender as boiled veal, and now held in respectful readi- ness for her when she should be pleased to take her place at the board. His attitude and conversation were designed to be, first, most conjugally affectionate, as those of loving hearts united in the holy bonds and sacrament of matrimony are wont to be in the presence of spectators; secondly, most serious and edifying, as became a servant of the Most High; thirdly, free, quiet, mildly self-confident, assuagingly complacent, gently self-assertive, as in- stinct forever dictates to tricky villains, when they attitudinize and palaver to produce subjective effects favorable to their designs. page: 82-83[View Page 82-83] But every moment as, he thus talked to his wife he kept casting keen and searching glances at the late " endflaentious plantive" and the Indian-eyed woman. On the face of the former was- a smile which must have been manufactured to order for him at the grand assizes of hell, and the latter wore the feminine knowing and expectant look which you have seen, and for your knowledge of which you have paid too much to ever forget it. "They're sure they've got me caught," thought the wary gentleman, very deep down; " but I'm sure they haven't." The lady was stooping at the bright coal fire--for they burnt coal in the mansion, but wood in the cabins--pretending, in the manner which " woman our angel" evidently considers the climax of all that is charming, to be all of a shiver with cold, coquetting the brilliant spurts of white flame with jewelled fingers, sticking her gaitered feet up on the enider alternately, and pulling up her lace petticoats to just that critical point of elevation, so instinc- tively attainable to the modern female mind, where clean hose and costly undergear may be displayed to superb advantage. In short she was in a perfect twitter of girlishness,-and where any belle would be happy; i. e., with a fire to poke, jewels to display, and a man at hand to ogle and flirt with. So complete and absorbing was her happiness, that there is positively no telling when she would have recollected that unheavenly thing, supper, if the foot- steps of the entering beggars had not recalled her to a sense of sublunary things. She looked at them quickly, and, gods! there is no telling you anything about it. Her face was a painting,. and the name of it was, "The Female Descent into Hell." 2Eneas, you are aware, and various other ancient heroes made that inter- esting journey and have left us itineraries of it. The female descent into hell, however, is something different from all that, and generally comes in the shape of' a spoiled bonnet, a possible rival, or something else as horrible. It has neither been sung nor painted yet; but we are just about to sing it now, and we'll engage some enterprising artist to make an engraving of it for our second edition. As the lady stood in this pictorial attitude, and you looked at her iron-gray hair combed smoothly over her temples, and at her masculine, strongly marked countenance befitting some stern old castled freebooter of the middle age, you would have wondered not more at the iron face than at the pitiable and utterly inex- plicable weakness and meanness which Stuck out through it as if through the crevices of a rusty visor. At the first glance, you would have detected, with a perfect sickness of disgust, beneath the apparent boldness and strength of her countenance, a cowardly anl cringing spirit clad in dilapidated bravado; beneath her hauteur, a more fatal vulgarity than plebeianism, flaunting the somewhat Quixotic tokens of American nobility,-gilded rags that stink and rot on the sore they cover; beneath her rich attire, not the dashing coquette whose airs she had been aping,-no, no, but only a vain, silly, lovesick, green-eyed old woman, arrayed in the taste and mode of Bedlam. For she wore a magnificent brocade silk with a pea-green ground, and great golden bouquets woven over it in the most reckless profusion wherever one cofild be persuaded to lie. 'The hugest of crimson crape shawls, with most monstrous fringe around it, was drawn tight around her sylph-like form. On her head was a cap of rich black silk lace, ornamented with the ery gayest artificial flowers the city could afford. ~Vhen you try to convey an idea of what a man is, you analyze his character; but when you try to tell what a woman is, you unconsciously fall into describing her dress. Feminine character is the one thing in nature which defies analy- sis. Doubtless, a woman may be analyzed after the method in vogue amongmedical students; but if the rash character-cutter attempts any other, he finds that while he has been puzzling over this and that faculty or trait, the woman has escaped him along with "'the red ribbons that he threw aside as no part of the real matter. You are ready to object thlat women can and do anato- mize each other, for you have heard them do it, and that, till you know more still about this lady, the pen should be surrendered even to the house-maid in the absence of more learned Thebans. But brethren, let us have mercy, else how can we pray for de- liverance from cannibals ourselves. It was a singular fact, but no doubt natural enough, that the lady whose voluptuous income the m4nl of God had espoused-at the altar, heaven help us-was as complete a jumble of antithesis as her dear lord. Slhe was in all respects precisely his counterpart, and there was the grimmest sort of propriety in their marrying. In the first place, she was at least twenty years his senior. She had lived iln single blessedness far beyond thle point at which a woman's age becomes fabulous anl traditionaleven the horrible page: 84-85[View Page 84-85] 84 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. symplegades of fifty had long been passed--when Cupid, with one of his wicked rose-buds, inflicted a fatal wound on her tender heart. In her youth, haunted by the dread of being sought for her fortune, and of giving herself and it a master, she had con- stantly refused to marry. One consequence--to mention but one-was that, in the weakness of her dotage, when her proud strength was gone, the crushed principles of her nature lifted off the diminished weight of the will, and with every circumstance that could excite derision, contempt, pity and disgust, made her the prey of this holy man of God. In every respect, she possessed just strength enough of mind and character to unsex her and make her a monqter. She was neither man nor woman, but had the meanest faults of both, without the redeeming qualities of either. In her, feminine tact subsided into mendacity and duplicity. What she could not lie you into or trick you into, she could not influence you to do at all. She read the golden rule thus: " when you are in Rome/ do as the Romans do." The noblest form of manly tenderness is mercy; of womanly, pity. Being a woman, she was destitute of the former quality; being a man, she was destitute of the latter. She was cowardly instead of gentle, suspicious instead of circum- spect, two-faced and sycophantic instead of urbane,-a timid tyrant, a treacherous friend, a vindictive, unscrupulous and per- fidious enemy. She was at once profuse and miserly. She never could resist the impulse to buy every piece of extravagant frippery she saw, and the more exorbitant the price, the more certain she was to buy; yet in spite of her vast wealth, a meaner niggard never griped a penny. A silver dollar rose on her sight like the full moon. She had been all her life a scoffer at religion, and her entire intellect was atheistic in its constitution; yet she had not only ended by marrying a priest, but had been all her life the most superstitious of mortals, believed in ghosts and dreams more than in anything else under the sun, turned pale at an omen, and would have died at any moment rather than have picked up a pin with the head towards her. .Her scientific attainments were far from contemptible, but mark the application. After she had passed the period of middle-age, she began to imagine that her constitution was failing, and her unexampled health giving way. Conse- quently, she bought all the popular quack publications she could hear of, and eagerly devoured them; and as she came to each dis- ,. TWAIN MADE ONE FLESH. 85 ease in its order, she forthwith imagined she had it, and set about swrJllowiriT in summary style all the remedies prescribed. She h1i-d. lbied llant hauteur, vanity, pride, but of self-respect none wli-leve, This fact was only a symptom which pointed to another. This was a fatal hiatus between perception and action in every sense. No one knew better what was excellent, and what base; yet she seemed absolutely powerless, by any agency of her own, to attain the one or to avoid the other. Nor was the faultin the will, strictly speaking-she was anything but a vacillating, weak-willed woman-but in the emotional arrangement which lies back of the will and brings it into action. A vice existed in this which had forever destroyed its integrity, and left her that loatLh- some wreck, the woman whose life is base, not because her sight is defective or her character weak, but because her emotional na- ture is vicious and ignoble. The last and most pitiable form of h1er emotional deformity, was her love for the holy man, her huslandl; for, after her fashion, she did love him devotedly, and had prom;ised herself much from this love. Her dream had already hbam to fade away, but she clung to it with all of a woman's d3:-. .ation in such cases, and could scarcely sleep at night for thhe 491: omes which plied her busy brain. In spite of the tyranny, arrogance, insolence, and open contempt with which he i-4 already begun to treat her, in spite of rec,taed outrages an--, ,: "-died insults, she doated on her hus- band--leavenwsave the mark--with a foolish old woman's silly fondness. 1Her ridiculous caresses and endearments rained on him like manna from a gracious sky, whenever she 'was not afraid to let them do so. Sometimes he would submit for a moment with grim humor to her fondling, really enjoying the ridiculous phase of the matter, but presently, breaking away with impatient and decidedly unclerical imprecations, he would swear that she was worrying the life out of him, and that he did not intend to stand it; any longer; and then sarcasm, irony, and sneers would roll from his tongue upon the poor cringing, suffering wretch at his feet. No injured and unhappy wife of thirteen-the American age for ladies to marry-was ever more jealous of her gay lord of fifteen, than this blooming bride of sixty already was of this holy priest, her husband. She had not been married two days before she saw that she would be utterly unable to manage him single-handed, and that if she would keep even with him at all, she must have page: 86-87[View Page 86-87] the aid of a shrewd and capable ally. Notwithstanding her wealth, many branches of her family were not only miserably poor, but conveniently unprincipled. Any of them could be bought at any time for a song, on long credit, and she was in the habit of using the better of them on just about those terms when. ever she needed them.- And thus it had come to pass that the Indian-eyed woman, glad to be wheedled into, serving her xich aunt a second time, had come and been established in the mansion, for the purpose of helping its jealous mistress watch and govern its gay lord. CHAPTER IX. AN OMNBUS NOSE. WE have said there were five persons at the supper-table when the outcasts entered. But formulizing the data, according to our new system of Nasarithmic Flusions, just invented for the pur- pose of computing moral quantities below the sensible mathemat- ical horizon, we state more accurately that there were at the table five noses, four of which have already been accounted for. In a chair contiguous to the fifth nasarithmic fumction, sat its great integral, in a flashy vest and sensational pantaloons-a young gentleman of parts and fashion, nephew to Mrs. Greed, and pro- spective remainder-man of her vast -estate after the death of her husband. His name was Snort; that is to say, Sylvester Augustus Fitz Herbert. And-if-outraged-heaven-would-allow-it-more Snort. In some of the MSS. pertaining to the genealogy of his illustri- ous fore-Snorters, the R, moved probably by a sense of the eternal fitness of things, puts on a stertorous nozzle, and the name is made Snout. Ii there is a final cause of the ridiculous, as 11 true 7 humorists will insist, the clerical change no doubt constitutes the metaphysical beginning of the godless immensity in which many- generations of imperial rhinoplasts fitly culminated. Because we know that before she made it, frolicsome young Nature delighted in freaks of diablerie and all sorts of funny correspondences, and could not let such an opportunity for a Stupendous joke pass unimproved. But that joke probably surfeited her, and after the fashion of spiee-strained sinners generally, she is now a little blue AN UMN LD U D JA Usi. v about it, and is proving her penitence by this latter-day deluge of ignominious pugs. To understand what this nose was, think of one of the six-horse whsale-tubs called "big busses." It was the first thing about Mr. Snort; it was also the next, and the next, and the next. After IT there was nothing whatever. [Observe, we speak transcen- dentally and de profundis, as becomes the subject.] It reared up like a giraffe's front and tumbled down like his croup. It soared like a minaret. It squatted like a toad. It sprawled like a taran- tula. It curved Eklie a sickle. It squirmed about like the Frank- fort Railroad. You probably never saw such a nose. It was built in the Gothic style of architecture, It was as full of angles as a greengrocer's conscience. It had more nooks and crannies than a Dutch farm-house or the revised tariff. Its lines all ran zig- zag, like the records of our great statesmen. When they set out, ardent as Phaeton's coursers, from the brow, you scarcely knew whether they would end in one of his ears, or in China, or among the Asteroids. All the suppositions would have been incorrect. They invariably ended in a rum-glass. They managed somehow to wriggle back near enough together to get into the same goblet. You certainly never saw such a nose. It was thirst; it was hun- ger; it was ambition also; God of Noses ! what was it not ? It was a cartilaginous dissertation on moral architecture in America; a lumbering folio digest of Snort the duodecimo; a muck worm grown to a behemoth; Comedy astride the Andes. It was not simply emphatic; it was a membraneous and oozy universe. It was perfectly insatiable. Not content with the estate and dignity of a snout, it aspired to be a proboscis. On the whole, it failed in this; but as you looked at it, you felt that it deserved to have succeeded. As it was not attached to an elephant, the jade Fate had the advantage of it. You wondered why Nature, after she at last got it done, had not got up a mastodon-saurus or some- thing for it. What would IT have been then ?...... Bold Imagination, fold thy baffled wing. . Samson, armed with it; would have had not only an inexhaustible arsenal of his peculiar weapons, but also materials for the production of a whole drove of the armorers. Sainted Philistines, ye who escaped thfe devouring edge of that early jawbone, did well to get out of this earthly wilderness before Mr. Snort's nose came into the world, fetching Mr. Snort along with it. Wherefore and page: 88-89[View Page 88-89] 88 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. how?" do you tremblingly inquire, O ass-fearing shades? Be- cause, like the maxillary logic that once before played the dickens -with you, this nose was smashingly polemical. It did not, like most of the great American logicians, chop you small with sar- casm before it triturated you with slang. Like the skunk, it had only one argument, but that was unanswerable. It was belliger- ent, but it was not brave; therefore, it was only vicious and aggressive. It was a censorious, quarrelsome, carping, meddle- some, hectoring nose,-a malevolent, narrow, bigoted, haughty, stupid, stubborn, mulish, boorish, swinish nose. It aroused at once indignation and contempt, derision and horror. You hated it while you despised it. If it had provoked you to punish it, disgust and a sense of what was due to yourself would have led you to adopt some sort of experiment for wringing it at a dis- tance. Nothing else would have remained to you. Don't imagine that if, favored of the gods, you had seen so much of this pituitary hypostasis as chose, of grace, to reveal itself on Mr. Snort's face, you would have seen it all. Far from it. It wase all through Mr. Snort and everything pertaining to him. It was the alpha and omega of his economy, the snoozy, snivelly, snorey, unsnubbed spinner of his destiny. It was in his asinine ears, which flared out from his head as if they were wings and intended to fly away with it. It was in his button- shaped eyes, of a hard blue color, resembling the fracture of a certain kind of limestone more than anything else in nature. It floated in the pilose of archipelago of pomatum which he tersely styled his "Ilha'r." It. shot out to an astonishing distance in his nails, kept thus like bird's claws in order that people might know he never worked. In his stick of an ankle it ascended square into the middle of hs foot. Then it bulged up again in his instep, which, crowded out of its natural place by the eccentrici- ties of his ankle, reappeared in a camel's hump on his heel. And in the hollow of his foot it punched wickedly at the antipocdes as he walked along. Mr. Snort was at once a boor and a coxcomb, or, to use " pop- ular " terms which will characterize him better, a "chivalry," and1 a "plug-ngly." His coxcombry, however, did not refine or relieve his boorishness, but, like a glass jewel in the nose of a wild Pat- - agonian, only rendered it more intensely disgusting. As to attain- ' ments, he could read a little, signedo his name with an effort, and AN OMNIBUS NOSE. 89 knew that two and two make four conventionally in all the bar- rooms. He despised amusements in which skill is required. To play billiards was the far height of human glory, but he couldn't learn, and so he had to stick to pigeon-hole and tenpins. He loved whiskey most tenderly, but, alas, it was too light for him; so, in heavy disappointment, he ballasted for the storms of life with old Jamaica, and filled up with cogniac, bestowing here and there in odd corners schnapps, cobblers, slings, toddies and other I)retty fancies. He could neither shoot, nor skate, nor swim; but, by way of compensation, he had no rival in beastly debauch- ery. In him, impulse always took the form of appetite, and never assumed any other for an instant. All the juices in his composition were decoctions of verdigris; you smelt the brazen poison of a corrupt effronltery in every word he uttered. Although he was a shameless liar, you could not call him a hypocrite, because hypocrisy implies variation, and in him there was neither ebb nor flow. His foulness was viscous and ropy as pitch and treacle, and festered itself away instead of running off. When you called him an incomparable ass, you indicated the only con- servative force in his nature; just think of it. Is he had been combustible, the greenest blaze in perdition would have been a heavenly light beside him ; but luckily he was a ditch that wotild not burn. Nature made him harmless by making him besotted. He combined all that was putrid with all that was crude. There was not a ripe spot in him anywhere. Where he was not green- ness and acridity, he was putridity. Like the whole coterie of American aristocracy, he accurately combined what is detestable in all the walks of life,-the arrogance of wealth, the morals of the shop, the intelligence of the cotton-field. You should have heard him just once, mouthing about "aour " family, and how it had once dwelt in that Eden, "Caroleener." Then you should have known all about this precious set, who, with some mythical pretensions to gentility, had gone down beneath contempt without learning humility, and in the last gen- eration, by the development of the oyster trade, had risen to opu- lence without acquiring culture. His father was hardly cold in his grave before the gay Sylvester had squandered half his for- tune. The anxious molluscs charged with the maintenance of this illustrious house multiplied in vain; by no amount of energy in producing little oysters, could they keep pace with this penn- page: 90-91[View Page 90-91] 90 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. rious prodigal, this mean and niggard spendthrift. He embarked in a number of piratical and thieving raids against defenceless states, expecting to become a dake at least; but he only talked pompously, and lost his money. He kept the extent of his losses to himself, iuntending to repair them by a matrimonial specula- tion. Even after he had lost his all, and had not a rag of his own left to cover his nakedness, he still clung to this lofty and virtuous thought, and executed it at last-on an infinitesimal scale. He was especially careful that his "auntie" should not hear a whisper of his losses. He knew very well that it was only because she thought him enormously rich, and in no sort of -need of it, that she intended to leave him her fortune. If she had thought him poor, she would not have given him a dime to have saved his life. Of course, Mr. Snort was a great politician. That need not have been specified, as you have already perceived in what an emi- nent degree he possessed the qualifications for an American poli- tician of the refined and exclusive school. No pothouse Arnold in all the lanCl could out-bawl him. His stupidity was equalled by nothing else that was ever seen under the sun except his malig- nity. You are expecting now to hear that he was sent to Con- gress; but no, he never was. His political vocabulary was some- what limited in its range. In fact, it consisted almost entirely of two elegant epithets, descriptive of the color of the livers and abdomens of the Abolitionists. He so hated the Yankees that you could scarcely get him to take a drink on the north side of the street. thetoricians who are fond of classical allusions to curl about their graceful periods, will please take notice, and give up Hannibal's little spite against Rome henceforth. The only purpose what little common-sense he had, ever served, was to enable him to descend by anxious study to yet lower depths of vulgarity and baseness. He was the prince of low wags and blasphemous buffoons. He swore forty times a day that there was no God, and that he knew it; but he shuddered whenever he heard that name seriously pronounced. It was a terrible name to him in any other connection than a profane one. Yet, in spite of his quaking fear of the name of God, he prided himself on surpassing all his associates in the boldness and oddity of his blasphemy. He swore by a mark, and whenever he fell short of it, he felt ashamed of himself. He spent hours in conning THE DEVIL TO PAY. 91 new oaths and combinations of oaths, and whenever he hit on something brilliant in his line, he set off at once and made,the round of his haunts, swearing it with the utmost impartiality in precisely the same words at each. This mixture of incorrigible ass and demon was forever inter- fering with things that did not concern him, and of which he knew nothing at all, in order that he might thwart, and grieve, and injure; and when he had insulted, outraged, and desolated to the full extent of his accursed gift, he never would fight. He learned at last by repeated experience that the logical sequence was the cowhide. But his nose was agarinst him-which is saying a great deal in six little words-and, therefore, it was not in the power of leather, in any shape, to reform him. $*4 CHAPTER X. THE DEVIL TO PAY IN A MATRIMONIAL POINT OF VIEW. AI Mrs. Greed sprang up from her girlish coquetting with the fire, on hearing the entering footsteps of the wanderers, she shaded her eyes with her left hand to aid her vision, gave the intruders a scowl of amazement and displeasure, pointed at them with the extended forefinger of her right hand, and cried in a shrill, excited key, "Who are these people?"Then the squash- headed woman, prompt as a beetle is to click when you pinch his back, replied, characteristically: "Why, if they ain't the same vagabonds that were here this evening a-asking for the Doctor!" The holy man's plan of introducing his proteges as a clergy- man's widow and son was thus completely upset; but Miss Jane's foolish and spiteful falsehood committed her irrevocably to the story which it at once suggested to the holy man's waiting mind, and he sincerely congratulated himself on his habit or instinct of never being too fast about anything. "Ah, my dear," he lied, with a smoothness born of long prac- tice, "this is a destitute person whom our Relief Committee sent to me this evening for employment in the country, and who by a series of mistakes was misunderstood both by our niece and by Hr. Phipps. And it occurred to me, my love, that I page: 92-93[View Page 92-93] 92 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. would consult both Christian charity and conjugal affection by engaging this applicant, who comes highly recommended as a superior person in point of birth and accomplishments, to sew and embroider for the dear wedded wife of my bosom; it being understood-bear it distinctly in mind, me darling--that her wages are to be paid out of my own salary, and not out of any funds of yours. " "I thought so," exclaimed the partner of his joys, excitedly. "'Tis just what I've looked for." She swept across the room to a tall old clock in one corner, and pointing to its face, exclaimed: "Look there, sir, see where that hand points. At this very hour, six weeks ago, we were married. What was your vow then, perjurer? Yet now--so soon-good God!" "Here's h-11," quoth Mr. Snort, and in order to keep from being caught by it, he left the room, rode post-haste to town, and got very drunk. "Strike an attitude, wife of my bosom," exclaimed the doctor, petulantly, "and cry "My name is Norval, from the Grampian Hills!"But please don't make an ass of yourself, my dear, if you can conveniently avoid it." "How dare you, sirrah, call me such a name?" she demanded. "I never made such a creature of myself but once in my life, and that, intriguer and deceiver, was when I married you. " "What made you do it, then, wife of my bosom? I am sure I tried hard enough to get off, after you attempted to swindle me with that villainous marriage contract. Let me just jog your memory a little, darling. You will recollect that a day was set whereon we loving twain were to be made one flesh, but the bridegroom, slightly put out by that same marriage contract, did not -make his appearance, though the company had gathered, and the parson stood with his lips in sanctimonious pucker, and the blooming and expectant bride sighed for his coming. The next evening he called with a flimsy apology, patched up on purpose to be rejected, and which any woman with a particle of pride would have scorned. But you accepted it, sweet one, and suspecting where the difficulty lay, forthwith tore up that villainous docu- ment before my eyes, and insisted that the ceremony should be performed on the spot. After the knot had been snugly tied, and while your husband's first kiss was still dewy on your virgin lips, and while you were in a perfect flurry of happiness, oh hor- THE DEVIL TO PAY. 93 ror! you suddenly remembered that it was Friday! Friday, my love, not only forever unfortunate, but also sacred to the North- ern Venus! What woman, with such a portent on her wedding- day, would not be deliciously miserable for the rest of her life? There, wife of my bosom, that is a little reminiscence of which I shall very frequently remind you during our voyage on the rosy sea of matrimony." She made no reply, for she could make none, but she whipped her handkerchief out of her pocket, and blew her nose with a loud, defiant snort. This was always her resource when she was utterly discomfited, and the man of God seeing her resort to it now, concluded his victory was won. "Come to supper," he commanded. "Sit down, all of you, and eat." And down he sat, but no one followed his example. "Come to the table, Dutchwoman. What sort of stuff-is this we've got for supper?"Helping himself liberally, for he was a great glutton, "I will try to eat some of it, but if I say grace over it, Beelzebub is a land-terrapin. Old Master has too much knowledge of cookery, and is withal too fond of a well-roasted bull or goat to be caught blessing such stuff as this, I fancy. True, we have not heard from Him for some time now, but it is/ not orthodox to suppose His taste has deteriorated." "I am not going to eat at the same table with that woman," responded his wife. "Youa may kill me if you want to, but you cannot maike me eat at the same table with one of your" "Don't finish that sentence, my dear," he interrupted, blandly. "I give you devilish fair warning not to finish that sentence, my love. " She did not dare to finish the sentence, so she blew her nose again with a particularly tremendous snort. Suddenly an idea struck her. 'c God help me, a poor, sinful wretch!" she exclaimed, turning as white as a sheet, "' I had entirely forgotten my dream. Quick, -quick, Jane," she gasped; "tell my dream. What did I dream, Jane? What did I dream?" "Holy Moses! What's coming now?" asked the clergyman, apprehending that he was about to be badly flanked. "My aunt dreamed," recounted she of the Indian eyes, while the imp of slyness lurked in her suppressed smile, " that two anacondas, a large and a small one, got into her cash-box, close down in the left-hand corner, where she has a bag of gold." Her page: 94-95[View Page 94-95] " THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. eyes fairly gleamed, as they always did when she talked of money. "My aunt saw them munching the coins-the solid, shining, beautiful eagles-with their teeth. She tried to frighten them away, when they seized the bag of yellow beauties and disap- peared. " "Anacondas, anacondas!-that was right, Jane," screamed Mrs. Greed, at the pitch of her voice. "They were foreign snakes; that means new-comers into the house. You will see, sir. We shall all see. Heaven forgive my sinful forgetfulness of its wonderful providence." 8 "We all know, my love," replied the man of God,. "that Divine Providence is a heavy trump, but you can't force my han I with it. I am master here, and, by the holy marrow-bones, I'll either rule or tear the house down." "Phipps!" at once cried Mrs. Greed, producing her 1 acket- book in the most desperate manner, "Phipps! you knm w the whole vile scum of the earth. Tell me who these vagabonds are. You shall have money, Phipps!--seas of money!- Here are five dollars to begin with." "Of course you intend to quadruple it at once," said Phipps, putting the money in his pocket. . "Yes, yes, I guess so; but what a stingy villain you are," snarled Mrs. Greed, very unromantically, but suiting the action to the word and delivering over the money. "Because, you see," said Phipps, "if you hadn't done so, I'd have been bound in honor to him, inasmuch as you hadn't outhid him. He told me a month ago he'd give me twenty dollars -to fetch him a pretty tramp that he could keep in the house, and who'd be lady-like and keep herself straight; and so I picked up this one on the road to-night, and brought her to him with a fine story, and, I'll say for him, he paid me like a gentleman." The villain's revenge was impartial and complete; for he owed them deep grudge allaround. Mrs. Greed shrieked like a steam fire-engine, and tried to faint, but signally failed. The man of God, livid and almost speechless with rage, unable to do more, bowed to Phipps with freezing stateliness, and croaked huskily: 'C Philpot Curran Phipps, Esquire,-sir, your servant." Phipps returned the bow with equal stateliness, and said: "Reverend Theospolophilus Greed, D D.--sir, your servant." "Look out for your neck, villain." THE DEVIL TO PAY. 95 "Item, your surplice, divine," and he bowed himself out of the room for the purpose of finding the pursuer of "the Dutch defendant," and of coming to terms with him. "Gracious heavens!" cried Mrs. Greed, majestically, "there they still stand, just as I saw them in my dream. Ho, there; Tobe, rouse the house. Bring all my servants here to defend their outraged mistress. Put everything under lock and key. For I know that these thieves will steal the very foundation-stones of my mansion before morning." With every word of this vile dialogue, in which a Christian minister and his wife had not scrupled to engage, more and more of that poor sufferer's short-lived peace died out of her face, and horror, loathing and despair came in its stead. It would have melted a heart of stone to see her transient cheerfulness fade away into the old horrible expression of unrest and wretchedness. But it was not until Mrs. Greed's last harangue fell like a thun- derbolt at her feet, that her weakened mind, infatuated with the idea of rest and a home, clearly understood what these pious and cultivated people were talking about, or fully comprehended the situation. Then, with her face white as ashes and frightful to behold, she grasped her child's hand and bounded through the , door into the hall. With a few rapid leaps she gained the front door, but abruptly checked her flight there, as if her resolution had failed. She pressed her head against the wall, as if to crowd back its bursting pulses while she should thigk, and groaned aloud: "Drag him out again? No, no, Father, Thou canst not require that now." Then she turned about and fled rapidly down the hall to the staircase, and up it to their late chamber. It was not until they were safe in the room, with the door doubly secured by bolt and lock, that she was able to check her morbid impulse for flight. The fire had burned low, and only a heap of dull red coals russeted the air; for there was no candle burning. She walked instinctively to the window, put aside the curtain, and looked out. At first she saw nothing but a sere and melanehply, beam-and-shadow-patched scene ; but slowly out of the confusion some terrible sight, of interest to her, seemed to be emerging, and presently the spectacle of her brutal enemy and pursuer, walking back and forth in the yard below, arm in arm with the villain Phipps, burst upon her senses. She let the. curtain fall, and bounded, rather than ran, into the remotest page: 96-97[View Page 96-97] 96 THE STOIRY OF AN OUTCAST. corner of the room, where she stood cowering and trembling, "Thank heaven!" she gasped, with difficulty, "there was no light burning. But is that curtain thick? Feel it and see, Selric; I am afraid to go to it. No, no, not that way," she cried, as he walked towards it; "in pity's name, not that way. Are you mad, that you walk to it erect? Get down on your knees and crawl-crawl low against the floor. O God! 'tis but one brief hour since I felt so strong and brave that I could have faced the world in arms, and now if even an ugly shadow should fall across my path, I should flee from it in terror." i As she stood there cowering and trembling in the corner of the room, a reaction took place, not unlike many her later years had exhibited, but far more sudden and terrible than any that had ever preceded it. Her wild fright and - jient subsided, and on her changeful face, which was always the perfect reflex of every state ofr'her mind, settled a stony, unmeaning expressio', which had come of late to be the sequence of every fit of terror, and wlhich tarried longer and longer with each return. An icy clasp held her in awful rigidity and coldness. Her pulses almost ceased to beat. Her sense of touch was suspended. Numbness fell on her whole body an[d inine. Her sense of personal identity seemed to forsake her, and she felt as if she were on the eve of ceasing to be herself. It seemed more difficult for her to realize that she was h rself than that she was some other object. Her cheek appeare., suddenly to have sunk and grown thinner, and to have left her great eyes more prominent. In these there was a fixed yet flighty stare, as if the muscles which controlled the orbs were palsied, so that they remained immovable in their sockets, very tombs of terror. :ihe boy, with his heart used to nothing but sorrow, now liter- ally bursting with the crushing shadow of a great impending calamity, first assured her with eager self-deceiving matter-of-fact- ness, that the curtain was very thick and strong, and then crept back to her side, and almost forced her down into a chair, laid his hand on her hair, and smoothed it over her temples, and bent over her and kissed her cold, pale brow. She received his caresses at first like senseless marble. Her rigid white face, listless stare, and corpse-like hands, and the thought of her sufferings chilled and curdled his inmost soul, and passionately clasping his arms around her neck, he drew her head to him and imprinted a thousand wild heart-broken kisses on her frozen lips. THE DEVIL TO PAY. 97 This action aroused her. She turned her blank face on him with vague surprise ending in flighty recognition, and asked: "What was it? Oh, yes, the curtain. Is it thick and strong? Can no gleam of light pass through?" "Oh, Ifixed that, mother," he answered, with a stout effort at commonplace cheerfulness, "and not a single gleam of light can pass through." Bait in his bursting heart a voice of prophecy kept sobbing, "Oh, no, no, never, never more will any gleam of light pass through."' "You must go to bed now, my son," she said at once. "I wish, to undress you myself, to-night, and lay you in bed, just as I used to do when you were a babe at my breast." It was in vain that he expostulated, and insisted on her retiring at once, and claimed the right to assist her. She took him in her arms and kissed him, and bending over him as he lay in her lap, began to question him with a calmness and earnestness not to have been expected, whether her looks terrified him; and when he answered that it was bitterer than death to see her suffer, but that the sight only made him feel like drawing closer to her, and loving her the more, she again kissed him fervently, and told him God would bless him. Still she seemed to be not entirely satisfied. There lurked in her mind the apprehension of a time when, in the insanity she anticipated, she might wander back to him, and it was unendurable to think that he would ever shrink from her in terror. So, after kissing him yet again, as if to entreat him with the mute endearment to answer as she wished, she asked him: "But if the time should ever come when my piteous eyes, with no mind behind them, should grow sick with looking into the cold, hard faces of strangers, and should seek to look again into the angel-face of my boy, do you think their stare would frighten you?" "Oh, no, mother," he cried passionately, "between the real us there could never be any separation or farewell-no, mother, no parting at all forever. I should know that behind the cloud you still loved me, and I should only love you the more for your misfortune, and weep over you and pity you." "Ah, and you would know, my noble boy, would you not, that yoar mother'^ clouded soul was wandering in the mist beyond the barrier, desolate and yearning, and beseeching our Father for the release of death that it might no longer be separated from you, but become your guardian angel." page: 98-99[View Page 98-99] 98 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. Then she undressed him with a tenderness unwonted even in her, and laid him in the bed. She hung over him in fond stillness till she thought he slept-but he did not sleep-and then, no longer able to restrain her grief, fell down on the bed beside him and burst into an agony of crucified maternal love. "Oh, hjw, how can I give him up?" she sobbed-"my glori- ous boy, my darling, my all. Oh, this is bitterer than death! Oh, this will drive me mad--mad. And is this my last look at thee, my cherub-this my last kiss? Fall on my cheek once -more, sweet-breath; but, oh, never shall I hear my name min- gled with your sweetness again! O glorious eyes, what is now passing in your heavenly depths? O, peerless soul, why art thou gone so far from me at a time like this? Thou hast always upheld and strengthened me in every trial; how can I do with- out thee in this the greatest trial of all? But what will his anguish be when he wakes and finds himself motherless! If I could but spare him that pang, my own misery would not be worth a thought. Yet to think that I shall never more see him, never more kiss him, never more hear his voice! But, oh, I know that he will never forget me-that I am planted in his heart for- ever, and that, until the sun himself shall fade away, he will turn in every noblest mood to my image, and brighten it afresh with his tears." This thought seemed to calm her, and she added after a pause: "I shall live, too, in his glorious life. Words that my lips have spoken will fall from his tongue, and influences I have wielded will mould his destiny. O, Father, I bend low my bursting head, and lay my broken heart at T'hy feet, and thank Thee. And now, farewell, my angel-a long and last farewell! But, no, no, I cannot go yet, I must look at him once more, kiss him once more. Oh, that I could take from his lips a kiss whose sweet, warm seal I could still feel on my own as they moulder in the grave." But It now became apparent that in thinking she could leave him she had over-estimated her strength. It was in vain that she tore herself away. repeatedly, with a great effort, as if she were being wrenched in twain. - She returned as often, and again passionately embraced- and kissed him, and exclaimed: "Oh, I cannot, cannot go! Oh, I cannot give him up forever!"To her great relief, she saw, on looking out the window, that a thin haze which scarcely dimmed the stars had overspread the sky, and a dry, light, powdery snow was falling. Glad of an excuse, INNER BEAUTLES OF A HOME. 99 she concluded that she would remain with him until it should quit snowing, and when presently it did cease, she thought she would stay until almost morning, and then steal away before he should wake. So she lay down beside him, and clasped her still darling in the sweetness of a stolen embrace, and, till the fire died out, watched the heaving of his breast, and thinking that his dreams were troubled, soothed and fondled him, and longed to fwake him, and end his suffering, but knew that if she disclosed her purpose of flight to him its execution would be impossible. And the child, not able to speak to her of such a subject even for the purpose of preventing her going, unable even to seem to know- anything about it, thought only of watching her, and of slipping away after her, and of following on in her track for- ever; never revealing himself unless she should need him-be- cause it was evident she would not be pleased at his doing so-but never in all time to come losing sight of her for one moment. CHAPTER XI. INNER BEAUTIETS OF A HOME. A SERIES of wondrous pitiful events, now occurring in rapid succession, abruptly terminated the wretched mother's indecision, and hurled her out of the house. Phipps having been bribed successively, at a very cheap rate, as we have seen, by the man of God and by the wife of his bosom, had completed the day's earn- ings by selling himself twice more-thus making up by rapidity of exchanges what he lacked in value. Miss Jane Mellifer, deeming that the dream which she had almost entirely manu- factured for her ridiculous aunt, and the presence of the beggars, afforded her an opportunity which might never return, had deter- mined to plunder the cash-box, and fix the theft on the '"foreign snakes," and had hired Phipps to help her work out the scheme. Besides this little job, he had an engagement, on profitable terms, to deliver the object of his search to the ruffian outside. The plan adopted to kill both birds with one stone, was for Phipps to procure a ladder and enter the woman's room by the window, when, it was not doubted, she would at once bolt out page: 100-101[View Page 100-101] 100 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. and fall into the hands of the gentleman outside, and so disappear forever; and then, of course, the money being gone, Mrs. Greed would be quite ready to swear she had seen the woman take it. The plan worked to perfection, so far as its effect on the poor, dis- ordered wanderer was concerned; but on flying to the door and removing the bolts, she found that the key was gone from the lock, and she was a prisoner, and so she could only return to the bed and lie there quaking beneath the cover. Phipps then entered the room to see what was the matter, removed the screws from the catch in the lock with his knife, opened the door, and admit- ted his confederate. A hurried parley ensued, in which it was decided, in view of the appearance of the lock, that the best thing they could do would be to get away as soon as possible, leaving some of the money in the room, or about the woman, as a precautionary measure; so that if they should not be per- mitted to drive her away, her conviction would still be assured and suspicion diverted from themselves. The wet cast-off dress of the wanderer was found, and two or three pieces of gold put into its pocket. Then, Miss Jane leading, they prepared to leave the room; but as she stepped out into the hall, she stepped into the vice-like grasp of a sinewy pair of arms. The valiant Phipps, seeing that his confederate had so speedily come to grief, did not wait to discover the cause or nature of it, but "ener- getically" took refuge under the bed. Miss Jane struggled manfully for freedom, venting objurgations which would have shaken to pieces any weaker nerves than those she had to do with, but in this particular instance produced no effect what- ever. Of course, her captor was none other than the master of the house, the spoils-loving man of God. The precise temper he was in, the petulance, malice, and fiendish exultation of his mood the keenest diction could scarcely characterize aright. He had felt quite certain since the scene at supper, that the "crazy Dutchwoman" was resolved to run away, and he intended to prevent her going. He had, therefore, in one of the mother's paroxysms, dexterously pushed the key out of the lock and inserted another on the outside, so fastened with a wire that it could not be similarly removed. While thus piously watching the corners, he saw, to his great delight, Miss Jane rob her aunt's cash-box. He would not have taken a year's salary for this incident. His delight passed all bounds; his triumph was com- INNER BEAUTIES OF A HOME. 101 plete. This was the confederate his wife had called in to help man- age him; now she had robbed her employer, and he had caught her in the act. His vengeance on them both should be ample. His wife would never dare to raise any opposition to him again. His empire was established forever. Besides, he was certain now to be able to retain his new proteges in the house. No wonder that, with so many reasons for rejoicing, his pious heart was full of holy delight. He danced, he capered, he whistled, he almost sang. "My pretty niece, my sweet Hellifer, my she-Daniel, my original dream-book," said-he, with overflowing humor of the only kind he ever indulged in, "rest serenely on this manly bosom. You are quite unkind, my dear, to try to fly from the embrace of your affectionate uncle. Sweet one, struggle not like those. I fear me you may e'en alarm the house, and I know you are too humane and considerate to purposely break the slumbers of any one just at this interesting moment, my pretty Jane." "Please to let me go. I implore you to release me. Why should you expose me?--why ruin a poor girl like me?" "Hold! hold! I pray thee hold, sweet babbler. Don't melt my feelings-don't wring my sensibilities-don't torture my ten- der heart like those. It is cruel, cruel, cruel, very cruel to do so, Jane. Don't do it Jane; don't, I say don't! DON"!! DON'T !!!" "Have you no humanity, no bowels of compassion, fiend?" "Ndt a bowel, dear umbilical darling, if your precious life depended on it. Alas, how I now regret the deficiencies in my emotional duodenum." "But exposure will disgrace your own family as much as it will me." "Mellifer, sweet Mellifer, you are excited. Your mind wanders, sweet girl. Poor, poor, dear Jane, what can she mean?" / "Is not your wife my aunt, and will not my disgrace reach her?" "You are a woman, darling Mellifer; I have no longer any doubt that you are a woman; any one could guess you were a woman, the third guess, just from your reasoning. But if your beloved aunt were a thousand times my wife, my pretty logician, how in the world could that make her of the least kin to me? Besides, pretty one, if your disgrace reaches her, it is her own lookout, not mine; she has got no business being kin to you." page: 102-103[View Page 102-103] 102 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "May I see you blaze in perdition, you heartless demon," cried she, in a transport of fury. "I can't stand it, sugar-stick; indeed I kAn't," he whimpered. "You compliment me too highly. Be more considerate, Jane, with one of my sensitive nature. Merit is always modest, Jane, and I am very modest." "Yes, as your father and your brother imps are modest." "Oh, Jane, my dear, dear Jane, forbear, forbear, forbea-aa-r. Be persuaded not to waste your breath in these idle compli- ments. You will need it all, my poor, dear Jane-; for you have a long walk before you." "What long walk have I before me?" she askled, timidly. "To Crib Castle, honeyest. Whither did it think? For behold, I heard a voice crying, and the voice was like unto the voice of Crib Castle, and the voice said unto me, 'Give me Jane, thy niece, the gentle Mellifer, to lodge within my gates.' Now, that being the case, the question is, what the dickens is a fellow to do? Why, hearken unto that voice, as a Christian divine should hark, say I." "You don't mean what you say. I know you don't; you can't." "Don't my dear? Can't, my dear?- Lay your finger on my pulse, and imagine you are looking me straight in the eye; and tell me if I don't. This is my only sound policy, as your own good sense might convince you. Then, whenever the wife of my bosom might be a little stubborn, or suffer a relapse of this dangerous crotchet of managing me, all I should have to do would be to say: 'Wife of my bosom, consider the darling Mel- lifer, consider our poor, unfortunate Jane; you wormed this self- same kink into her head, and, wife of my bosom, where is she? -compose yourself, wife of my bosom;' and the thing would be done. Blind, blind Jane, not to see my policy! What, my dear, don't you know what unaccountable jealousies these shady-side- of-forty brides take up, and how liable the wife of my bosom is to them? Then, when you, lovely cweecher, have prepared me a specific to cure her of them once and forever, shall I throw it away? No, no; that were base ingratitude to you, loved Jane. Jane, how quiet you have become all at once. What ails you, sweet one. Tell uncle." "Accursed be the day that I came under this roof. Accursed be the day when I first encountered that faithless hag and lis- ter-nd to her lying promises." INNER BEATUIES OF A HOME. 103 "Ho, ho," he laughed in bitter scorn, "will wonders never cease? Who would have believed that my sweet niece would ever say such naughty things of her dear aunt-the wife of my bosom? But, Jane, I am a man of some observation and a fair share of wit, and I will give you a scrap of philosophy to console you now in the bitter disappointment of your trusting young heart's best affection. There is always a canker at the heart of the fairest friendships, and this canker is generally of metallic origin. So there is consolation for you." "Heaven help me, I am ruined. "AlAs, als, and so you are; they will bear you away to the- penitentiaree, even if they don't hang you. But praying to heaven can't help you; so you had better pray in t'other direction, sweet penitent; they know you down there, and may be they'll do something for you. O Jane, dear, lost Jane, let me exhort you now to profit by this wringing remorse. The next time my angel half gets a sharp-witted confederate to help her manage me, it won't be you, will it, gentle one?- No, no; for you'll be safe in the penitentiaroo-oo-oo. Boo-hoo-oo! But you found it quite a job to keep me straight, didn't you, my pretty blackbird. I am a brighter lad than you took- me for, am I not, my pretty ousle? Don't you wish you had enlisted under Jupiter instead of Juno, my houri? If you had come to me at the start, like a duti- ful niece, Jane, and asked my advice, I could have told you, as a Christian divine, whose cause to espouse. The winning side, my dear, is always the side to take; my gospel teaches that. See what a predicament you have got into by not taking the winning side. Had you been on my side, you would not now, O my poor, poor, lost darling, be in this devil of a mess." "Well, do your worst; I do not regret what I have done. I only took a small portion of what was rightfully mine. If per- formance had equalled a tithe of promise, half that she possesses would be mine. But I will yet be avenged. So help me heaven, the day shall come when she will call on the rocks and. hills to cover her." "Jane," asked this holy man, this loving husband, "do you really mean what you say, Jane?" "Yes, by all the angels." "Every word of it in sober determination, and not in transient passion?" page: 104-105[View Page 104-105] 104; THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Even so." "Thlen, Jane, I am rather of the opinion that the long walk to Crib Castle to-night would not be good for your health. You shan't go, daughter. Neither shall you be deprived of any little gains you may have acquired to-night." "You are not the fiend I took you for, at last," she said, fetch- ing a sigh of relief. "Thanks, my pretty Jane. And, Jane, I will reward you for the compliment by telling you an interesting story. Once upon a time, in a far-off country, a notorious old, swindler, Hymen by name, set up a lottery. An enterprising youth invested in this rascally concern, and drew a great prize; but after he had got possession of the prize, he felt morally certain that he had been infernally swindled in some way, but could not guess how. And forthwith he became a curious student of biography, anxious to know all about the past history of folks. Jane, my pretty dar- ling, your dear uncle was always noted for a commendable love of useful knowledge." -- "You have the Evil One's own eye ;--I am convinced of that." "Possibly I misconstrue your intentions, sweet l\Mellifer; but unless I am mistaken, you intend, provided you are not called upon to take that ugly journey to Crib Castle to-night, to assist my inquiring mind in its pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. This is simply a surmise of mine, Jane--nothing more. Is it cor- rect?' ' Yes. " "Then, Jane, I am certain that a walk to Crib Castle to-night would injure your constitution. I see we are to have a cozy sail on the sea of gossip, Jane, with scandal for our breeze and mal- ice at the helm. But we will first step in here, softly--you know- how, Jane-noiselessly, like thieves--you know how, Jane, and take back the 'yellow beauties' you have so charitably put into this Dutchwoman's pocket. You are too generous, Jane-rashy, inconsiderately generous. I am your uncle, Jane, a prudent, unimpulsive, unromantic old man, and must be permitted to rebuke these,youthful freaks of generosity. But why did you choose midnight and secrecy to bestow your charity? Ah, I see, sweet Mellifer, I see. You feared the woman's pride "-and there he snickered-"would cause her to reject the bounty. You saw what a proud, high spirit she had, and knew she would never INNER BEAUTIES OF A HOME. 105 stoop to, ancept charity. Generous Jane, considerate Jane, elo- quent Jane, who but thou, gifted one, could thus describe and thus bestow these 'solid, shining, beautiful eagles.' Jane, you were too eloquent on that point, by odds. As a Christian divine of long experience in public speaking, I must say you were entirely too eloquent in that passage. I knew at once you intended to steal the eagles you soared on. Be more prudent next time. 'Tis a sad reflection, Jane, but true, that eloquence is a fatal gift, and has killed many a brave fellow, who, but for it, might have married and done well. To pass by such old chaps as Demosthe- nes and Cicero, who, as Juvenal and some other old 1ogul shows, were killed stone dead by their own greatest orations, how many fine lads of your own profession, Jane,--how many of those nim- ble, cogent orators who are accustomed to persuade travellers out of their purses, or to move our very watches to rise from our pock- ets, or to entice from their cozy nests the 'solid, shining, beauti- ful eagles,' how many of these, gifted Jane, have been undone by their own powers of persuasion! Be warned in time, lovely cweecher; be warned by your affectionate uncle." The reply, being simple profanity, and not self-delineation, may be omitted. "Oh, don't, don't,-Jane, please don't," he deprecated. "Have you no regard for the feelings of a Christian minister? How can you swear so at your pious and reverend uncle? Consider my feel- ings, Jane, and my cloth, and my position, and-and-and all my ohite cravats I Consider these, Jane. It hurts my feelings to be sworn at, Jane; indeed, indeed it does-my tender, Christian feelings. If you don't quit swearing, I shall have to quit talk- ing to you, my gentle babbler, my sweet south, my sucking dove." "Hold your forked tongue," she replied, determined to make the best of it, "and come along with me in here and let me get back the pieces I left in this poor fool's pocket. For I am going to confess the theft by flight, and do not want to leave any of the pieces behind when there is nothing to be gained by it-; and you would, of course, as you have said, far rather I should recover them than leave them where they are." 9 "A shrewd remark, Jane, a deuced shrewd remark for a child of your tender years. I see, too, that at last you begin to appre- ciate my genius properly. Ah, Jane, had you done so sooner, you would not now be on the eve of going out into the cold, page: 106-107[View Page 106-107] v 'XnI iT'OYar OF AN OUTCAST. unfriendly world. Ah, Jane, yours is a sad, sad lot. You will soon be a poor lone orfling, without neither father nor mother, nor nothin' for to eat, nor any whars for to sleep at. But don't cry, Jane, I beseech you, do not cry--don't, don't cry, my sweet peach, my Jane." "It i s not likely I shall weep at escaping from the very claws of Satan. "Ah! but that is, widely different from parting with your beloved uncle, sweet Jane. I am afraid you will unman me by your tears, beautiful one. But don't begin to weep yet, Jane for the hour of parting has not struckl. I will go with you to bundle up your little earthly all, Jane-alahs, dear Jane, I grieve me that it is so small; and while you pack, you shall direct my inquiring mind in its pursuit of useful knowledge. And after that we must part, Jane. Don't, don't weep, Jane, for the dee- ee-eerest friends must part. You must go outinto the cold, dark, unfeeling world, Jane-don't, don't weep, pretty one; and I will lie down upon my virtuous couch, beside the wife of my bosom, to dream sweet dreams, in which 'tis not precisely the graceful form of the wife of my bosom that will figure. Jane, thou petti- coated seer! knowest thou where the most beautiful woman- in all the world is at this moment? Sleeping there on that bed, Jane. Jane, I have a seasoning of philanthropy in me. I am going to commence being benefactor to beautiful and defenseless females. Thou shlouldst see me in that r6le, Jane-thou who art such a connoisseur in the dramatic arts; but, alas, thou canst not do it now. Oh, how it grieves me, Jane, that thou shouldst immolate thyself to advance my fortunes; but thou hast made the sacrifice, generous being. At supper I seemed already overwhelmed with defeat, but now my victory is certain. Thy little faux. pas, sweet Jane, delivers the wife of my bosom powerless into my hands. Without thee, what were this vain world to her ? She can't put even a corporal's guard into the field against me. How can I ever thank thee sufficiently, self-sacrificing Jahe? Oh, I am very, very grateful to thee, and I'll remember thee in my will. I'll will thee, let me see-yes, my bible. " ; At this moment the window-curtain was dashed aside; a dark face, long, black beard, and strong, rough frame, appeared at the window; and immediately a frightful-looking object bounded into the room, and approached the sweet niece and affectionate INNER BEAUTIES OF A HOIME. JI uncle. The pursuer had grown tired of waiting for Phipps, and determined to ascend the ladder in quest of his object. "Great God! what is this?" cried the holy man, starting back and releasing his sweet niece from his embrace. "I have come for my own," said the stranger; "make way here." And as he spoke a dagger glistened in his hand to enforce the mandate. . The holy man, who prided himself on his pluck, seized a chair to defend himself against the intruder, and a lively melee ensued. The poor wanderer, who, from the moment of the first intrusion into her room had lain quaking in terror, waiting for an oppor- tunity to steal away unobserved, now saw that if she did not improve this critical moment she was lost. Springing from the bed, she glided tihrough the- door, and hurried away down the hall. Observing the movement, and recognizing her, the stran- ger abandoned his attack on the Doctor, and hastened through the door and down the hall after the fugitive. There was a clatter of swift feet, as pursuer and pursued fled down the echo- ing stairs and resounding hall; then, a rattling of bolts and bars at the front door, which presently went to with a bang that shook the mansion from foundation-stone to turret. A moment later, and a wild scream followed by a demoniac laugh arose from the front-yard. Wild with apprehension for his mother, and fearing that she would be out of sight before he could i reach the front door, the child sprang to the open window, and looking out towards the front of the mansion, saw a female fig- ure flitting through the oaks in the white moonlight, the dark i stranger being in hot pursuit, and the holy man following ; quickly after him. The fugitive dodged wildly from tree to tree, but the pursuer gained rapidly upon her. She was almost within his grasp, when her foot slipped on the glassed - and icy earth, and she fell. He stooped -and raised her in his arms with a hoarse shout of exultation. Instantly the Doctor was upon him, and grappling with him endeavored to. tear her a from his arms. Again the stranger's murderous dagger gleamed on high, but before it could descend, his adversary had hurled him to the ground and was upon him. A brief but decisive strug- 4 gle ensued, and again the gleaming blade was uplifted, but this time it was in a determined and unrelenting grasp. It descended ! like a vivid flash, and then the Doctor rose to his feet holding the , i : page: 108-109[View Page 108-109] 108 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. dripping weapon in his hand. The mother, thus released, sprang from the ground, and as her face was turned for a moment towards her child, he saw that one-side of it was covered with blood. Again she 'darted forward, with her dishevelled hair streaming wildly in the wind, and that dark stain on her mar- ble face, and he saw her flitting away like a ghost through the grove, over the ice-panoplied and glittering earth,in the floods of pale, half-frozen light. The ill-fated stranger struggled for a moment in the last agony, and then was still in death. Just then Phipps and Miss Jane came up. A conference was held, in which, in less time than it requires to write the words, it was agreed that, as Miss Jane must leave the mansion, she and Phipps should get married; that it should be given out that the murdered man was a burglar who had come and robbed Mrs. Greed's cash-box, and had been killed by Phipps in the act; that a coroner's inquest should be held over the body, and that Phipps and Miss Jane should testify to these statements; that her aunt's stolen gold should be Miss Jane's dowry, and that the far larger sum found on the body of the dead man should be Phipps's reward for 'his services in the affair. There were some apparent improprieties in this little arrangement. E. g., Miss Jane passed for Phipps's mother, and had raised him as her child. But this relation did not in fact subsist between them, and they were both quite willing to marry, when, by doing so, they could make so much money. The holy man was anxious for the match as the most effectual means of upsetting, root and branch, the received theory of Phipps's birth; besides, he was purchasing impunity for murder with another man's gold. Phipps's schemes also were favored by the alliance. So it met all the requirements of a latter-day lnarriage, and with eminent propriety was "negotiated" under the auspices of this distin- guished divine. . As the whole household was now aroused, some of the negro men were called to bear the body away, and place it in an out-house until the coroner should arrive, and then every- thing was arranged to accord with and sustain the story agreed upon. -Leaving his lieutenants to put everything in order, the holy man started at once in search of the fugitive woman, ten minutes having been consumed in Phipps's and Miss Jane's "eergetip" courtship. But in the night two or three inches of light and shifting snow had fallen on the sleet of the previous INNEEBEAUTIES OF A HOME. 109 evening, and the wind again rising to a gale, now began to whirl snow and' frost through the air in great clouds, blinding the eyes, taking away the breath, and obliterating from the earth every footprint. The child remained spell-bound in his room, because the calamity which had befallen him had bred in him a horrible inertia. His powers of motion were completely stunned, but at the same time his sense of what was best for him to do seemed to become preternaturally acute, and to enjoin him to remain. He felt perfectly sure that the Doctor would capture his mother, and bring her back in a very few minutes; and he prayed he might do so, for she was very sick. Meanwhile, if he himself were to start out to try to find her, knowing nothing of the locality, it was perfectly certain that he would miss her in the blinding snow, and not be there to welcome and cheer her when the holy man should bring her back. So he could only wait. At last it was daylight, and he still stood there at the window, with blanched cheeks and muffled pulses, waiting and watching. The moon slowly faded away in the west, her powerless beams mingling with the first thin haze of day in a kind of pied and tessellated gloaming. Presently a pale roseate hue flowed in ripples half-way around the horizon, tinged the adjacent skies with its delicate stain, tipped the tiniest and highest twigs with a wavering suggestion of crimson, and flung out into the hollow sphere loose, floating, gossamer threads of softest and mildest fire, like the ravellings of a red silk scarf. An immense spider seemed crouched behind the horizon, spinning out threads from his bowels of fire, and throwing them up to float away and attach their loose ends to the dome of the heavens, so that he might presently climb up along them. Then a ruddier glow overspread the universe; the sun secured a lodgment on the horizon, like an archer on a rampart, and lying there, a sea of flame endqoed with personality, seemed to be exhausting his arsenal for darts to batter and bombard the earth; and myriads of shafts dis- charged from his burning bow rebounded from the icy helmets of the trees, apparently shattered into millions of fi'ery splinters, which penetrated the eye with acute and' intolerable pain. Mountains of white mist rising from the ocean, and driven by the gale, rolled and crashed against each other, their concus- sions flinging sunlit asteroids and lava-spouts of vapor to heaven page: 110-111[View Page 110-111] "O THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. and back upon the land. It was in vain that the wind swept the shore with furious blasts, and labored to clear the bosom of the sea; the mountains of vapor rose faster than the Titan with his besom could sweep them away. The fiercest gusts would hurl the white masses crushing against each other, and cleave avenues and caverns through them far out upon the sea; then the cold, wild waves could be seen eddying and shimmering like green, molten glass, and the splendors of the sun bursting through from above into these misty caves made them gor- geous with undulating and inconstant fire. 'Bands, streams and jets of fire, waving banners of flames, and ribbons cut from the rainbow, played in these rifts like a congregation of- a urorce boreales plaiting, weaving and interlacing their stripes into tar- tan and plaid; or like many frozen Heclas vomiting blood-red and violet vapors from snow-girt craters. As the wind swept through the trees around the mansion and the forests near at hand, long flowing trains of frost and snow, shaken from the boughs, fell to the earth glittering in the sun like the powder and fine scales of jewels intermingled with the cimeters and daggers of fairy warriors. The sky was literally a liquid arch, 'and as one gazed upon its spotless glory he ceased to wonder that the Hebrews spoke of the waters of the firmament, and you would almost have imagined that the wisps of writhng vapor which here and there flecked and dappled it were lotus-blossoms floating in its waves. The direction in which the wind was steadily blowing, and the configuration of the coast, prevented the waves from rising high and fierce along the shore. The beach shone like a sheet of burnished silver; admiring Oceanus dashed his waves warily as if relucta/nt to break the polished surface; and the subdued billows came forth out of the mist to gaze upon the scene, and glided carefully along the gleaming edge. There was a hush of admiration on the spirit of the sea, the august waters looking on the unwonted grandeur of the shore and being still. Then the sun, bounding off from the horizon like star-spotted Taurus brought to life, burst through and tore asunder, with his horns of flame, the crags and pinnacles of the mist-mountains, and tossed the fragments into the arms of the winds to be borne away; then -wheeling in triumph up the eastern sky, the fire of his burning eyes converted into a many-jewelled winding-sheet the congealed and frosty covering which enrobed the earth and BEGINNING OF DESOLATION. 1ll all terrestrial objects in spotless ice ermined with snow. The sheeted majesty of Nature, frozen and extinguished, lay in hideous pomp, with myriads of sapphires, rubies and emeralds blazing on her shroud. Trees, shrubs, stones, and flashing icicles, like lavished jewels of innumerable varieties and hues, sown broad- cast in the night by the hand of a Colossus, displayed all the colors of the prism scattered and blent, distributed and mingled in a thousand brilliant and indescribable combinations. And to tlfe pulseless boy, as he stood there in the first bitter, bitter, blood-curdling foretaste of a desolation nevermore -to end, and in the first misdirected stirrings of the truths that were to dawn at last out of his lonely and anguished life--and looked at this scene with the minute and pertinacious scrutiny which incipient despair so strangely delights in, it seemed-though he could not have expressed the thought-to be the picture and prediction of an end which discrowned and annihilated the soul. The uni- verse seemed to be an empty and melodramatic flare and glare, beneath which dwelt no substantial truth or purpose-a sheet of ice which froze the straining eyes, and broke promise with the agonized and longing soul-a gorgeous frost-work, in whose cold splendors every hope and every generous dream, all love, all faith, all satisfying glory sickened and died-oh, an unutterable and appalling disappointment! CHAPTER XII. BEGINNING OF DESOLATION. THUS the boy stood, waiting and watching, until the Doctor re- turned from his search; but the expected one came not with him. The child was staggered for a moment, but soon succeeded in. covering up his deeper consciousness again, with a shrewd*guess at smaller things: "Perhaps he found her at some neighboring house where she is safe, and she would not come with him; and if he did, I know that, quickly relenting, she sent me a message of some kind by him." Just then, the coroner arrived, bringing a set of professional jurymen with him, and the boy saw that he might wait, and judged he ought to wait, until that business was page: 112-113[View Page 112-113] "2 THE STORY OF 4N OUTCAST. over, before going down. In a few minutes the inquest was gone through, a satisfactory verdict rendered, and the dead man hauled away to the Potter's Field; and there that matter ended forever. Then the child left his room and went down stairs. Everything movable had been taken from the halls; even the carpeting and the -bright brass bars were missing from the steps; hat-rack, sofa, spittoons--all were gone; and to the last hour of his life the boy never forgot with what a desolate, desolate, dreary sound his feet scraped against the bare stair-steps and floor. 5Mrs. Greed in rthe fuss and fury of her impotent rage the night before, afraid to take any more decided step, had performed the characteristic action of summoning all her servants, and, with tremendous parade and racket, having every preposterous and ridiculous thing locked up, for fear the vagabonds, as she called them, would steal everything and decamp before morning. When the child got down stairs, the holy man and the wife of his bosom were already at breakfast; that is, they were seated at the table facing each other, but they had not yet tasted a mouth- ful of food, and seemed in no way likely to do so soon. The ex- quisite Tobe was standing by unoccupied. No one else was present. The room had been stripped of every article of its proper furniture. The table at which they were sitting was an importa- tion from the kitchen, and so were the chairs on which they sat. The carpet, the fender, -the shovel and tongs, everything, had dis- appeared into the closets and cellar. Even the tall old clock in the corner which had figured so strikingly as a dramatis persona the night before, had been stopped, and its weights removed for fear they would be stolen. Mrs. Greed had even enacted the ab- surdity of sending off all her- silver to the city for safe-keeping; so that they now had on the table neither forks nor spoons, and the Doctor sat stirring his untasted coffee demonstratively with the handle of a huge iron ladle which he had brought from the kitchen,-the bowl of the implement being too large for his cup. Mrs. Greed was too proud and foolish to order the return of the displaced articles, and the holy man. her loving husband, instead of overruling and correcting her contemptible and intoler- able follies, only gloried in the opportunity they afforded him of stinging and mortifying her. And he was goading her most un- mercifully, now holding himself up as an innocent creature mar- tyrized by her wickedness and folly, now employing every weapon BEGINNING OF DESOLATION. 115 of ridicule, irony and satire to humiliate and harass her, now bursting into bitter denunciation and invective, overwhelming her with the revelations Miss Jane had just made to him, and swear- ing that he intended to leave her forthwith. The poor, mean, foolish wife, pitiably-nay, rather ridiculously-woe-begone, was now at last, by this devilish master-stroke, thoroughly subdued, hopelessly and forever bowed down to the dust, reduced to be his slave by overwhelming terror and her ridiculous love; yet, in the blind spite and stubbornness of such a nature, she still held out with a show of resistance, and, returned blow for blow as far as she could. "Wife of my bosom," said he, "the table, the sideboard, the clock-weights, the fender, the poker, the shovel and tongs, have them all brought back, love. I think there is no danger now of their being stolen, for those wonderful snakes have vamosed the ranche. Jeminy! what would Aaron and the Egyptian sorcerers think of such snakes as these? But tell me, dearest, for my own information as an interpreter of holy writ, what is the practical advantage of visions which reveal the fact that you are going to be robbed, but double your danger by diverting your attention from the real point of attack. By which I mean, my love, that if you don't quit making such a ridiculous fool of yourself about your silly dreams,-I'll break your lovely neck or get a divorce, I don't care a copper which." "The dream has been verified to the letter," said Mrs. Greed, hastily. "It was Phipps and the lying jade herself that I saw devouring my money in their own proper persons." "Astonishing! Amazing! Inspiration of purest ray serene! Divine providence of the first water! But I thought, my love, they were anacondas, Jane, anacondas, foreign snakes, Jane, new- comers into the house, Jane! How in the name of all that's won- derful, sweet partner of my joys, could I have come by such a miserable travesty of your sublime vision? Jehu! just think of it! Our lovely niece and our dear Philpot, our only and well be- loved-shall I say wlat, wife of my bosom? No? Well, then, we'll not say just what, darling. But only think of our sweet Jane and our dear Philpot devouring gold just like beefsteaks. Old Buck piclding grass -on the commons of Babylon was nothing to that. But, my love, your light is too divine to be hid under a bushel. I am going to take advantage of the late discoveries in page: 114-115[View Page 114-115] "4 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. photography to turn your wonderful gift to public account. I am going to cut a hole through your precious head just behind your ears, and every night when you retire I'll fix a piece of pasteboard in it, and in the morning all the robberies that have taken place within a radius of ten miles around will be photographed thereon, with correct likenesses of the robbers. Then, too, I could take your imagination out in daytime and hang it up on a nail, and so not be worried to death by it. But, a-hem, do you know, darling, that I have no doubt you would rather tell fifty thousand lies any day than to admit that any dream of yours ever failed to be veri- fied in the minutest details?"Then he looked up and saw the child-whom he shad entirely forgotten-approaching. "Ah!" he cried sharply and spitefully, and said not another word. In spite of himself, the first sight of the child disturbed him, and a kind of twitch was visible about his mouth, as if he were wincing from an unpleasant recollection. He made a feint of clearing his throat and of pretending to expectorate. The expedient gave him time to send down Will from her throne to snatch away every par- ticle of the offensive expression, and to leave his face as black as lead. "Please, sir," asked the child, confidently, , "did my mother say she would come back for me, or shall I go directly to her?" "Come back for you? go on to her? Well, now, don't that beat the devil? Sit down, you little-fool. and eat your breakfast." "Thank you, sir, I do not want any breakfast; I only want to know where my mother is." " Oh, you want to know where your insane goose of a mother is, eh? Now, pray, what business of yours is it where she may be?" "Because she is nzy mother, sir, and not yours, nor anybody else's but mine, and she wants me to come to her, and I want to go and help her, for she is not very well." Then the holy man laughed a short, scornful, derisive laugh. "So she wants you to cometo her, does she? Now, I'll bet you ten cents--I'm not disposed to risk any more on such a subject-- that she don't want anything of the kind." "Oh, if I only knew the good Lord, or any of the good saints uip in heaven," cried the boy, with a mighty outhurst of many different emotions, " I would ask some of them to please lead me to my mother, so that I need not have to call on such a bad man as you to tell me anything about it." BEGINNING OF DESOLATION. 115 "Hats off and wool bowed in the nigger-gallery!" ejaculated the Doctor, in a mocking tone; " for don't you hear him whining with a forty-parson power at least? What a raving, staving man of God he'd make, if I were just to choke him a little with one of my white cravats." "But the question is, sir," said-the child, in a tone from which entreaty was banished, "whether you intend to tell me what you know about my mother." "What, my parson, not back from God Almighty and the saints to frail man already? Brethren of the cloth may venture to criticise each other's performances occasionally, for the sake of mutual improvement; and so I tell you flatly, my clergyman, your transitions are rather sudden." "Do you intend to tell me where my mother is?" demanded the child, in a fury. "Oh, ask God Almighty and the saints again. I don't know anything about it myself." "You do know; you know you do." "Then I lie, do I? Tell me to my teeth, you young scrub, that I lie." He advanced very near to the boy, in a threatening manner. "Yes, you lie," cried the boy, furiously, standing just where he had stood before, and looking his adversary fearlessly in the face. With that the holy man made a swoop at him, seized him by the shoulder, and shook him till his teeth chattered as though they would fly from his jaws. "You little imp," he growled, savagely, "I will teach you manners." Finally, he shook the boy free from his grasp, and the sudden release sent the latter whirling across the floor. "You had better finish me at once, as you did that man last night," cried the boy, as he went spinning across the floor. "What do you mean, you whelp?" cried the holy man, with livid cheeks.- He sprang towards the child again, asif he intended to crush him out of existence this time, and he would no doubt have done him great bodily injury if he had caught him at. that instant. But the child was determined the man of God should not catch him while in such a saintly mood. As the latter came striding towards him, he saw in him an awful and wicked thing bent on destroying him. To decide to fight with bitter determi- nation was the work of a moment, or rather, was not decision at page: 116-117[View Page 116-117] "6 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. all, but eager instinct. Accordingly, he seized a goblet from the table, and hurled it at the Doctor's head, with the fury and energy of a demon. The aim was not perfectly true, but the rim of the missile struck the holy man just over the left eyebrow, severing a vein, and the blood spurted out in a stream and flowed down over that holy eye and face. The blow and the blinding flow of blood stopped the advance for a moment, and the now thoroughly infu- riated child, improving his advantage, hurled at his foe, with the rapidity of lightning, plates, knives, cups, biscuits, and in short, everything he could lay his hands on, until nothing remained on the table but a large tin coffee-pot. This, while the broken frag- ments of dishes and their contents were rattling about the blinded and battered Doctor's ears and against the wall, as if it were hailing breakfasts, the boy seized, and stood ready to hurl the scalding liquid upon his assailant when he should come to close quarters. "The door, Tobe--the door-fasten, the door; don't let him get away," roared the blinded man of God. ( Oh, I ain't going yet," returned the child. "H am not at all afraid of you, and I'm not going to run away until I find out where my mother is." The loving wife, with a sudden fit of ridiculous tencderness, sprang to her dear husband, and threw her arms around his neck, crying out that her precious darling was killed, and commenced wiping the blood from his face with her handkerchief. She thus secured the child from injury, without intending to do so. She succeeded at length, by dint of hard pulling, in getting the Doctor into a chair, where she sobbed and cried over him, while he stormed and raved at her to get away. Tobe ran to the door to lock it as his master had commanded; but the child, anticipat- ing him, and determined not to have his retreat out-off, emptied the scalding coffee over his head before he reached his destination. The exquisite Tobe howled and danced with pain, and the holy man, infinitely amused at another's misfortune, and especially at the figure the gizzard-footed beau now cut, forgot his own mishaps and his wrath, and laughed until he almost cried. "Jemently, but he's a trump!" cried the holy man, while his frame shook with laughter. "By the Lord, he's a whale! Tobe has had the Holy Ghost poured out on him. That's why he capers so. He got it out of a coffee-pot. The day of Pentecost BEGINNING OF DESOLATION. 117 has hit him among the short ribs. Your style, O pontifex of the coffee-pot, is somewhat unique; but, by the toe-nails of the Apos- tles, it is efficacious." By this time Mrs. Greed, according to her invariable custom in such bases, had summoned the whole household to the scene of action, and the boy, by her order, was surrounded by half a dozen negro men and captured. The prisoner was placed in a tall arm- chair, such as children sit in at table, and Jerry, the hero of the scene in the kitchen the night before, received orders to put his arms around the child and hold him there. The captive tossed and pitched like a bound demon, but could not break loose. Mrs. Greed, having ordered a basin of water and a supply of bandages, proceeded, with a multitudinous accompaniment of sobs, kisses and tender demonstrations, to wash her wounded spouse's face, and bind up his forehead. The style of the operation, however, was not at all to her dear husband's taste. He would rather have had more speed and less tender loitering, so he snarled:, "Why in the dickens don't you dress the scratch and let me up from here? If a gnat were to bite my finger when you are in one of your loving moods, you'd want to wrap up my whole body in a bread-and-milk poultice." Then looking to where the child sat, he sneered: "Humph! wife of my bosom, that chair of yours has an occupant in a marvellously short time. By God's favor, my love, it shall never have one of any nearer kin to me. Has it had an occupant before since our dear Philpot sat in it, darling?" Then she very quickly let him up. "Now, Jerry," he ,went on, "hold the young devil there, while I take my stand here in front, and proceed to exorcise him. For I have use for the boy after the devil is out of him. In the first place, parson-observe how I divide the subject-in the first place, as to your mother, I know nothing and care less. She has run away like a maniac, as she is; and that is enough under the first head. In the second place, as to yourself, parson, I am going to keep you here; and under this head I make three minor divisions, to wit: 1, I feel like keeping you just for the fun of the thing; 2, I can do nothing else with you, now that you are left a whelp of a beggar on my hands; 3, Your mother requests me, in a letter she left behind, to keep you. That is the way to divide and use up a subject, par- son." But he did not state that he kept the boy because the lat- ter knew too much about the matter of killing the stranger to be permitted to go at large. page: 118-119[View Page 118-119] "8 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "What use do you intend to put the brat to?" asked Mrs. Greed. "Why, make a parson of him, to be sure." "He shan't stay here," she/ cried suddenly, her insulted tender- ness converted into malignant passion against the child. "This is iny house, and he shan't stay in it. I will not submit to have tramps whom you bring here drop their base brats on me to sup- port. The money my poor old father tugged, and sweated, and tussled for, shall not go to support such brats." "Ah! a-h-h! my dear, I now understand why it is that none of the money your poor old father tugged, and sweated, and tussled, and swindled for-I beg your pardon, my love; you did not say swindled, I believe-has ever gone to support base brats, though, with apparently strong claims, they might scheme and work to obtain some of it, with all the ingenuity and persistence of their distinguished ancestor--mark me, my love, their maternal ances- tor-the devil. The reason is not that you are so accursedly stingy, my love, but that you are opposed to the thing on prin- ciple. In a word, my love, I understand now why our dear Phil- pot has-always been a homeless stray. But a woman never knew yet when to keep her mouth shut. ...... And now, O pontifex of the coffee-pot, that we have disposed "-dwelling on the word with insulting emphasis-"of intermeddlers, we will proceed with our sermon. We had successfully established our proposition, to wit: that you are to stay here; and now for the- hortatory part and the thrilling peroration." "I am not going to stay here. I am going to my mother just as soon as I find out where she is. Jerry, please let me go. Please don't hold so tight, Jerry." "Hold him fast, Jerry. Be quiet, parson, and don't lose the benefit of the exhortation. You have not successfully assailed my main proposition, that you are to stay here. I will it, your mother commands it, and here you are to stay." "My mother don't command it, and if she knew how I hate you, she would rather send me down to old Brimstone at once than leave me here. I know her, and I know what she meant. She ran off and left me, without meaning anything but to save me from what she is suffering, and I am going to mind her. I am not going to make her worse by letting her. see me suffer; she couldn't stand it; but she has not forbid me to follow her, and BEGINNING OF DESOLATION. 119 I'm going. Jerry, good Jerry, please let me go, and I'll start right now. I' "Ah, I see what you need, parson, I see what you need. I'll soon settle you off. Hold him fast, Jerry, hold him fast. He tosses like a tied devil. And now, parson, for my peroration, which is, indeed, only a brief quotation from your mother, and will, as every peroration should, drive home my argument, and settle the hash for you. You will observe the nice precision of my recollection, acquired by long and careful practice. Have you naturally a good memory, parson? I do not doubt it. But you must labor to improve and educate it, or you will never be able to plagiarize worth a copper, and it is plagiarism, parson, that makes your great divine. Do these words sound like your mother's style, parson?--'I leave my boy, my darling, in your charge. Remember the charities of your religion, and cherish the helpless orphan whom God has committed to your care. In the process of his growth, I am no longer needed, but should be in future a clog and disadvantage, and He who hath need of him is preparing the surroundings which are best for him. Tell him this thought comforts and sustains me now.' And now I exhort you, my beloved hearers "- - But he was interrupted-by a wild and passionate cry, like a wounded young panther's scream, from the child. Ceasing to struggle for release, he turned suddenly as pale as death, and, oh, so sick, and presently great, quaking, tearless sobs, each of which seemed to rend his heart, burst from his bluish lips. The man of God had skilfully touched the right chord-had rudely rent the veil of self-deception which the boy had raised between his eyes and the prospect he dreaded to look upon. He at once recognized his mother in the words the Doctor had spoken; -he knew that theywere not counterfeit, but that they had come from her own lips; for she had often, in fits of despondency, suggested the same idea to him, and he had always bitterly repelled it. He saw her around whom every fibre of his soul was entwined, in the last despair in which' those words were spoken. He knew what was the state of mind and heart from which they proceeded, and that they pointed to a darkness lower than any to which she had ever before sunk. A burning mountain swelled into his throat, and he was convulsed by vehement athd terrible emotion, which could. not find an outlet in tears.. And, ah, how many times in the page: 120-121[View Page 120-121] 120 THE STOIRY OF AN OUTCAST. tearless and desolate years that followed, did he wish that he had died then. How many times, when he longed for death, did he wish that those spasms might return, so that he might choke the great dry sobs down into his oppressed breast and rend it. It alwayt seemed, as he remembered that experience, that it would have been so easy to have done this, and he wondered why he had not done it. "Don't be a calf, parson," said the Doctor, peevishy. "Hold up your head and stop bellowing. Ain't you a pretty fellow, to strike me and then go to crying on some other pretext, to keep from being flogged. Parson," he repeated, really alarmed at the child's appearance, "if you don't stop your nonsense, I'll punish you severely. What have you got to sniffle and snub about? Nothing, except that the devil that possesses you is a crying devil." "Kill me, oh, dill me, I beg you," sobbed the child. "I don't want to live ; oh, no, I don't want to live, but I want to die right now." "Let the brat go to his mother," ventured Mrs. Greed. "What is gained by keeping him against his will?" "Hands off, wife of my bosom," said the holy man. "Remem- ber the Christian doctrine of non-intervention, to wit: non-inter- i ference by maidens and spinsters, wives and widows, with affairs i which do not concern them; and, wife- of my bosom, remember our dear Philpot." Had they reflected and experimented for a year, they could have thought of no plan which would have been so effectual to change the mode of the child's emotion as precisely what they had said. The idea of his sacred solicitude for his mother being exhibited before them, and being talked of and squabbled over by them, seemed to him akin to profanation. The effect, there- fore, of their words on him, was that of ice on burning coals, and would of itself have stilled his sobs and lifted up his little ashen face in scorn. But their words were really a very small part of the influences at work on him at that moment, and only gave out- let and direction to others far more important than themselves. As soon as his first passionate outhurst of grief was over, he saw that the calamity which, without admitting it fully even to him- self, he had dreaded with a mortal terror, had not befallen him. At least, the Doctor had intimated nothing like that; but the ,i BEGINNING OF DESOLATION. 121 dread of it remained. He knew well enough, deep domvn in his soul, though he would have died rather than let his consciousness tell him so, that the calamity was most certainly coming, and could not be far off. He had thought a moment before that it had already fallen, but it had not done so. He still must nerve himself against it; must still refuse to believe it possible; must, still feel his blood turn to rancor, hate and gall, and his heart burn with indignation and a sense of wrong, in its shadow. Therefore, that which, had he been free, would have expended itself in wild flight to his mother's side; which, but for the presence of these reptiles, would have continued to find vent in convulsing grief; which, had it already been known to him as a fact, would have crushed him to the -earth, now, swept into the fori of furious scorn, disgust and detestation. "Ho, ho!" cried the holy man, as the child looked up, "I thiought I would fetch you around. If the bare mention of the lash has such a magical effect, what would an application of it do?" "I was not crying," said the child; "I never cried in my life; and I stopped shaking because I wanted to, and not for your threats. I am small, and you are large and very wicked; but you can't makle me do what I am not a-mind to. And if you were to strike me, I'd go in the night when you were asleep and kill you.'^ "What an awful wretch!" ejaculated Mrs. Greed, in alarm. "Let him go. He will kill you; and you deserve it for being such a fool." "Wife of my bosom," said he, "thou hast said, Thou fool. Wife of my bosom, thlou art in danger of hell-fire; for what saith the Scripture?- Come, parson, tell the-.wife of my bosom what the Scripture saith about fools." "It says, 'Bray a fool in a mortar and her foolishness will not leave her.'" "Miy!" cried the Doctor, piqued at the direction of the shot, "but what a smashing preacher he will make! He will convert thousands and thousands to God and lead them home to heaven." "Yes," said the boy, " if you are going there, I'd like * * * * "Jeminy! But where would you put the good people?" "In the old moons, after the new ones come." "What, parson, you are not a cursed misanthrope?" "I am that. I hate everybody that ever lived. Those who are worth noticing at all, are only fit to be hated." 6 page: 122-123[View Page 122-123] 122 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "But the bible says you must love everybody." "I don't care; you needn't try to make me love mean people, for I won't do it. rm going to hate 'em." "Then, if you don't care for what the bible says, you must be an infidel." "No, I'm not," indignantly disclaimed the child. "I know the bible is true, because it shows how wicked men are. * * * * "Nevertheless," said the Doctor, with a smile, "'I guess you intend, when it comes to the pinch, to accept salvation on pre- cisely those terms. " "Never, never!" cried the child, intensely shocked at this speech. "But if I could only see you leading a gang of white- robed hyenas into heaven amid the jeers of all the'angels, I could then go back to my bed of coals and think it very comfortable." "The devil is in the boy," ejaculated the holy man. "The wife of my bosom is right, as usual." "He is an emissary of the Evil One," cried the angelic Mrs. Greed. "I have no doubt of that. What awful words the wretch has uttered. I almost expected to see the earth open and swallow him up, as he sat there blaspheming." "I must confess, parson," said the Doctor, "that when you were whining so piously just now, I scarcely expected ever to see you invade heaven and pluck the Almighty by the beard in this fashion. Don't you love God with all your gizzard and the var- ious etceteras, parson?" "I love my mother's Father-it don't seem much like He was mine; but your bad little God I just despise." "You awful wretch!" cried saintly Mrs. Greed. "He'll damn you forever-that's what He'll do for you." "I can't help it" replied the child submissively, "and I don't want to go to heaven -anyhow." "But He can domore than damn you; He can annihilate you.' "Well, I guess I shan't mind it after it's done." "But, parson," said the Doctor, "He can deprive you of life- ancld call you to judgident this instant. Are you not afraid of His doing so?" / "No," replied the boy, taking the only way out of the diffi- culty that he could see; "for my mother's Father sits above Him, and is good. Besides, if He could do it, I only despise Anybody that tries to make me afraid." BEGINNING OF DESOLATION. 123 "Is the incomprehensible thing an angel or a demon?" asked the astonished man of God. "I tell you he is a demon," returned the wife, very decidedly. "No human child ever talked as he has done." "Parson," said the Doctor, "the wife'of my bosom says you are a demon. What have you to say to that?" "I am willing to compare feet with either one of you," replied the child, sticking out one foot. "If there are hoofs about, they are not in my shoes." "Ha, ha, wife of my bosom," laughed the Doctor, "there is a challenge for you. Off with your hose, and out with your hoofs, wife of my bosom." "He is possessed," said Mrs. Greed, still more decidedly. "It is unnatural for a child of his years to talk as he does, and Satan is at the bottom of it, you may depend." By this time the excitement which had impelled the child,to talk as he had done, had passed away. The burning passion which had pressed like a. great red-hot mass at the root of his tongue, and had streamed from its tip, had exhausted itself, and left him to other emotions. With a mighty revulsion, his heart recoiled from the people and themes around him, and, full of un- utterable yearning and darkest despair, turned again to his mother. He even wondered now, in the rebound, how it could have happened that he had permitted such persons and such sub- jects to interrupt for one moment her entire possession of his thoughts. So turning again to the holy man of God, he implored him, in accents that would have melted a stone, to let him go to her. "The fact is, parson," said the holy man deliberately, L"I consider it likely your poor fool of a mother is 'dead by this time." "Dead?-- dead?" echoed the child, recoiling from the idea on another's lips. "Yes, very dead," returned the man of God. "How can that be, sir?" asked the child, as if he could not at all realize that his mother could die. "Well, parson, I'll try to show you how that little thing might be. You see, I found your mother this morning lying out in the forest there, where she had fallen down from exhaustion, unable to rise. I lifted her up and started to lead her back to the house. page: 124-125[View Page 124-125] 124 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. But she spoke to me the words I repeated to you in my discourse, and broke away, and just then the infernal wind got worse, and commenced blowing the snow and frost so that I could not see an inch from the end of 'my nose; so she escaped me. The proba- bilities are, though, that she is now lying out in the fields some- where, as dead as the devil." The child, with a sudden and mighty bound, broke away from Jerry's arms-which had held him tight enough before, when the object was to prevent his starting on a rash and uncertain expedi- tion, but which, now that the case was so altered, opposed only enough resistance to his escape to save appearances. In the twinkling of an eye, the boy had darted into the hall and- out the back door, and was flying past the kitchen and negro-houses towards the forest. "I Jerry, you black rascal," roared the man of God, " if you don't catch him and bring him back, I'll peel your back from. your head to your heels." S' Yes, moster--he jumped so quick, moster," replied Jerry, hastening in pursuit. The Doctor also flew out into the yard, and calling the negro men from their cabins-it was Sunday, and too cold for the African to stir abroad -willingly-followed vith them after the boy. Jerry's wife also felt called upon' to join in the chase, when she saw how matters stood. The forest was sep- arated from the yard by a high board fence which was now cov- ered with ice. This was so serious an obstacle in the child's way, and delayed him so long, that Jerry, with his master's eye upon him, could not but capture the fugitive, though he tried very hard not to do so. " O Jerry," pleaded the child, when he found him- self again a prisoner, "you arte not going to take me back there again, are you? Just think of my poor mother, Jerry, where she may be, and nobody to help her." "Bite my hand, young moster; bite it hard," returned the negro. The child seized the negro's hand in his teeth, and the latter, yelling out as if in great pain, dashed the boy violently from him ; but it so happened that he lighted on the far side of the fence and on his feet. The boy at once bounded away into the woods, and Jerry, after finessing with his wounded hand long enough to give the lad some rods the start, cleared the fence and pursued. The boy skimmed the icy ground like a fawn, so that it was difficult to keep up with him. But Jerry was determined that he should not run entirely away, and so, in spite of the difficulty his greater weight imposed on him in BEGSINMG OF DESOLATION. 125 passing over such ground, kept the boy well in sight. Occasionally a great volume of light, drifting snow and frost, swept off the trees by the wind, would come between them, and the child would be enveloped and lost to the sight of his pursuing friend; but when the air would clear again, the latter, beholding him, would, with increased effort, gain upon him, and run along close behind him. The boy dashed recklessly through snow and frost, abating not an iota of his headlong speed on account of the blinding drifts. His dusky friend, shuddering for his safety, and expecting every moment to see him dash his brains out against a tree, in vain called to him, and pleaded with him not to rush onward in that mad fashion. But ten thousand over- charged engines seemed to the child to be throbbing in his heart, and billows of flame to be surging along his' arteries, and legions of demons to be barking at his heels, while before his eyes was stretched the cold, white form of his mother, perishing in the drifts of snow, and he notthere to save her. So he sped on, without knowing whither he was going. All the pursuers but Jerry were soon left far behind, and ceasing to run only struggled forward through the snow at a slow pace, aiming at nothing more than to come up after the capture. In this des- perate style the child fled entirely through the forest to its far- ther edge, and toiling up a hill-which swelled up there, cleared a fence, and stood in a bleak, unprotected field, across which the wind swept with a million cutting edges. In front of him, as he stood, the hill sloped off to a creek several hundred yards dis- tant, and to his left it sloped down in like manner to the misty and shrouded sea. On the apex of the hill, and but a few yards from him after he crossed the fence, was a small, old, crumbling stone church, long since abandoned as a place of worship. Near it was a rude and ancient place of burial, enclosed by a ruined stone wall, and full of dark old pines. A few of the simple monuments and tombstones were still erect, but many of them had fallen from their places, and were strewn about the ground, some of them in fragments. As the child cleared the fence and found himself in the open ground, he paused a moment to look around and bethink himself of the situation. Now that he was out of the woods, the blinding showers of frost and snow no longer obstructed his vision. The sharp wind had cut away nearly all the snow from the -exposed page: 126-127[View Page 126-127] 126 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. crest. of the hill; and the stiff dead grass lying in mats crunched and Shrieked beneath his feet. But the old wall of the grave- yard, opposing a barrier to the wind, had not only prevented the snow within from being swept away, but had formed a haven where the eddying blasts had deposited their frosty burdens to a considerable depth. Along the western side the snow-drift rose to the tops of the wall, and wherever a tomb or a fallen monu- ment shielded a narrow strip of ground, there also the snow had risen as high as the protecting barrier. As the child's eye glanced over the enclosure, a peculiarity in one of the snow-drifts attrac- ted his attention. It was formed along a fallen shaft, but it was larger than any of its fellows, and now that he looked again that was not the marble effigy of a hand that clasped the cold, white column, but frozen human clay. Stunned and crazed by the sight, he succeeded-he never knew how-in reach- ing the spot, and clearing away the snow to some extent, found that his mother lay stiff in death beneath. She was lying on her face, with one white cheek pressed against the not colder marble, and one arm thrown-over the shaft as if to embrace it. Perhaps, in her dying moments, she had thought it was her son that lay by her side, and had died with her arm locked around what she supposed to be his form. The child drew the body partially from its resting-place, and brushed the snow from the face, and mouth, and stony eyes, and frozen brow, and was endeavoring to wash the dead man's blood from her face with snow, when Jerry, arriving, forced him away into the church, and forbade his coming forth. Jerry's wife, who had kept the track of the chase better than the rest of the party, now came up with a shawl which she had intended for the thinly-clad and unpro- tected child. She and Jerry bore the body into the church, and threw the shawl over it as a pall, and then she remained to watch beside it while he took the passive and stupefied child in his arms, and bore- him back to the mansion. Meeting his master on the way, he reported the state of affairs. . Dr. Greed did not go on to look at the corpse whose blood was on his soul, but returned in silence to the house. In a very few and very short words he gave directions for the burial, and then drove away in his carriage, along with his wife, to preach in the great church in the city. Jerry's wife and another negress, for whom she sent to come BEGNINING OF DESOLATION. 127 and. assist her, there in the cold, old, crumbling church, in'the in the freezing air, prepared the body for burial, and. laid it in the rude coffin which had been provided, and that evening, as the declining sun looked on a world wrapped in snow, the wan- derer was laid away to sleep in the little churchyard where she had died. Only the orphan and a few negroes, including Jerry and his wife, were present. In such simplicity as she could have wished, with no mockery of prayer to the Father who had re- ceived her, no vain eulogy on a life the world was not wortSliy to understand, no empty parade of sighs and tears, the frozen clods were heaped above her. But her beautiftl and heav- enly spirit, imperishable as the softest tendrils of her loved Father's being-this has not died, but only gone before us to that better world where we shall see her and possess her again, and feel her kiss upon our spirit-brows instead of on these sor- row-furrowed temples, and enjoy forever the riches of her un- equalled love. When- the brief, sad rite of sepulture was over, Jerry again took the little mourner in his arms, and bore him back to the mansion, to the room its master had appointed. The window looked towards his mother's grave, and standing there at it that night, in desolation which no heart in all the wide world would ever cheer or share, he again saw the broad, mild Vesper, the star of his destiny, sail down the sky, enkindling the frozen slopes of heaven with the glow of its beauty, and thrilling even the cold, dead earth with the kisses of its lingering beams. And then he cried: "O, bright and happy star, witness of my vain consecration, why do you come to mock me at an hour like this? Oh, depart from me forever, bright star, and leave me unmocked and unmaddened by your beckoning; for the upper sphere has now no need of me." Far into that night, and all of the next day, and of many succeeding days, he sat in his garret with his head bowed upon his hands, and moans of anguish breaking from his lips; but he shed not a tear. No language could ever tell, and none but God can ever know how his tear- less -spirit mourned his adored and matchless mother, his all, now lost to him forever, and the deadening, blasting effect the loss of her had on him; but he never wept. It seemed as if Sahara had lifted herself up, with all her burning sands, and cast herself into his sotl. It- seemed very strange to him that page: 128-129[View Page 128-129] 128 THEE STOnY OF AN OUTCAST. he did not weep for her; he could not understand why he did not do so. "She is dead-dead-gone from me forever," he would repeat to himself; "why, then, do I not weep for her?" But his eyes were dry and scorched, as if they had been seared with a hot iron; his tongue was rough and feverish, and like a foreign body in his mouth; the blast of a sirocco had passed over him, and the fountain of tenderness in his boundless heart was buried under storms of gall and fire, to be fully unsealed in this world no more. His experience was not simple bereave- ment; his emotion was not grief alone ;. but they were blight and death. The core was torn out of his young heart, and the empty husk left to shrivel and perish in the bumring breath of his owne passionate nature. The calmness he exhibited was almost terrible; there is no calmness so terrible as the mute despair of a passionate child. From that hour, throughout all his boyhood, he could never endure to see a mother, even if she was only a slave, fondle her child, or to hear her address it in words of endearment. He fled from such exhibitions as from, acute and intolerable pain, Every tone of affection, by whomso- ever spoken, was to him a scorpion which sunk a venomous and rankling sting into the profoundest depths of his soul. HAPTEPB XTTT. HOW TO MAKE A BOY MrTERAB-LE WITHOUT THE HELP OF HS MOTHER'S REELATONS. YEARS enough to perish atom by atom, and to be made a differ- ent creature, the boy breathed and grew, not lived, but died con- tinually, there where his happier mother had died once for all. He remained there so long because it was near her grave, and that was all he had in the world. Certainly he could not have analyzed himself, nor have expressed the fine consciousness of the hero; yet he was instinctively a nobler and stronger thing than he knew, and would have scorned his own heart had it been one of those pretty little things which the thin philosophy of frivolity and insensibility could set smriling ere the dirge was done. His hot heart refused to be told of compensation, refused to patch its grief with the mean stitch of apology. Such a HOW TO MAKR A BOY MSEREBLE. 129 course would have seemed to him a feeble piece of hypocrisy that insulted his mother's memory by a deliberate undervalua- tion of her-a pitiful trick of lessening with a blasphemous snivel the tribute of holy pain which he owed. Too proud, too honest, too strong, even in his unconsciousness, to staunch that or any other hemorrhage 'with a cheat, he accepted his des- olation, admitting its full extent, and looking at it bravely as it was. The wound was one which could not be juggled away like a wart on your finger, nor smoothed, out like a wrinkle in your hat; for this the nature of the material that had received it for- bade; but like a cut in to the iron-fibred heart of a young oak, it could only be overgrown by the slow accretions of years, and to the last remained the chief fact in the violent history of the tree. We who are old, and therefore wiser than dried pundits, know with the secure complacency of idiocy, or at least think we do, thlat a child's suffering is a small matter; but perhaps that God whose sacred heart is torn by the pains of all His children, even to His weakest and tenderest babes, has no such selfish and con- temptible opinion. For he knows that in all His throe-wrung universe there is no other suffering like that of the passionate, desolate and gifted boy, the prisoner of Fate, the sport and prey of human fiends, the star-kissing waif of an aspiration and pro- gress not all his own. It is not the demons who long to curse God and die; supposing, as the laws of induction justify us in doing, that the same rules hold good of the species elsewhere as on the earth, they have little need to do so; but it is, alas, the purest and unhappiest of his angels. The Titan who tosses with burning .Etna heaped on his breast, because he tried for heaven and almost gained it, is happier than the one who has not been permitted to cord his brawny muscles in the attempt. Far bitterer than the lees of the cup of the kind god Thanalos were the dregs of wormwood which the sick yet untrembling lips of this child drained; and even as he drank, his strong heart ,shuddered and broke, but never quailed. During all that trans- forming cycle he never drew a light-hearted breath, nor knew what it was to feel uncrushed. A muffled bell tolled in his grief- chorded ear from dawn to midnight, from November to Novem- ber again, the knell of love, of hope, of every joy. The years were dirges of twelve stanzas, and their refrain was: "Mourn on, mourn on, predestined child of sorrow, and never smile." te 6* page: 130-131[View Page 130-131] 130 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. wondered that any should laugh in such a world as this. He hadl never heard his mother laugh, and the haunting memory of her sad smile broke his heart afresh whenever he thought of it. The chance sounds of merriment that he heard increased his desola- tion. They seemed to him as odd and unnatural as gay music at a funeral. His only happiness was in recalling the sweet face which death had frozen, and, as it were, rubbing his warm heart continually against it. The Doctor at first tried to wheedle the boy out of a grief which, for several good reasons, he did not like to see, and most boys would early have been weaned of sorrow by such arts, and i by the attractive objects that were employed to entice him; but i not so this one. He intensely detested all around him, and would : have felt degraded if he had found that he was beginning to hate them less. He resented cajoling or any show of patronizing him as an insult. Then a change took place, and for months neither the scheming priest nor his supercilious wife ever noticed the boy, and for this he was profoundly grateful. He never went into their presence when he could possibly avoid it; he would have starved sooner than have eaten at the same table with them. They never bestowed a word or even a glance on him, except to direct him to perform some mere chance task, and when that was done, they seemed forthwith to forget that he was in existence. The lady's conduct was mean enough to be the simple prompting of her nature; the gentleman, as usual, had a motive: "Let him sulk it out, and break his spirit." The boy, as we have said, without knowing that he was doing anything courageous, bore his bitter lot bravely and well; but greatness of mind and spirit is a troublous thing, and consumes the heroes whom it makes. He was not born to be a slave, and he pined away in thraldom which he could not rend. The bitter- ness and desolation of his heart and lot no language can depict. At times when the dark mood was on him, he envied the very slaves, and longed to change places with even the vilest of them. They were better cared for and less despised than he; but that was nothing. Their degradation freed them from the bondage which crushes, maddens and kills. Their chains were Eden com- pared with the clotted links which festered in his flesh and bound him to his terrible Promethean destiny. He had no companions, and wanted none. He understood no HOW TO MAKE A BOY MSERABLE. 131 games, and took no pleasure in any. If, by any chance, he had a penny of his own, he did not know what to do with it. He had nothing to spend it for. There was nothing for him to buy. He rejoiced to give away these stray coins to the needy. He thought it strange that they should thank him for them; he felt rather like thanking them for giving him, in his lowly estate, the oppor- tunity to do a good deed. In the companionship of nature and the mighty dead, he found the only society for which he cared, or in which he ever felt at ease. But for them he would have died-it is no exaggeration-he would have died of canker and desolation. The few great. spirits of the past whom he loved, he hugged, with- mighty yearnings, to the Golconda of his heart, and poured out to them all its wealth. At times, he longed, with a crushed child's touching desire for recognition, to know whether, if they were living and he could only go to them, they would not be pleased with the offering of his impassioned adora- tion,--whether, like the cold and selfish men of this world, they would repel him because he was poor, or whether, when they kanew him, they would not take him up in their arms and fold him to their great and tender hearts; or else he looked forward, with swelling pulses, to the blissful Hereafter, where the great and good of all ages shall enjoy each other's society and the eternal peace of victory-where the first martyr and the last shall meet, and all the heroes tell how they won their crowns-and burned for a place in that circle and a share in that recital. The first summer, Mr. Snort made a determined effort to have the boy set to work with the slaves in the fields; but the scheme failed because, and only because, the weary and cankered prisoner expressed joyful acquiescence, and then the holy man, thinking he meant to run away and tell about the murder, kept him closer in the house than ever. Mr. Snort's disappointment, following the unfailing laws of the Snort economy, settled in his nose in the shape of intense hatred for the lad. It hated him more than any other object on earth. It never looked at him that it did not wish him'dead, never called his name but to curse him. The sound of the boy's voice, even, would shake it with tremors, and sometimes a look out of his eyes would banish it from the house for days together. As often happens in this most singular of all kinds of antipathies, the superior spirit was not at all disturbed-' felt only that the other was very vile and to be hafted at a dis- page: 132-133[View Page 132-133] 132 - A STORY OF AN OUTCAST. tance-while the inferior beast raged and shuddered like the de- mons who could not endure the presence of Christ. During the second-year of his stay at Druid Hill, he began, at his own instance in the first place, to steadily earn his\bread by sitting beside the Ddotor as he wrote his sermons and addresses, selecting words for him and supervising his orthography and syn- tax. Next, he ventured to supply the glowing imagery which, all at once and so surprisingly, began to thrill and delight the Doc- tor's congregations and political audiences, and brought the ser- , vant of the Most High floods of congratulations and enconiums on ' the magnificence with which his powers were maturing. Next, he : furnished entire exordiums and perorations, with worlds of pathos and Marahs of invective here and there between. Finally, he i laid on the astonished tongue of the man of God complete dis- courses, miracles of precocious thought, in diction that burned and shone like sweet far stars at night. These duties, though they' were menial, and though, when it was found what he could do, he was summoned to themn much as a slave is called to his task, he always performed with scrupulous fidelity and care; not only because in this way he could best discharge the obligations he was. under for his maintenance, but also because he chose instinctively that, since he must be associated with this man, his own should become the master spirit and rule. And soon-before it was -itself aware-in spite of the festering and blood-rusted fetters on its glorious limbs, it did rule. For, as the years went on, the holy man discovered that, besides his wonderful eloquence and fire, the boy possessed other quali- ties which were even more astonishing; and then a singular, sel- fish, matter-of-fact sort of superstition, and the ungenerous, grudging admiration which a coarse mind always has for noble powers, began to constitute his estimation of the unknown and incomprehensible waif. He was still quite as ready as ever to domineer over him and insult him, yet he really stood very much in awe of him. He regarded him as a wonderful and somewhat dangerous slave, a powerful and mysterious genius of the lamp, who had got into his power by some lucky chance of lamp-swap- ping, and whom he intended to use to the utmost advantage, and to insult w-hile he did use him, taking care all the time to keep on the right side of the circle. As the only supernaturalism he be- lieved in or cared for was one that would pay Faith a handsome HOW TO MAKE A BOY MSERABLE. 133 dividend in money, honor or saved bacon; and as the extent of his Protestantism was this, that he had always drawn omens for guiding his schemes from turning over the leaves of "the bible and the bible alone," holding that the Fathers and Councils were -not to be depended on in this matter; so now, his selfishness, se- cretiveness. and very brutality aiding his natural perception, he began to believe he had a mystic light to guide his holy feet to spoils and fatness, and would resort to all sorts of tricks to come at the boy's strange presentiments and intuitions without ac- knowledging his own dependence. Visitors at Druid Hill, who, by any chance, caught a glimpse of the silent,'solitary boy, with his pale broad brow and dark un- fathomable eyes, shrinking away from the few casual wordswhich were addressed to him, and never answering when he could avoid speaking, yet bearing himself always with a nobleness and dignity like young Alexander's, often wondered who and what he was, and would sometimes inquire, but received from the holy man' or his wife only grudging and evasive answers. Sometimes, the clergy- man would have the boy present in the library during his inter- views there with his brother-patriots; and then, the moment he could'do so, the boy, saddened by the sight of such questions in such hands, would slip away to hide himself in the woods, or to sail far out on the sea and commune with his own great, sorrowful, untimely thoughts. As the years still went on, the clergyman began to give himself great concern in regard to a profession for the boy. The desidera- tum was to place him in some position where his genius, while at- tracting public attention, should redound all the time to the clergyman's advantage rather than his own. But it is not hyper- bole to say that he could have hitched a whirlwind to his carriage and made it draw him to the city quite as easily as he could have carried out any one of his many plans in this regard. Threats, taunts, bribes, reproaches, were tried without effect. The boy came out of every contest more visibly the master; and' though the clergyman was enraged to the verge of frenzy, he was com- ; pelled to sit for hours and pour forth paternal counseland expostu- lation mild as millk. At length an interview took place which the Doctor never forgot, which, had he lived to the age of Methuselah, he never would have forgotten-so unexpected and thrilling a ; turn did it take, and so tremendously suggestive was it to his keen page: 134-135[View Page 134-135] 134 THE STOIY OF AN OUTCAST. coarse mind. He had sent Tobe, as usual, with a stiff invitation to the boy to meet him in the library, and as the latter entered,- the holy man, after first overwhelming him with a flood of petu- lant abuse, demanded to know what he intended to do. "Do?" asked the boy, very quietly. "Well, sir, I know you take a father's interest in me, and so I will tell you in confidence. First, I shall go and for a year or two write sermons for your il- lustrious rival, Dr. Sousem. After that-- What, sir! I must i not go? Your face says so. Well, after that, sir, I intend to ex- terminate the whole breed of political priests; so that after I have - lived there will no more be a political priest in the world than : there were snakes in Ireland after Saint Patrick. I intend, too, sir, to turn away the stream of power from the whole tribe of demagogues and trading politicians forever, so that it shall never again in all time to come be possible for them to lead another nation to ruin or to destroy another civilization." : "Your plans are somewhat lofty!" sneered the holy man, stung to the quick. "Which ones, sir? The one in regard to writing sermons for Dr. Sousem? I am not sure that it is very lofty, sir; for it touches you closely. As to the others-yes, they are lofty and practicable, while your wretched plots have the merit of being at once low and impracticable." Then, quick as lightning, wearied and disgusted with both the clergyman's importunity and his weak arts, the boy's whole manner underwent a change. His cheek paled, his eyes flashed, and he drew up his slender form to its utmost height and stood looking at the clergyman for a moment in the calmness of a furious scorn. "Is it worth while to tell you," he began slowly, "what your vile conspiracy against' my mission in this world really amounts to, and how I abhor both it and you? No; for if I were to denounce you in unvulgar words, you could not understand me. Don't you wish you had Gabriel and Ithuriel, too, to serve you, as well as me. You'd use them, if they'd let you; but I suppose they wouldn't let you." He stopped there and closed his thin lips tight, as if he intended to say no more; but the holy man starting up to reply, the boy, with a proud and scornful wave of the hand, still went on pouring out the hot and bubbling tide. "Mention these subjects to me no more. I com- mand it, and I will be obeyed. You cannot Use, neither can you patronize me; for I am your master. While I choose to remain HOW TO MAKE A BOY MSERABLE. 135 here, do what. I bid you, and let me alone. It is no business of yours what I may do or leave undone. My life is my own, and I am going to live it out as it is laid on me; I warn you not to in- terfere. Look into my eyes, and if you are capable of seeing what is there, tell me what you see. Power to win a throne, if it would stoop to the base labor; and in my day there will be thrones to win. There is more power in the paring of my finger-nail, or in the spittle which I cast away thus, than in your whole brain and body. - 'Tis I that may promise, not you. But keep your age and all its opportunities for yourself and such as you. I and my destiny ask nothing of you or them. Heed what I say, 'twill save your neck and the reputation I have already earned for you." And then he left the room. The clergyman alternately wondered and swore over this interview for a week, and then formed his con- clusions. It is unnecessary to say that the boy did not leave Druid Hill for Doctor Sousem's, and that he was permitted to go on growing, studying, laboring in his own way; and for him this was everything. During the long dark- nights of winter, when he-could no longer sail or stroll, or watch beside his mother's grave, the boy would sit for hours in perfect stillness, listening to the mournful piping of the wind, and to the sympathetic dirges which swept through his own desolate heart; and as the wild and homeless wailings echoed through the lonely arches of his own heart like midnight bugles among mountains, he would take up his pen and translate them into words. At length, he conceived the idea of turning these seolian lyrics to pecuniary account, and of erecting, with the pro- ceeds, a monument over his mother's grave. There was in the city near at hand, a long-pursed charlatan, industriously engaged in corrupting and destroying the spiritual palate of the nation, and in contributing his dirty mite to the coffers of ruin-a vulgar, slop-shop Israelite, who, with vast parade and a confident flourish of quackery in E flat, had given his poisonous trash a prodigious circulation and had infected half a continent with a mnnia for dipping ipecac and arsenic, in order that he might be rich. Sacrificing the larger to the smaller conscience, and possibly with a secret feeling that his own act was a species of humbug, the boy resolved to try his luck for once with this wicked pretender, who, he knew, was in the habit of paying prodigious sums for very slender performances-the dear public adoring nonsense at forty page: 136-137[View Page 136-137] 136 THE STORY'OF AN OUTCAST. dollars a line, while genuine pearls at five cents a piece would not have found a purchaser from Passamaquoddy Bay to Ann street. Preference, and the shabbiness of his dress, made him go after dark to try the experiment with his first contribution. Accord- ingly, he trudged to the city over the bleak and frozen road through the darkness; and then, tremulous with emotion, and at the last ashamed to enter, he walked to and fro along the pave- ment in front of .the renowned establishment, looking up at the windows and the bright lights within, and at the compositors at work with nimble fingers,-listening, too, to the rapid click of the press striking off other men's thoughts to be scattered broadcast over the land,-:and yearning at the sound with a medley of emo- tions which cannot be described. He felt, with piercing personal grief, that only those in -harmony with the age could claim or gain its ear, and that he, a homeless, friendless, penniless Pariah, at war with his age in every atom of his consciousness and thought, had no room to give expression to the whisperings of his soll. Presently he made his way up stairs to the Mecca of sensationists, where the majestic editorial presence, with seamed, passion. slashed face, cavernous black eyes, eccentric nose pointing ruin- ward, and thin brown hair stringing over a broad and generous brow, sat writing beside a jet of gas. The boy went up to the doom-dispenser in perfect silence, holding out his wretched look- ing little patch of manuscript in his hand. The son of thread- clipping Atropos at once fixed his vulpine eyes savagely on the paper, utterly unconscious of the boy's presence, or of aught but the approach of the object of his hate. "Halloo," he exclaimed, in great surprise, as he read the last line, "this don't belong here; it has got some sense in { Take it back to the person that sent you, and tell him he has made a mistake in offering it here." "I wrote it, sir," said the penitent boy, " and though I'm very much ashamed of it myself, I am sorry you don't like it." "You wrote it?" inquired the gentleman. "I don't believe it. Who told you to say that?" "The last thing I'd ever do in this world would be to tell a lie in order to get to write for your paper." "Well, well," laughed the victim of the sensational tread-mill, "that is funny enough. - The fact is, my boy, that this poor little scrawl indicates something I have heard of, but never stood face to face with before; and that is genius, with inspiration HOW TO MAKE A BOY MSERABLE. 137 burning in. every fibre of it. Not only shall it be admitted, but I will tell our golden hummer that a distinguished poet handed it to me sub rosa; and if you will just -keep our little secret, you shall be handsomely paid for it, and for as many more of the same sort as you may see fit to bring." "I thought you were the proprietor, sir," explained the boy; "but as you are not, I am not willing to receive more than he would give if he were here himself." "True, I am not the proprietor, thank God, but I belong to' him," replied the gentlemen, with a very wry face: "and I make him pay what I choose for the brains that go into his paper. To satisfy your conscience, I shall not tell him the strong pecu- niary points in your case. If he were here, he would see at a glance you are the most profitable trump he has held for years, and would insist on paying you ten thousand dollars a year, so that he might blow it abroad to all creation how much he was investing in his infant prodigy, who was engaged to write for his paper exclusively; and thereupon his circulation would in- crease twenty thousand copies in three days, not because you were of any account, bless you, but because he paid so much for you." And then, with extreme kindness of tone and manner, he asked the boy his name and place of residence; but the latter with terrified breath which almost refused to take the-form of speech, gasped forth a few vehement words of remonstrance, and then rushed away in a panic of shame. And then he trudged back home again feeling a quite indescribable sort of chagrin, as if he had done something at once silly and out of character- earnestly wishing, too, that he could even keep from writing out his soul at all, but looking up at the half-clouded stars, -and remembering that it was only in writing these pieces that he now ever felt akin to them. It was the afternoon of a dreamy October day, fit time for such a ministration, that the boy placed above his mother's grave a plain, white column, bearing only her name and age,. and the words, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they -see God." In the hazy softness of the wold, a sense of the far-awayness of physical nature and of its submergence in the mild effluence of universal spirit, obscured the shdap lines of his individuality, and melted him and his bereavement into a part of the scene. The stream below wound calmly on its way to the serene sea, page: 138-139[View Page 138-139] 138 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. through ranks of gorgeous maples, like men at arms guarding its course; while the declining sun poured on its glimnmeringhreast, from the mellow air, golden floods which, transmuted- in the reflection, made you fancy' that his white face, as it flashed back at you from the clear waves, was a Geyser of silver spout- ing and cascading there. Around the entire slirt of the forest on that side ran a bright sward of blue-grass-the emerald of grasses-a green selvage-edge on the russet cloth of the forest, sloping and rolling from the herring-bone stitching of the worm- fence down to the little river half a mile away. Half a dozen scattered and venerable oaks, crippled survivors of a larger com- pany, which had wrested the thunderbolts from the hands of a thousand--storms, and had received on their iron heads the burn- ing shocks that punished their presumption, still stood about the slope like sentinels over the sanctity of the little grave- yard on the hill. The grass dallied with the sunbeams, half repulsing, half retaining them. , In the forest the brown leaves could be heard falling. Tinkling bells and homeful lowings flom the meadows and distant farm-yards, drowsily saluted the approaching evening. The cool, Hesperian fingers of the wind were laid gently on the boy's brow like a hand of invocation. But one quarter of the sky furnished a vivid and suggestive contrast to this calm, subdued scene. In the east, a ragged headland of the realm of night threw up its inky masses from tho spot where it had crushed the line of the horizon with its weight, far into the hazy vault above.. Every meaner vapor had fled to this from the lance-light of the sun, or had yielded its dissolving form to the mild seductiveness of the evening air; but this Tartarean Athos flung out its bold, black crags into the air in defiance, and flouted all the powers of light. The genius of Eclipse seemed to sit enthroned on its pinnacle, mar- shalling his sooty legions under cover of its cliffs. Ligllhtnings rent open its sides, and leaping out descended in long zigzag lines to the earth; as if the gloomy buttresses, of the under- world had been hurled up by some convulsion of nature, and the evil spirits were rushing back to escape from the face of day. As the boy gazed with bared brow and uplifted, spirit- flooded face, at what was to' him what it would have been to no other-a weird and prophetic symphony--he felt spell-drawn to yield himself up to his destiny as he had not done before; HOW TO MA rK A WBOY MSERABLE. - 139 to draw closer to it in its mystic majesty, and demand of it acceptance and acknowledgment before all the world. The achievement of his filial purpose, his lonely sorrow, and the mighty strivings of his star-born heart, combined to unfold at that hour the doors that had till then shut out from him the accurate perception of his own future, and to reveal to him new vistas of grandeur and purpose. The genius of his destiny, pointing through the window of bereavement, showed him paths of daggers that waited for his feet, and its mist-robed goal beyond the sun. Orphaned, desolate, the burning arteries of the universal life branching between his own robbed heart and the far, unseen stars, he read in every detail of this scene maternity, encouragement, instruction, love; and in his ear he heard a whisper: "Child of the universe, begin! Pine no longer; mourn no more; no real misfortune can- ever befall thee. The universe is thy home, and for thee henceforth for- ever all its grandeur, and darkness shall be only the contrast of its soft and perfect homefulness as thou shalt work out thy filial part through its shadow and its light alike." Presently he spoke aloud: "Eternal mother, this scene is thy hearth-stone. All things needful or good, all joy, all grandeur, peace unutterable, are in- thy house, mother, and I will dwell and work with thee forevermore." Then he knelt down on the grolmd and kissed again and again the name cut in the marble, and said: "Sweet mother, holy medium of the larger mother's gift of being, I now for the first time am comforted enough to long to meet thee again 'beyond the skies." Presently he rose, and until night closed in walked to and fro under the pines, listening to the first suggestions of the first pur- pose which was to occupy all of his remaining years. And when he walked home through the autumn woods, with dead leaves rain- ing on his uncovered head, and the gloom of decay wrapping him in and shutting out the glories of the calm, far-off sky, his lonely and mighty plan was already laid. From that day all his reading, all his reflection, every action of his life, became subsid- iary to his one thought, and he often spent whole days there by his mother's grave, meditating on his great theme. page: 140-141[View Page 140-141] -' ,K J 11. CHAPTER I. " iAST OF THE TITANS. IN the midsummer of the memorable year, the last that looked on the unrent sisterhood of States, the lad Auswurf again arrived, after an absence of several years, at the city of Y----. In years and stature he was still a boy; but if we reckon man- hood by strength and sorrow, we could not call him boy. For, seamed with wounds that had been cicatrized only by the breath of the furnaces through which he had walked, he now stood, at last, on a solitary shore, with his lone heart breaking in its strength, while waves from a new and boundless spiritual sea came and washed away the blood from his torn feet. 'There early comes to many of the noble and beautiful in this world a time when the body, in its work of building them up, can no longer serve, but only clogs them; and it seems that then, by a natural process as yet but little understood, the cramped spirit breaks down its casket and escapes. Of the house of clay in which this boy was now to reside but a little longer, and which shadowed him forth and built him up, some suchi description is needed as shall indicate, by however remote and imperfect sug- gestion, its fitness to build up and qualify a spirit like him. If you had analyzed his face, you would have seen in it both gran- deur and severity rarely exampled in one so young, and deep- lying, less apparent tenderness; for on it, as on a title-page, Nature had written, with sovereign and unmistakable hand, these words, and in -this order: power, catholicity, spirituality, majesty; and embodying that aesthetic of pathos which is infi- nitely higher than the aesthetic of mere beauty, it impressed every THE LAST OF THE TITANS. 141 beholder in some one of the many modes, extending from adora- tion to crucifixion, in which nobleness and beauty cannot but extort recognition. Perhaps you would have likened it to what it was-a throne where a conquering spirit, with the pride of sinless Lucifer and a babe's humility, reigned in clouds which quenched his brightness but not his power. His lips were without a model. They were cast in that mould where passion and her whirlwinds put on the yoke of law-incorporating will, and, changing to spir- itual modes, become the life-breath of the children of God. His forehead, chin and nostrils indicated'-the rare union of thought Twith action, reason with understanding, speculation with control and practice. His eyes added something of the romantic dark- ness and beauty of night to an energy and fire that kindled like the sun; and all the modes of force from heart to spirit dwelt in them. They were the mirror of a soul which was a mirror of the universe. His very soul dwelt in his eye; there every action and experience of his spirit revealed itself. When it reflected, it seemed to become separate from all earthly fellowship, and unap- proachable; in his moments of sorrow and suffering, it was like a vista of funereal yews in twilight; but ever out of its loneliness and darkness the tides of love, unstained by weakness or desire, welled up and flowed through all its caves of light. It sometimes commanded, rarely hated, always pitied, often warned, but it never yet had wept, or begged, or,trifled. It never yet had known a passionless or frigid hour; its most abstract meditations had the fervor of heart-throbs and the splendor of Orion. Its action was not effort, but repose, like the calmness of the ever- changing universe, with its myriads of restless stars. Especially was there one thing which it did with a calmness, because with a confidence, unexampled among men-that was- to wait. It then assumed the likeness of the morning star waiting below the hori- zon for the dawn. But when it moved from its place in the valley of the things that wait, it mounted to the zenith without effort, to subside no more forever. It said: "Nothing that I seek have I demanded until the hour had struck and the slow decrees of Fate had given it to me. The voice of God is in my summons, and a nimble and resistless power is even in my glance; 'tis they that summon you, not I." During all of the few years since he had drawn his sad first breath, this boy's lot and life had been becoming more and more page: 142-143[View Page 142-143] "2 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. like a great dark cloud, floating through the sphere of exile, with only here and there a gleam of light on its gloomy edges." He was the spirit of the future bound in the abyss of darkness with gyves of adamant forged from the flinty bowels of the age, and with the double winters of rejection and despair packing their ice upon his burning heart, while ranks of great and heavenly hopes, like seraphs, bent down from their high sphere, and kissed his fair young brow, and vainly beckoned him away. Since we saw him last, taking counsel only of his thirst, he had first given him- self as a foster-son to a rich and famous university, where he had thought to receive the highest, fullest and most satisfactory instruction. He had thrilled, as only the student can understand, under the weird tones of the chapel bell, as, for the first time, he heard it call its nurselings to prayer ; had stood afar off and gazed with misty eyes at the gray oldbuildings embowered in trees and bathed in the" mellow morning light of golden September, and had thought that there was the familiar haunt of Science,-that there he should enjoy the communion of sedate and powerful minds, and be permitted to call them friends; then had entered and beheld in one face out of twenty of the Faculty the calmness and benignity of developed power. But in all the rest, however concealed and overlaid, he detected, the smirk of conceit, the finical vanity, the indescribable pettiness which are the fruit and marks of over-cultivation. He had watched the clap-trap and pitifuil humbuggery which was then enacted for effect; had observed the sham examinations, the unjust construction of the classes, and all that miserable stuff, and needed nothing more to tell him what that university really amounted to as a sanctuary of learning. The students immediately separated, like oil and water, into chivalry and poor white trash. The boy's grim eye looked with wonder and amazement at the former, and already understood the retribution they were bringing on themselves. Then, quickly looking away from these, he studied long and closely the crowd of "mud-sills," poor, orphaned starvelings of this aristocratic step-mother sort of Science, creeping about with careworn faces, seedy dress, reserved demeanor, and the melancholy look of wait- ing which belongs to aspiring indigence, dissatisfied with the present and longing for a future which could never come to them. Ah! they grievously mistook in coming there, these poor hunger- THE LAST OF THE TITANS. 143 ers and thirsters. They little knew how philosophers and hon- ored members of the Faculty, and all that sort of thing, shrink and shudder away from contact with the plague-spot of poverty. Lepers, shunned and hated of their kind, they should have gone and dipped themselves in golden Pactolus, or in the Jordan of theology, and healed their horrible leprosy, before they approached that venerable shrine. Year after year, by some strange fatality, they flocked by hundreds to that place where of all others they were least welcome, and struggled on to knowledge, crippled and frozen by neglect, favoritism and injustice, cursing with inflamed and fiery temper that very love of knowledge which they sought to appease, and which, like a galling and infrangible chain such as bound Prometheus to the rock, held them at the university. The veriest ass of "good family" enjoyed four and twenty sunny smiles from each of the four and twenty learned professors, while their existence received one sickly smirk of recognition; and, of course, the rosy lips of women, as they prattled of the " geniuses" of the university, preferred the name of the silliest curl-pated fool to that of any starving Richter. Daily contact with the asi- nine pets of Fortune and of the venerable Faculty pierced and rankled like ragged bolts of iron in their hearts, and the only destiny they had or were allowed to have, their only possible use or purpose in that peculiar scheme of education and society, was to be systematically swindled out of the prizes and honors they heroically won, in order that these might be conferred on some graceful sprout of chivalry, or some promising candidate for holy orders. It was of course inevitable that bitter and determined conflict should soon arise between the lad Auswurf and that university. He could not but detest her; she could not but misunderstand and persecute him. She was precisely what slavery, and a de- funct theology which justified slavery, could make and might be expected to make her. No image of dryness, hardness and caries is vivid enough to depict her jejuneness. No microscope of hyperbole could reveal all her pettiness and ingrained meanness. From the crown of her head to the soles of her feet she was purulence and gritty tetter. She stuffed all the channels of her life with gravel, and from her paps flowed fluid quartz and solu- tions of old tombstones. She was slime from the lowest sewers of the age, kneaded with the putrid juices of the past into a page: 144-145[View Page 144-145] "4 THE STORY Or ,AN OUTCAST. horrible carricature of culture. She was dust licked from the toes of a far-travelled lie. She was green and poisonous spittle sucked from the cankered lips of death. Too abject to lift her gaze to the alluring girdle and face of crime, she crawled at its feet, and lavished her silly flatteries on its corns and bunions. She was tongue and belly-nothing more. She crawled on all of herself that she did not lick and slaver with. In her tongue there was an eye of marvellous speculation-the only eye she had, the only speculation she engaged in. This eye was a Scotch-Yankee com- bination, shrewder, colder, and meaner than either of its elements. It looked about to see where she could lick and slaver to best advantage-where the largest thrift would follow fawning. It considered how the endowment and revenues might best be in- creased by prostitution; how much this aristocrat would give if his son should take the honors; how much that ancient spinster would bequeath if her beneficiary were raised to a flattering position in the university and church; how this prize or that scholarship could be made to yield cent per cent. in actual cash. The love of knowledge for its own sake was a passion of which she not only had no experience, but no conception. The vulgar- est utility was the zenith of her dreams. She proposed and knew of nothing higher. She diligently impressed the minds of her foster-children with the conviction that their acquirements were worth just what they would fetch in the market. This was the whole spirit of her teaching. Devotion to science and truth, culture as its own best fruit and highest end-these were insan- ity. She existed entirely within and by the lowest and worst forces of the age. She saw a bell-glass over her, and thought it was the firmament, the very arch of heaven. For her the present was perfect, and the dynamic factors of the age divine; the existent and actual were complete and all; beyond them there was nothing whatever. God had purposely, and with a tape- line over his thumb, made all things precisely as they stood and pronounced them very good. He had set all the upheaved rocks on end, and bent the crooked trees; had with His own hand blacked the negro's skin, bowed his shin, kinked his hair, drawn out his heel, and established the institution of slavery. Inspira- tion of all kinds had been withdrawn from the earth because its work was done; the day of poets and prophets was past for- ever; the highest good was common-place success; the lofty THTE LAST OF THE TITANS. 145 privilege of the human soul was to have a comfortable time of it here on earth, and go to a celestial snuggery after death. She banished from her shelves every volume which could sug- gest that there was a world beyond her pale--nay, that the whole world was beyond it. Her library was so stocked with bible defences of slavery and controversial dogmatism, that there was no room for anything else. She anxiously made herself the saffron and mummied theological duenna of a profligate and trea- cherous political Delilah, guarding with ridiculous jealousy what was not worth the trouble of ravishing or of picking up. She was prime-minister of the broken crockery, chief trickster of a rotten and crumbling despotism. With the same glue that she used to patch her broken idols together, she stuck the wings of the human spirit fast to the granite cliffs of the past, for it to beat its bleed- ing breast against them and die. Her faith in carpentry, and her corresponding works, were endless. You might send solid shot thicker than hail through the crazy hulk she navigated, and she would fall to work patching and repatching with the timbers of Noah's Ark, and when her botchery was done she would assert that the riddled craft, which even the rats had deserted, was better than ever. She plumed herself on her evangelical labors. Indeed she was a sort of multitudinous Apollos. She held a great revival every year, by which she gathered the elect into the, fold, and delivered over the reprobates to Satan with her notarial seal upon them. This season was something like a snake-hunt out West. Whenever a sinner rattled he was forth- with surrounded and- dispatched. Atheistic sarcasm should have beheld her then, and peeled her scaly hide all off with caustic. In any one of her revival exhibitions--for they were little more-a legion of scoffers would have found equipment and ammunition for a long campaign. But there was also a very dark and melancholy side to the picture, as well as a ridiculous one. Never did any earthly or infernal thing so sin against the human soul as that university. All the racks of the- inqui- sition were celestial peace beside the torments she inflicted. In that age, every one that thought for himself was at once de- nounced as "infidel." Among her wards the leaven of freedom was at work, as everywhere else. This smouldering fire it was of course her mission to trample out. In enumerating her attri- butes, one was omitted. Besides tongue and belly, she was also 'I page: 146-147[View Page 146-147] ":6 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. hoof-nay, at times, all hoof of most satanic and colossal pattern. She understood nothing whatever of the spiritual throes and orphanage of the age. Heresy was worse than murder; bigotry was the preamble of the beatitudes. She tolerated not so much as one squeamish retch on the part of her foster-sons, as she crammed her particular preparation of orthodoxy down their throats. When- ever she found a weak spirit groping and mourning in the glim- mering twilight of skepticism, her method of curing him of the pains inflicted by the coming light, was to seize him neck and heels, andthrust him back into Cimmerian darkness. No matter if reason and every faculty stood arrayed against the faith she exacted. No matter if the patient, returning or attempting to return to his old love, protested that all her charms -were fled, and that she only filled him with disgust. She only answered, sharply: "What of that?"If the weak wretch, torn by sharp pains, - and in dis- tress beggaring description, persisted in not being able to be- lieve, she waited till she saw him well drifted towards the gulf of an awful despair, and when she perceived him nicely poised on the brink and just going over, she took her long pole of election and shoved him off with an energetic push, telling him compla-' cently as he went down, that he was born to be damned anyhow. A scion of chivalry, in lemon-colored kids, anid brandishing a graceful ratan, filled her ideal of an angel. At sight of him all her bowels would. yearn within her, and she would fall down and worship him. For him she would insult, outrage, and trample down all the poor white trash upon earth. She annuallyassigned to the highest classes, and crowned with all her honors prodi- gious numbsLr,1lls who should have scored a dozen zeros a week as Freshmen, and contemptuously flung into any hole that suited best, according to the size of the classes and other points of pol- icy and convenience, the unhappy and cringing sons of penury whom Fate with fiendish caprice subjected to her rule. The boy Auswurf could not but regard with intense and pas- sionate disgust the whole spirit, method, and content of her thought, faith, and teaching. His whole soul rose up in arms against her. He was not at all, in the first instance, the aggressor. He carefully avoided any such unseemly attitude. Living entirely within himself, and shrinking from any exhibition of his inner life, restrained, too, by gratitude for his own tuition, he would have been glad, notwithstanding the falsehood, meanness, and THE -LAST OF THE TITANS. 147 iniquity he saw incorporated in the university and administered by its officials, to study out his term, and go his way in peace. But this was not to be. It was impossible that what was within him should not sometimes betray itself. His scantiest and most guarded utterances were too extraordinary and formidable to escape observation. 'Some of his opinions got noised abroad, of course in a distorted shape, and then the fight began; the theo- logians being eager to eat up the infidel, as they styled him, and the politicians more than willing to literally devour the Abolition- ist. Soon the whole pack of divinity cubs and young American statesmen that dragged at the sluttish udder of that university were yelping at his heels, and the venerable Faculty, eager to train their young whelps, encouraged the chase, and lustily cheered them on; but when the war was fairly under way, and its principles and prospects displayed, they would have given half the endowment to allay the furious and destructive, lemon they had evoked. For the meek and speechless boy seemed to mount at a single bound into a ruthless hater and destroyer. He knew little and cared less about love, but in the brawny and less selfish righteous- ness of hate he rose up and fought the evil he found there. Once aroused, he raked the earth with a deadly and unsparing fang, and an energy which they sincerely believed came fresh from hell thrilled in his arm. It was in vain that, quickly tiring of the argument, they appealed threateningly to their authority; he did not care a rush for all the priests and gowns- men, as such, in the universe, and as matters stood they did not dare to-take the decisive step of expelling him. So they resorted to slander to destroy him. Every dark breath that could cloud his name hissed its stench and fetor at him. His unknown birth, his indigence, his squalid dress and apartments, every point at which they could wound him was made a target. Malice left nothing untouched or unattempted. They even whispered it around the dark alleys, where he would never hear of the cal- umny, that he was insane. But their anxiety to keep their baser slanders secret was quite unnecessary. He was much too proud to appeal for even justice, but stood alone and uncovered in the brutal storm, caring not for it, with nerves as if of steel, while invective bubbled from his lips like waves of fire and gall. It was a strange, and in one sense an inspiring, sight-this page: 148-149[View Page 148-149] "8 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. friendless, half-starved, ragged beggar boy, thus lifting his puny arm against all the world. He soon gathered around him a num- ber of the outraged and plundered poor, placed himself at their head, and led his fierce subjects in many an experimental foray; and finally, when they were quite ready, he opened a deliberate and-carefully planned crusade which shook the university to its foundation. If you had expostulated with him, "Passionate child, what good can you accomplish?" he would have answered, "I can at least preserve my own manhood, and may possibly coun- teract to some extent the effect of your criminal supineness." His power of invective and his energy soon began to bring him a kind of notoriety which hevalued as he would have done any other sort of slime. But a few pure and beautiful spirits listened to him with a willingness that sorely disturbed their consciences. Two or three such among his fellows, who loved him and deeply la- mented what they thought misguided in him, he never forgot; their names were graven on his heart forever. He used to long to throw his arms around them, and kiss their great honest faces, and revealing to them something of his inner life, show them how different he was at heart from what they imagined him to be. How hard it was, at times, to repress the fervent words which rose to his lips and almost streamed over. But those words were never spoken; a powerful instinct and resolution kept them back; the love of the impassioned heart wasted and died unborn, and those nolble and beautiful ones went on misconstruing him to the last, thinking him impenetrable and almost demoniacal as all the rest did. This was bitterness, but it was infinitely better than that which he thus avoided-the premature exposure of his life. Thus the goal of his university life at last was reached; com- mencement-day arrived; the annual Much-ado-about-Nothing, after a; disgusting number of rehearsals, was put upon the stage. At that parting moment, a single mighty throb-a pang-of chari- table and mournful regard, almost of affection, for his Alma Mater, the first and the last he ever felt for her, shook and con- vulsed him. Her grievous faults, her damning subserviency to slavery and the age, her truckling to an effete and putrid past, her falsity to God and His truth on account of her fidelity to what sh meanly worshipped, her melancholy recreancy to her high educa- tional mission, were, for the instant sunk in the recollection of what, with all her faults, she had done for him. Not such as she, THE LAST OF THE TITANS. 149 hacd been the grand old universities of the Mfiddle Age, the nurse- ries of the Reformation. They had not, like her, harnessed themselves to the mouldering car of darkness, but they made themselves the sanctuaries of the light until the hour had struck, and then they radiated it over Europe. But, plainly, they had done this because their mission was within the civilization and part of its development, while what he had demanded of her was outside of these and beyond them. He saw now that he ought to thank her for revealing to him the true condition of the age, and enlarging to the limits of a wider field than before his perception of the approach of Death. When in the highest walks such petri- faction and coldness and blindness were found, there was little room for hope. And at the parting moment, he remembered, too, that she was his mother and that he had been but a seemingly un- grateful and rebellious child. If there within her walls he had seen his own great hope of a mission within the age expire, the fault was not hers; but his impatience with her defects-this surely was a fault in him. And the Faculty too, with all their shortness of sight and miserable incompetency for their real duty, had they not instructed him, a penniless beggar-a passionate rebel against much that they cherished--in the-mighty secrets for which he longed? For this he felt for them a deep and lasting gratitude of which they could never know. At war with them by every instinct of his nature, he yet yearned for them to know that it was no mean and unamiable motive that- had governed him. Words-which none there at all understood, springing from emo- tions the like of which they had never felt, from an experience which was wholly unintelligible to them, scorched his lips like lava, while a coldness like the hand of Death settled around his heart. Thus he spoke to them his eternal farewell. And when that parting was over, even while many who had always regarded him with horror were yet weeping at the unwonted pathos of his farewell, he passed out of the portals of the university and away from the few eyes that had looked on him with interest--misunder- stood and hated where he would fain have left different recollec- tions. He explained nothing; he apologized for nothing; he would not appease the pains of misconstruction by explaining what duty required should not yet be explained.- So feigning no penitence, but expressing his profound and lasting gratitude, he walked away into the gloom of his own lowly lot, and disappeared from them forever. page: 150-151[View Page 150-151] The bitter invectives which had been streaming from his lips had sprung from too profound and mournful a source for him to l accept what now offered itself to him as recognition and oppor- tunity. The pompous littleness, selfishness and vanity which he saw in the lives of almost all conspicuous men of every profession and walk in life, made him very firm in his decision never to be a "distinguished man." He felt, too, with a mighty revulsion and ascent of emotion, that he would far rather even the vilest thing should perish by some other hand than his, and that only preser- vation and production should flow from his touch. So he only said to the fulsome tide of flattery and patronage which, after he left the university, obsequiously offered to lift him to fame and power: "O, dirty wave,; whose touch would leave a mortal staiu, pass on and leave me here." 'He thought that the most grievous mistake any child of Truthl can commit is to push his views unduly on an unripe world, and, therefore, necessarily debase them in securing their acceptance,. Yet he hovered long and anxiously around a certain press in a catholic and noble city, which, with an adequate conception of the times, might have been wielded to educate or constrain the mad- a men of the age to preserve civilization. It was this, or something like this, that he secretly meditated when he first went to it with his burning heart upon his lips, and talked to it of the future; but the result soon proved that it had not and could not receive the remotest conception of the necessity or even possibility of such a work as this. It was one of the saddest experiences of this boy's life, to see it turn away from life, when thiswas so near and almost within its grasp, and voluntarily go down to darkness, debasement and death. But he had no power, and under the circumstances no wish, to arrest it, and could only stand by and see it go. He did not even open his lips to argue the matter with it, or to contest the issue. He stood by and saw it discrown itself, put far from it the light God sent across its path, renounce a destiny of such splendor as had never before asked acceptance of any mortal, and, after fretting out its brief day in the dirty whirl of politics, sink into eternal oblivion because it was unworthy of its opportunities. For, the highest mission it proposed to itself was that it should be a political machine, the tool of a party. It supposed- it was ac- complishing a noble work in diving fiercely into the political muck, laboring to elect this or that mere beast to office, and T1HE LAiST OF THE J'L'll'AiN art fighting vigorously over platforms and the spoils. It threw away at once, and without the smallest sense of its value, the stand- point which its geographical position afforded. AR that it was capable of doing was to embark on the same freezing tide with all the age, and drift on with it to the gulf which was gaping to re- eeive it. It exaggerated the ethical and political retribution of the times into the beginning of a new era. It believed that it had found a short cut to the millenium. It thought it must help New England to accomplish her mission, when New Englanders were over-competent to do it themselves. It brought a gill of water from the Merrimac and threw it into the Father of Waters, and said: "I guess I'll just make a new river of this." Its sagacity, which was wonderful as long as you let it look at the world from the rim of a dollar, gave out the moment you removed its perch. What, then, when the crisis burst, was the fate of that which had once been. so full of promise? A land which was perishing for the bread of life it fed on the chalk and silex of an imbecile casu- istry. Its heart-strings were sea-grass, its breath an icicle. Soon not the thinnest skim of philosophy or criticism creamed over its blue-john politics. It had no aspiration beyond the success of its faction and a satisfactory distribution of the loaves and fishes. The imps of Spite set up its type, and the strong devil of Envy drove its presses. Its argument was slang, its creed the party platform, its earnestness the clamor of greed, its satisfaction the complacency of a full stomach. So long as its friends were out, it inveighed furiously against the corrupt practices of the successful party, glorified the purity of the opposition, and eulogized the gang of pothouse Arnolds who were bargaining country against office. When its friends came in, it denounced the opposition as nonjurors and traitors, defended the peculations and corruptions of the public functionaries, held up the Administration as in- fallible, and boldly justified its blunders and crimes with the same superserviceable subserviency that sneakingly apologized for its many wise and virtuous measures. It knew nothing and cared less about the real progress of the race, its spring, its principles, its method, direction and results. It only knew that its friends were hungry; it only cared that they should have office. The politicians who had launched that enterprise were too shrewd to miscalculate their chances, too intent to leave them unimproved. They had their reward-office,-and this was well enough. But page: 152-153[View Page 152-153] 152 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. those in whose souls was the wealth for which these men got credit, those who were the pure gold of the local mine which they worked and developed and claimed to have created, those who were the capital on which they banked and throve-of course they got nothing, and went for nothing. Then this boy, easily earning his simple living by a few strokes of his nimble pen from time to time, again became a wanderer and a student among the works of man and nature. Wherever in all the world there was a land or people which the movement of his own thought required him to understand, he went and studied them. And ever as he wandered and grew, deeper and bitterer and more uncompromising became his scorn for the littleness and error which he saw everywhere successful in the world. Too proud to ask anything of society, neither needing nor desiring anything it could confer, he stood aloof from it. And his only comfort, stern and sorrowful but not without grandeur, was that he found everywhere in the incompetency, servitude and crimes of men the prediction of a catastrophe which should prepare the way for the birth of a diviner age. CHAPTER 11. MORE THAN SUNSET. AND now, at last, his growing despair had urged him to stake his all on an exceedingly doubtful throw-on a single momentous question hastily and unaptly worded and put to Fate. All hope in and for existing things had almost died out of his heart, and he was beginning to read by the phosphorescent tomb-light that shimmered from the sepulchre of his own bosom the dark sequences of the future, bloody throes which wisdom might have spared the world convulsing the next ages, and the revelation of his own seamed, wrung and weary brow sinking into an early and unhonored grave. The paleness that was on his cheek had not always been there; but it was increasing now with every day. The death-compelling materialism of the age, taken in connec- tion with the strange absence of any other teacher, and his own lack of opportunity, was beginning to waste his health and kindle MORE TLHAN SUNSET. 153 fever in his reins. Ah, it is a bitter thing to die of anxiety for those whose scorn of us makes it impossible to save them. A burden of care which he knew must soon crush out his life weighed on him constantly. He would often look up to the Infi- nite Father, as if He were visible to the natural eye, and say aloud : "Father, that doest all things well, Thou hast called me, then, only to see and to suffer, not to achieve." And then he would add to himself, with something of chagrin, as if his anxi- ety for his country and his fellows were at last a weakness: "But this is meddlesome anxiety lacking discernment. When the crimes of men compel their ruin, then it is well in every sense, and even good for them, that they should perish. Nature is equal to her office." Yet to have saved his own life he could not have rid his thoughts of their burden of care, and have ceased to wish that the world would choose to live. And he who would not needlessly have crushed a worm, began now more than ever to hate with a relentlessness and ferocity of which wicked anger knows little, the errors and narrowness which were obstructing the tides of the world's life and demanding its death. His tongue became clothed with caustic as with a membrane, and his invec- tive was a marvel to all who heard it. But his bitterness was only the pungency of truth, and his hatred the darkened visage of stalwart, unfinical and conceitless love. A vehement and deadly corrosion had now quite cut away from him all the links which should bind the achieving spirit and his age together. Those among whom he lived had no other use for him but to pour their cruel scorn, a storm of mingled hail and vitriol, on the heart that loved and would have saved them. Every day it became clearer and more unquestionable that Fate had quite succeeded in rob- bing him of the robe which the Infinite had designed for him, and that she had left to him but a soiled and common rag of earthly life to clothe his spirit. But though his heart was break- ing, even as his mother's heart had broken before, a love and a glory even greater and more stainless than any its wholeness had held, was waiting to step forth from its ruins. The final mode of his being, a shape 'of more than heavenly beauty, a minister of victory and joy, was soon to come out of his anguish and defeat, bringing peace and conquest in her train. Only a thin veil, which the next hostile stroke of the sword of Fate would cut away, still separated him from what he was to be. For when 7* page: 154-155[View Page 154-155] 154 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. with a heart light-clad, stainless and unselfish, he at last went to war with that age, and staked his own success on its overthrow, he was not far from the bosom of God, our Father, and neither art thou, reader, if thou wilt henceforth so hate all the evil of this world and so labor for its destruction. He knew that he could not survive, nor did he wish to survive, the destruction of his holy and once boundless hopes; and as he saw, from day to day, the signs of failure in his health, he rejoiced at them as if his nature were thereby vindicating itself and show- ing that it was impossible for Fate to hold him in degradation. But he had now resolved that, as he perished, he would deliver against the despoilers of his destiny and of Truth, a blow whose echo should reach and warn the world after the hand that dealt it had crumbled into dust. Since he could never conquer for his fellows, the last beams that fell on his failing eyes should be the light of battle in their behalf. It did not matter that he could not now hope, as he once had done, to unsettle and remove the foundations of the monstrous mass of folly and shame which was crushing out the life of the world. His brain and his heart were charged with that which would have made a smaller Titan reel, and he determined to ease them with an explosion which, if it did no more, would at least startle luxurious and flinty Crime from her repose and make her dream of the retribution that was surely coming. If he could enjoy one moment of her guilty terror, he would have his reward, and he did not care if, the next, the auda- cious projectile which occasioned it were buried beneath moun- tains of reproach taller than the Andes. Intending to write because it was his pleasure to write, and to assign no other reason for his words, he was going to grapple with cherished fictions and profitable guilt, and to see whether his wasting strength could shake them on the thrones from which he had once thought to hurl them. If paunchy conservatism had appealed to him to withdraw the impatient sickle which coald reap for him now, as heretofore, only harvests of odium and reproach, he would have told it that the fat on its- kidneys .had already cost the world its life. For it never had excited in him any other sensation than an indignant sort of amusement, to see that virtuous age scouting his "heresies;" and he cared no more for the condemnations of an imbecile and malignant bigotry, or for the cur-toothed sensibili- ties of the illustrious Towsers who filled the political kennels of MORE THAN SUNTSET. 155 the land, or for the criticisms of the great owls who were hooting out horn-lipped ineptitude from the granite hill-tops of a so-called philosophy, to be caught up and whiffed about by blinder and more leathery things than themselves, than one ah'eady unjustly condemned cares for the added curses of the Jeffreys who sen- tences him. To this extent had the hardness of his lot reduced a purpose which once had yielded to none in its righteousness and grandeur. He had returned to the city of Y--- and its great public library, in order, with actual proofs, to prop from the dust into which criticism delights to trample them, the grapes of the vine insight. As soon as he had secured a lodging mean enough to suit his circumstances, he hastened to the hall of the library to secure and pay for access to it before the needful dollar-his last -should have to go for something else. When he reached the booky scene, so long looked forward to, and, passing from shelf to shelf, sent his fingers through the volumes in eager reconnois- sance, you could not have told whether it was flame or moisture that was glittering in his deep, dark eye. You would have looked with alarm at his paling cheek, and have entreated the forgetful heart to give back' its blood; and you would have wondered whether it was a sigh, a curse, or an impassioned prayer that lay unspoken, but almost audible, upon his lips. But he was penniless, and always when he stood among the peaks of contemplation, Poverty, would come and pluck him by the sleeve, and order him to think what he was to do for bread. So now his fingers fell from the treasures they had come so far to clasp, and the billows which had been beating in his heart turned sick and died. Fairly driven forth by a command, he crossed the thrleshold with a sigh, which ended, not in a sneer, but in another sigh-the first for all the lowly, the other for all the so- called great of this world. He went to his lodging, and pres- ently again came forth. Beneath his arm he now bore a bundle of manuscripts. These manuscripts were sermons. Over the first one were written the words: "Blessedare the pure in heart," his mother's epitaph; but the -gospel reason was omitted both in the texst and in the argument; not as implying that it does not hold, but that even without it purity of heart is of all things most blessed-blessed within itself without regard to any truth beyond. Another was based on the words: "And the world passeth away, page: 156-157[View Page 156-157] 156 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. and the lust thereof; but he that doeth othe will of God, abideth forever." But in speaking of the divine Father as our eternal refuge, for a mere symbol which the cant of sects has defamed, was substituted the living ground and source of all -holy and imperishable being. Another was founded on an unconscious and almost unnoticeable alteration of some one of the many great and beautiful texts in regard to faith, and passing by individual uses, taught that the spiritual life is the spring of civilizations and of the lives of nations. -At the head of another stood: a number of the dark and terrible prophecies of Jesus, and then this sermon proceeded to explain the causes which overthrew the ancient civ- ilization, and to draw a fearful parallel. Stopping within limits which propriety prescribed, he called upon hearers to look now into the heavens and behold the signs which the fishermen of Galilee had misunderstood. As he placed the bundle under his arm, he said in bitterness of spirit: "It is only thus, then, that I can be permitted to teach. Were every word here a mountain of gold, I would gladly give them all to escape the degradation of having written them for such an end as this." Then he went on down the hot street, and many glanced with contemptuous askant, as he passed, at his slight figure and mean attire, little knowing and little caring how this mere boy rose above those whom they called great, and looked to for guidance, as the eagle outsoars the wallowing maggot-little knowing and little caring that in his being, lowly as he was, resided forces on which their own destinies and those of their children depended, and the question of whose triumph dwarfed all other problems of the age. H e quickly reached the city limit, and struck into the macadamized road which there unrolled itself, like a broad white ribbon, from the network of streets. The sun, now rapidly declining, had already lost his meridian fierceness among clouds which were flocking to his death-bed, and sucking up his ebbing effulgence. A thousand brilliant dyes were prismed against a chaos of vapor-screens which lay in every imaginable form of upheaval, inclination, and fracture. The massive pinnacles of the clouds, with blood-red, purple, and sombre hues, looked like burning castles perched among the crags of dun highlands. Long, keen points, glowing like red-hot steel, thrust themselves into the sun's disk like murderous lances perforating the heart of a mighty chieftain, and crimsoned by the tides of his out-gushing MORE THAN SUNSET. 157 life. Suddenly the sun, standing at bay on the parapet of the horizon, and collecting his exhausted energies for a final struggle, broke through the overburdening clouds, and an enkindled avenue of beams with red floods pouring down it shot from his flaming face to the spot where Auswurf stood. Then the outcast's heart bounded with a rapturous and mighty thrill as he gazed up that melancholy but glorious arch. It seemed that his next forward step would forsake the dusty turnpike and fall within that lustrous tube, and that on from this lump of clay he might ascend to excellence and glory beyond the clouds, in the bosom of the sink- ing sun. In sensibility which not many men could have even understood, he removed his hat, and raising his gleaming eyes to heaven, spoke aloud: "Avenue of death and glory, no path beneath the dome of heaven is so sublime as thou." But the first sharp leap of his pulse, hurled high and dart-like by the vision, was scarcely in the rebound when thea,spectacle -vanished. The waves of fire changed to dull ledges of stone; the crimson rifts became chasms of gloom; the burning lances turned to probes of lead; and the last tints of the sunk sun faded from the dusky and sullen west. Then an ocean of bitterness and dark- ness swelled up into the boy's heart. The picture of his last hope was gone. It, too, had proved a mockery; it, too, had been withdrawn, denied him. Its melancholy grandeur, mellow with the parting tenderness of all truly sublime tragedy, and fertile with the richness of willing blood, had been a brief delusion; and eclipse had come instead of plaudite. So his chin sank upon his unshaken bosom, his hat dropped from his grasp, and he said aloud: "Then, be it so-even so." For this scene had been to him a meteor of destiny, a lightning flash out of the dull eye of Fate. It seemed to him that he had seen this situation before, he knew not whether in dreams, in forecast, or in kindred experience. He was peculiarly subject to those subtle and complex humors of which our tame psychol- ogy can make nothing, and which present the moods of nature as correspondences and proofs of our presentiments-as reminis- cences and realizations of what we dimly knew or foreknew long ago. At times he would encounter faces, scenes, or incidents familiar as if he had met them yesterday, but which he knew had never confronted him before. A subtle association, too rapid and refined for consciousness, would weave them with viewless page: 158-159[View Page 158-159] 158 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. threads to some forgotten past of experience or fancy. Often in travelling a strange road, an unexpected turn or vista would exhibit to him a landscape whose minutest feature was, or seemed to be, already graven on his mind, and he could almost turn his back and 'describe its most retired details. Often when per- plexed by novel circumstances, quick as lightning in some mus- ing moment the discovery would come that he had passed through it all before; and he could predict with the certainty of fate how it would end, or read from the tablets of an inscrutable memory how it had ended. There was far more in this idiosyn- crasy than the hypothesis of the separate action of the lobes of the brain can explain. It was part of a certain duality of con- sciousness which made him feel that all his being was not in himself-another and pregnant form of that sense of an allied and kindred intelligence in nature which led the Greeks to- mould her manageable fragments into gods. So, comforting himself, he spoke aloud: "The lives of men run in cycles, and mine has but come back to the beginning to mount into a higher sphere. I will conquer in that larger world, as I have done for my spir- it's use in the one which I am leaving, and at such cost up there as here. As I have come through storms of sorrow and deep affliction, so must I go on to my perfect goal in this world or beyond it. Prickly solace of disappointment, stinging, wasp- ish blister, I bind thee firmly to my heart, caring for no pain, only caring that thou shalt draw away every evil humor that may still remain." He sat down on a pile of broken stones beside the road, and watched the last darkling gleam desert the clouds, as a thieving cavalry-man, who has straggled behind, gallops off to rejoin the -column. And in the increased sense of desolation which fell on him- as -the failure of his last -hope seemed to be predicted, he remembered one who had loved him with sincere devotion in the depths of a contrite heart purified by his counsel, and had died. He drew from his pocket a pencil and a bit of paper, and sitting there wrote down these words of requiem: SUNSET. O, sob-worn lyre, thy aching, cankered string Grief sweepeth still with darok, slow-moulting wing, And dying Nature weeps in thy far echoing. MORE THAN SUNSET. 159 Breathe, harp of sorrows, thine autumnal numbers To waning light and fading leaves, that o'er thee Fast falling woo thee, too, to join the slumbers Of all the cherished things that died before thee. A white, white tomb pales all the hill of glory Where in the sunrise gods and angels glittered; And plumes of death, and tears with gall embittered Are there. O, strong, mute heart, can this be thy sad story? O, blood-red clouds, craping the sinking sun, Drinking his waning life away, burn on; And thou, O, grave, swallowing all, one by one, Rob on, rob on till all that is be gone, And the pale tuiverse into thy depths sink down. Cease, Scorn, while prostrate on this dust I lie; She loved me and is dead! 'Tis all I know. Thou flinty demon of unflinching eye, Scourge on, scourge all, but her who here lies low, Her else damned fault shall shield from thy unpitying blow. Spirit, that bendest from the concave globe To smile on me, no shame is on thy brow, No spot nor darkness stains thy glorious robe. Thy sin lodged here; thy love survived, and now Enrobes thy soul of flame in pure and stainless snow. When he had finished these words, standing up again, he raised the paper above his head, and let the wind take it out of his fingers and waft it away; and as it was carried farther and farther off, he said: "Bear it away, Spirit of the wind-bear away to a cleansed and beautiful spirit the tribute she will love thee for bringing." Then, as he started forward again, out of his passionate gloom rose up every incident of the night when in company with his dying mother he had travelled that road; and it already seemed that he was going now to a darker and more enduring sorrow than the ohe to which that journey conducted him. He started back amazed at the distinctness with which her long absent image now returned, and there before him changed through all its mournful aspects of the past. There was the patch of sod on which she had fallen down in exhaustion and sobbed for breath. page: 160-161[View Page 160-161] 160 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. He seemed still to see her lying there pale, death-struck, frozen, dripping. Every word that she had spoken that last night of her life, sounded in his ears again, as -if her unseen spirit were repeating them to him out of the depths of the air. There on either hand were the same houses from all of which they had beeh successively expelled. On his memory, with iron pen, and drops of blood and gall, was graven evelT face they had encoun- tered, and every word that had been spoken at each. Around the doors of many of them now gay groups were gathered, and merry laughter was rippling like bright water through the twi- light. Roses were blooming in wanton and reproachful splendor along the walks where she had staggered at his side through streaming desolation, and an Araby of perfumes breathed its sweetness across his senses. There was always something in the deposition of twilight dew on thirsty flowers-a mystic and pecu- liar fragrance, as if the amber tears of heaven were falling through the dusk on the petals--which disposed him to far, im- palpable and tinged emotion. And thus, as he walked onward, every brawny and every delicate fibre of his being, every sense, recollection or reflection, every contrast with his mood, and every likeness to it, spoke the same language of vehement anguish and longing weariness to his soul. Presently, bright equipages conveying bevies of ladies and graceful beaux began to pass him. These gay parties rolled swiftly by in their pomp and happiness, scarcely bestowing a glance on the outcast who was trudging on the same way in the deepening gloom. He came, at length, to the iron gate that led in to Druid Hill. He stopped there, and looked around for the well-remembered spot where his mother had fallen down on the heap of broken stones, in the prostration which is the last term of despair. Sitting down there in the now deep darkness, and contrasting the long, white, ghastly line of the road with the gloom of the overhanging woods, all the wormwood and the soul- chill of the long-ago came back to him. All the previous emo- tion of the evening had been but the uneasy rippling of the tide which now broke over him. Before him stood the gate which once had lied: "Safe in at last." 'Beyond, towered the mansion and its Titan guard of oaks. There were the desolate scenes of his boyhood, and beyond the dark woods, on the little hill beside the ruined church, was laid the broken heart which once had beat MORE THAN SUNSET. 161 for him, him only, in holiest love. The peevish soughing of the wind and mutterings of distant thunder recalled him. The clouds which had blotted out the sun had afterwards compacted them- selves into masses of ebony, and now with fitful puffs of wind and ventral rumblings of thunder were steadily pushing towards the zenith.- The scene was something like what you may have seen in the pauses of a battle, when, in breathless stillness, with only the occasional and annoying boom of a stray cannon-shot, masses of men are debouching afresh to a more fearful work. Rising and passing through the gate, he listened till the last vibration of its clang and of the hollow and sepulchral echo died out of the moaning air, and then wound along one of the circling tracks up the slope through the grove of oaks and chestnuts to the mansion. The scene around the house and throughout the grounods was picturesque beyond description. The yard was bril- liantly illuminated with tapers enclosed in flannel lanterns of many different colors, and such a profusion of them was there, and so tastefully had they been disposed, that the entire land- scape was converted into an unwritten fantasia. The mansion crowned a hill which rose with long and gentle swell from the highway on the north, and slanted more abruptly to the sea on the east, and to a thick forest on the south. Its model was that of a cross, and at the intersection of the northern with the eastern arm a tower rose. A rare discrimination had planned the yard. "Laissez faire" had preceded ornamentation. The effect was even gorgeous, but its corner-stone was a clean and rigorous severity. Baronial oaks raised here and there their warrior heads plumed by the almost fabulous druidical mistletoe. Rare shrubs and flowers relieved and beautified the unshaded spaces, or clustered along the walks. Cataracts of vines tumbling from trellises, and arbors luxuriant in shade and fragrance, were skilfully disposed where they added to the repose and beauty of the scene without encumbering it. Carriage-ways, glistening with white pebbles, circled away down the slope almost a mile to the highway. The interior of the mansion amply sustained and even over- stepped the exorbitant promise of the exterior. Everything that could gratify a catholic and manly taste was there. Halls from the four arms of the cross met at the centre in a rotunda adorned with statues, vases, and unique works of art. Dark-grained and K t*- page: 162-163[View Page 162-163] 162 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. massive doors opened into parlors which were the perfection of magnificence. Pictures by the greatest living artists embellished the walls. The harp, piano, guitar, violin, and much of the grand written music that has gushed from the full soul of the Christian civilization were there. The literature of two civiliza- tions enriched the endless shelves of the library. The best blood of Britain and Arabia filled the stables. A yacht and smaller craft were anchored in a miniature harbor at the foot of the hill. Years before, Auswurf had found here a meretricious caricature of culture, and when he went away had left its perfect shape and breathing soul; and now some other hand had added to his work a gentler charm, and given it back to delight his wondering eye. The gay parties who had passed him on the road had been on their way to Druid Hill, and a brilliant company was now assem- bled there. Out of regard for the quasi-clerical character of the host, the guests had come quite early, and many happy groups were now wandering beneath the trees, or hidden in the arbors, or strolling about the glittering sward. On a platform in the yard, a band 6f musicians, the best the city afforded, were dis- coursing passages from the favorite operas. Wondering whether he should be able to see the host at all that evening, Auswurf approached the house.' The moment his arri- val was announced, Dr. Greed himself met him at the door, in a flutter-of cordiality and pleased surprise. He grasped the out- cast's hand warmly, expressed himself delighted to see him, and rebuked him affectionately for having made himself for so many years a stranger at his own home. Auswurf would scarcely have let any other human being fawn on him; but now he curiously watched the holy man cringe and almost prostrate himself; for in him this was a small retribution which sweetened to some extent the bitter recollections of the past. The Doctor looked many years older than when the boy had seen him last. He had grown fatter, too-a tender point with him--and his face was heavier and flabbier, indicating loss of tone and increase of grossness. He had the unmistakable look of a man whose powers are begin- ning to be damaged by debauchery, and whose passions are becoming more beastly as his vigor wanes. His hearing also was failing, and he bade fair soon to become that most disgusting of all things in human shape-an obese, deaf swine, wallowing out MORE THAN SUNSET. 163 his old age in sloughs which- his younger piggishness despised. You must not expect to see him hereafter precisely what he has been heretofore. He was perfectly conscious of the fact that he was no longer the same alert and invincible schemer he had been. He had made several serious blunders in politics of late, and was thoroughly determined that this incomprehensibly sagacious boy should never leave him again. He was already that pitiable but not uncommon sight, the politician who hungers for every office above him, and is ready to betray everything and everybody under heaven to secure it, but whose very anxiety defeats him, and whose only chance of preferment is to find a party in whose service only perfidy and cruelty are needed. "How strangely you have slighted us, Selric Auswurf," said the holy man, looking the picture of injured love. "For years I have been wondering what had become of you, and especially of late you have scarcely ever been absent from my mind." "Which only means," was the reply, " that especially of late you have had some selfish scheme in regard to which you have needed my help." "The same old fire, I see," replied the holy man, with a forgiv- ing and patronizing smile; "but Iam used to it, you know. I am glad, very glad, that you have come back home again at last, and to-night, too, of all good days or nights in the year." "This crowd, then, has a connection with your joy at seeing me?9' "Certainly, certainly," he answered, with a great air of candor. Then sotto oce: "Ostensibly, this is a reunion given by me in honor of my ward's seventeenth birthday. But all the great men of the country are here. You know what that means. After supper, you shall meet with us in one of the parlors. Your old room is waiting for you, as, indeed, it has been ever since you left it. Arrange your dress, and come down quickly." Accordingly, the lad ascended to his old familiar room and laid aside the bundle of manuscripts, brushed the dust from his dress, then again descended to the drawing-room and was presented by the host, with "distinguished consideration," to many of the guests. After the introductions were over, and a little tedious, formal, commonplace conversation had been gone through with a few of the more condescending great men and aristocratic ladies, the boy turned away and sat down by the west window and looked page: 164-165[View Page 164-165] 164 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. out at the slowly rising cloud. Through an opening in the trees, he saw, for the first time in many months, the evening star-the star of his own destiny-hovering just above the inky brow of the cloud behind which, an instant later, it sank out of sight; and then it seemed to him, as he thought of the scene on which it had once looked, that, fickle and malignant, it was hastening away to tell the Prince of Darkness that it too had deserted him. Mrs. Greed looked almost twenty years older than when Ans- wurf had seen her last. Her hair was now white as snow, and as a penance she stubbornly refused to dye it or to wear a wig. Her spirit was at last utterly broken, and chronic fear was depicted on her face. In her uneasy conversation, she kept glancing at her husband to see whether he approved what she was saying, and she did not dare to cross the room without first obtaining permission from his eye. CHAPTER III. TWO CAVALIERS-CONTRASTS. OF those political leaders whom a generous-hearted people de- lighted to honor, and whose biographies will hereafter wear the hue of romance, Auswurf met there that night, for the first time, two whom we would gladly paint in such colors as their noble im- pulses and characters-disastrous because misguided-deserve. The more prominent and noticeable of the two, there as else- where, was the younger-Manlius Claiborne. His person was tall, well-knit, agile, handsome, and his constitution was mani- festly without a flaw; but it seemed to be an accurate proportion- ing of forces, rather than their abundance, that bestowed his health and power. His countenance, too, was commanding and very handsome. His complexion was saturnine, but on either cheek was a spot of paler hue, into which, when he was excited, the hot blood poured in torrents, until they glowed like coals of fire. His eyes were large, clear and kindly. Chestnut hair of great beauty, worn short, curled about his neck and temples. His forehead, which was very high and full, resembled a truncated cone with the smaller base down. It was the fit throne of a severe and haughty intellect. But this cold forehead was amply com- TWO CAVATLIERS. 165 pensated by the fiery occiput and face. The hinder-head was a cylinder, full, round and swelling, while the lower face was like a garden at the foot of a tropical volcano, where vine and olive con- ceal the cobra. His upper lip was short, corded, and almost im- mobile. When he talked, it remained almost entirely stationary, shaping itself with rapid and decisive action to aid the lower lip- which was full, mobile and. passionate, stopping barely short of being voluptuous-in the formation of words -which now possessed the characteristics of the one, and now those of the other. Claiborne was the ideal of what may be called- " the positive"in human character. His talent for affairs was unequalled, and with it was mixed up an inordinate passion for a strangely practical sort of metaphysics. This dealing in abstractions, far from weakening his active faculties, only trained and suppled them. His im- agination was brilliant, but lacked inspiration, and seldom flashed out in the creative and far-illuminating blaze of the metaphor. He preferred analogies to principles, form to substance. He would have followed a superficial coincidence into the depths of perdition without detecting its deceitfulness. His reasoning pro- ceeded entirely by a comparison or analysis of semblances. It was little more than the skilful exercise of a single faculty, and was the exact reverse of a bold grappling with the essence of the subject, and the deduction of all details from a central truth. It was en- tirely a thing of surfaces, sides and relations, multifarious, ab- struse and technical. He was devoid of the sublime audacity which casts loose upon the sea with only the loadstar and the needle, knowing that these are all. Yet he was reckless and dar- ing among the breakers and headlands. He possessed rare skill and accomplishments as a pilot, but as a navigator he guided only to disaster. In taste and genius he was an Athenian, in spirit and energy a Spartan. In the arts, his passion was for symmetry rather than for sentiment. He loved sculpture better than painting, and har- mony more than melody. He was a devoted admirer and student of the classics, and nearly despised modern literature. He de- lighted in those sciences which proceed by a comparison of figures and quantities, and cared little for any other. Irregularity of any kind first pained and then enraged him. He saw no grandeur in the movement of very great masses. He would, indeed, have hurled an avalanche from its perch, and watched its descent with page: 166-167[View Page 166-167] 166 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. kindling eye; but the launching and propulsion of entire worlds- he never gave these even a thought. The idea of organism was despotic and exclusive in his thought; of the play and transition of forces he knew nothing. The panacea of Christian statesmen, an artful system of checks and balances, comprised for him the whole of political wisdom. His postulate was that life necessarily resides in given forms, and if you con- struct the form, life cannot but come and dwell in it. The addap- tation of form to suit the fluctuations and changes of force--this, the first law of life in nature, never occurred to him as being im- portant; but he would mould an arbitrary form and choke up the tides of life to make them flow through it. Necessarily, therefore, he was a conservative, and his conservatism was -a radical and destructive immobility. He held fast to the shell with furious te- nacity, and let the progress of the race pull out the core and life. Patriotism was the largest emotion of which he was capable; and here, as everywhere, he clung to the organism and neither knew nor cared about force or substance. No ignoble tenant ever found a lodgment in this manly breast. In public as in private life, his integrity was above suspicion. No trace of plunder or stain of partisan bargaining ever defiled his hands. Never for a second time did any man approach him with either a sneaking or a corrupt petition. In an age when the word politician was only an alias for plundermonger, he was, like Caesar's wife, not only above reproach, but above suspicion, The product of the same forces, but of softer mould than Clai- borne, and appealing to gentler sensibilities, was the second man of whom we have spoken. Claiborne, we have seen, was very handsome; Cheveril was very homely. His person was short and thick-set, but not corpulent, his complexion swarthy, his chin short, his face long, his nose at once sharp and half retrousse, his hair coarse, black, and running far down on his neck, his hands, feet and ears large. His eyes were large, black and dreamy, full of sentiment, but lacking in vivacity. For subdued, languishing and poetic splendor, the world might safely be defied to equal them. His forehead was somewhat drawn in and pinched about the eyes, but broadened as it ascended. The summit of the fore- head was not the highest point of the skull. In the upper region where phrenologists locate the organs of the moral faculties, the brain seemed to be compacted and crowded, and to have pressed out the bony walls to make room for itself. TWO CAVAT TERS. i 167 You scarcely need to be told that he was true-souled, kind- hearted, full of sweet affection, constant, benevolent, humane; that he possessed feminine sensibility and tenderness, united with a simplicity and purity never surpassed. In docility, innocence and fervor, he was always like a warm-hearted and glorious boy. Adulation could not make him vain, nor preferment proud; authority sat on him like a loose mantle which he would be glad to lay aside-which he would lose nothing by laying aside. Not unnaturally, it was as a jurist and forensic orator that he shone brightest and most benignly. The pathos and sweetness of his eloquence no language can describe. Under the melting accents of his marvellous tongue, strong men wept like children. You had to hear him in order to appreciate that witchery. Duty in the gentle form of love was his polestar. His charity was a quiet but perpetual stream, which gladdened many a dreary home, and cleansed and healed many a broken heart. Distress never left his presence uncheered and unassisted. Quick to perceive and prompt to encourage struggling talent, he was the kindest, gentlest and most munificent of patrons. The fervor of his nature clung to particular objects with a grasp that seemed death- less. You- could not mention the word home, even casually, without touching him. The lares and penates seemed to fill the entire angle of his spiritual vision, until you discovered, perhaps after many years, his deep and speechless piety. He took an interest in even the humblest member of his household, and spared himself no pains to increase the comfort and happiness of all. He was a kind, and what is more rare, a just master, the best friend his slaves had or will ever have in this world. He probably loved his particular creed more than he believed it. Like everything else that took a deep hold on him, it seemed to enter his soul through the home affections. He thanked God for the warm and sunny nook in which his lot had been cast, and for the wall which repelled the cutting winds and deadly snows of the North. He said and believed of the contest over slavery: "It is Satan against Christ; level this rampart and conquer this last refuge, ye infidel hosts, and the warmth and light of the uni- verse will be departed forever." The one fatal and incurable weakness of this amiable and gifted man, was that he lacked the realizing faculty-in thought, in action, in everything. He felt rather than saw, touched rather page: 168-169[View Page 168-169] 168 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. than apprehended. Nothing belonged to him but what lay within his immediate feelings and the limits of his own experience. He could not appropriate, or even picture, the remote and unseen. The sincerity and fervor of his nature were unquestioned; but the ground in- which sincerity and fervor become grandeur and heroism was entirely lacking. Diminishing your opinion to esteem, and your emotion to sincere affection, you felt that rarely from the dawn until the close of time will one have appeared, ,o entirely and unquestionably worthy of them. Sleep, ye two noblest, most gifted, and, alas, most erring, in your dark and bloody graves. Rest, ye two released and now most spotless, in the Islands of the Blessed. Ye cast upon the twilight sands the cause of your weaknesses and faults. Now enlarged and purified, ye glow with the same fervor that here wrapped your dimly-seeing souls in flames. Brotherv, freed from the burden of its errors, for but a little time farewell. And from that burning shore, as ye are carried onward from our tearful gaze, we think we see your spirit-hands waving us farewell! CHAPTER IV. A WOMAN S PORTRAIT. THE ward to whom the Doctor had alluded, had been commit- ted to his care three years before, by the last injunctions of her mother. Her father had been deceased many years, and her mother, when called to leave her child without kindred in the world, had selected this holy and distinguished man as guardian of the orphan's estate and person. The name of the orphan girl was the purest and most beautiful of all the names of women--Urania. Her form and features would have been those of the Grecian model, if, in obedience to the law of succession in the types in which beauty expresses itself, physical faultlessness had not been modified, without being diminished, by a higher perfection. She was of medium height, and possessed a modest dignity and grace which converted her very- footfall into a lyric. Her hair was of that kind which, when it is perfect, is the rarest, most characteristic and most beautiful A WOMAN S PORTRAIT. 169 of all-a shade fairer than auburn, luxuriant, soft, yielding, betokening at once unusual strength and delicacy. Her eye was clear as June and mellow as September, and renewed with empha- sis the childish thought which conceives the stars as only leaks of light. It was the evening star set in the amber sky of October -subdued yet powerful, indescribably brilliant yet indescribably gentle, shining out clear and spotless from a soft enveloping haze. Her nostril was somewhat more open than in the classic Pallas, indicating increased power of reflection and depth of emotion, while her forehead was much too strong for the perfect mechanical beauty of the Greek type; but you felt that a Greek brow over such a face would have degraded and almost deformed it. What was especially remarkable about her entire face was that features so indicative of power and character should possess such an air of gentleness and so much beauty. It was not sim- ply that there was no contradiction between the indexes of beauty and those of strength. You felt that each was not only neces- sary to the other, but was also part of it-that they were iden- tical. Few that looked upon her face ever thought of aught but its beauty, and the rest thought only of its power. But if one who was at once Simon Barjona and (Edipus had come and gazed upon this face and felt it ask him: "But what sayest thou that I am?" there would have been in his soul an answer which his lips might not have spoken : "Thou art the home-angel, and thy speech is the full-keyed orchestra of all tender and beautiful power." While Urania was manifestly not a reproduction of the Euro- pean woman, the difference was something more than the effect of the greater freedom of the sex in this country. It was also the effect of a progress of forces. You observed, indeed, her larger knowledge, independence and self-sovereignty, as com- pared with the women of other lands; but you observed also, even more prominent, increased volume, tenderness and delicacy of emotion. You saw in her no trace of the strut and indelicacy which, accepting the delineations of female novelists as correct, would seem to have sullied hitherto all strength of mind and character among women. In her strength, she was still the truest and most beautiful of women; in her perfect womanliness, she was still a paragon of strength. The first fact in her nature, after its wealth and its -power, was 8 page: 170-171[View Page 170-171] 170 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST.- its certainty and calmness. She had the calmness of a fact, because in a noble sense she was one. The ground of this calm- ness was the entire reality of her nature in every part. She seemed never to have suffered the pangs and doubtfulness of spiritual growth, but to have come from the hands of nature a complete creation. It seemed that there never was a time when it was doubtful what she would be. This certainty and calmness' was directly the reverse of insipidity or poverty. It was the calmness of affluence and perfect action. It was an example of forces so nicely balanced and so accurately directed, that they accomplished their result without collision, error or a jostle. It was the building of a fair and matchless temple without the dis- cipline of temporary failure. Her power was less a matter of intellect than of feeling-a sense, in the highest and purest application of the term. Her entire thought was concrete, and she shrank from abstractions with repugnance. The apprehending process with her was not one of toil and logic, but of sensibility and awakening conscious- ness. It was the rare gift of her nature that she was capable of ascending from one sphere to another without reproach to her past life, and the enlargement of her vision and experience cast no odium on what had previously stood within the charmed circle of her love. The many and great advantages which wealth confers on char- acter were visible in her, but she seemed never to have thought of them. In all respects the sense of her particular life seemed to repose within a largertconsciousness, like a diamond in a basin of silver. She thought less of Urania than of the woman, and less of the woman than-of the child of God. In the heaven of her face dwelt many angels, and from her matchless lips they spoke like angels. Words of endearment on her tongue acquired a new beauty and almost a new meaning; and when she spoke of the deep and beautiful realities of her own emotional experience, you felt that a new revelation of the life of purer and higher spirits had been given you-that you had a glimpse of that life which is unfading and beautiful forever. Her very emotions were perfect truths, and she would as soon have deceived others as herself. A profuse tracery of poetry and passion permeated her nature like delicate and brilliant jets of gold and sapphire diffused through porphyry. -For her the Ideal and the Actual were not two con- A WOMAN'S PORTRAIT. 171 trasted and irreconcilable worlds, but they blended with every at- tribute of sublimity and glory into the real. The creations of her pure heart and fervid imagination she never for one moment re- garded as dreams or pictures, but always as clear preceptions of the only real life, and such in fact they were. She wondered that any should talk of the Ideal as a delusion, as a glorious cheat forever unattainable. The tender, the beautiful, the unharshy grand in literature, art, character and history were to her a per- sonal and perpetual joy. She delighted in those passages of his- tory in which women by truthfulness and heroism have won the love and admiration of all ages. And unsullied and unapproach- able forever by the spirit of politics-relying only on the deep spiritual forces which create all the facts of human history-she looked forward with yearning eye to the day when her sex should occupy a higher and juster place in the world's heart and life. A wide gulf separated her from the ordinary stand-point of both men and women in regard to marriage. She regarded this as a state to be dictated only by the one sufficient reason; and she felt that if that supreme and justifying love was not for her, as it is not for all in this world, she never could stoop in disappointment to accept something less than her ideal to still the cravings of a weak heart, but that she was abundantly able to go on to the grave alone, finding in life enough and more than enough to live for. Yet she knew well enough not only the beneficence of love, but also the dwarfing and souring effect of single life on women. And, far more, she had already dreamed the true woman's touch- ing and beautiful dream. She had thought of what she was capa- ble of being, in the highest and most sacred of all relations, to one whom she should love, and what he must be whom she could love supremely. This dream was indistinct and unembodied, like sun- shine filtered through April mist, but shadowy as it was, it was despotic. It was as if she saw a misty crown in the air, and a majestic brow pressed by its radiant rim, and locks of manly beauty floating out from the diadem of light; but she depicted no face to match them. She felt that if her ideal remained unrealized her life would be desolate indeed, but not necessarily a failure; and she was unconscious of the despondency which possessed her when she thought that its fulfilment was scarcely a possibility. Yet she fervently thanked heaven both for her inability to take on her lips a vow which should be only a hollow lie, and for the page: 172-173[View Page 172-173] 172 THE, STORY OF AN OUTCAST. strength she felt to abide in sincerity and simple truth by her sense of true dignity and worth, at whatever apparent sacrifice. There was, indeed, somewhere in the world, but she had as yet scarcely asked herself definitely where, a voice whose passionate and mournful utterances never failed to call up this dream afresh, and to stir her heart with vague yearning and expectation. She read with unconfessed eagerness many of those great sad words; but she had never seen the speaker, and it is probable that she scarcely thought of him as an actual, existing mortal. She knew, for it was the deep-laid plan of a veteran schemer that she should know, that he was young and lonely and oppressed with sorrow, and in his utterances there was a weird meaning which she longed to comprehend but did not. To her he was a voice of suggestion borne on the wind, a beam of homeless lightwandering across the darkness of the world. CHAPTER V. DII SlUNT SIME. VERY conspicuous among the others who were present were a few prim Robespierrian flowers of scholarship, scentless, frigid and granitic as their native hills. Flowers we have called them; rather were they etched pebbles in the bladder of the groaning nation, swelled by a generous reciprocity of admiration between them and their well-represented people into thimble-sized moun- tains of the Thingomy range-not very tall, but " stunny." Sub- tracting their rapacious godliness, and their long-range faculty of vulgar self-seeking, and what remained of them was precisely what their old-bones erudition had plagiarized from recondite sources. Nimble Mercury, god of thieves, had whittled them out of sand- stone with a jack-knife, baptized them in the lowest sewers of a lifeless, unchristian, Christ-casting Christianity, or in the esoteric fonts of a string-halted infidelity, which couldnot live an instant in the broad air outside of a gilded salon, and whose imperfect Nis- cera required to be supplemented by catheter of human folly and conceit-and in derision named every Pharisaical demagogue of them Apollo. They possessed so much greatness of spirit that DI SUNT STMX1, 173 they thirsted with cracked jaws for the ruin of prisoners of nature, whose antecedents and geographical position rendered them less holy than their own sainted selves, and Divine Providence always l opened their modest mouths just in time to advocate a little more protection for home manufactureo. They were smashing con- solidationists so long as other people were to be smashed; but when, at last, some other section shall begin to turn against them the Federal ram which they have unwittingly constructed for its hand, and in the name of a growing nationality shall demand a surrender'of the present rotten-borough system of packiJn5 the Senate with New Englanders, and the expunction of the long- fingered Turpin of the tariff from the statute-book-we shall see who will be the States' Rights men and reactionists then. Few be- lievers in " impartial suffrage" quite come up to Fate in that line. She swings around a circle of felons or patriots, and with the aid of the remaining segments elects a quadrant at a time to be Wiped out; and she always gives the expunged fragments a vote in favor of rubbing out the rest. It is very pious of us, no doubt, to con- fess that slavery was a "national sin," and to roll up our eyes with multitudes of amens in them when with our treasure we buy ruin for the South; but possibly Fate will conclude that the South, too, ought to have a chance, after a while, to add a few billions to the national debt, for righteousness's sake, while she whistles us down the wind to the tune of Yankee Doodle. If you remarked in the hearing of any of these transcendental- ists that the age lacked spirituality, they always answered, "Alahs, yes; for why is not the colored man admitted to equal rights?"But if you ventured any positive suggestion, however modest, in regard to the deep, appalling real wants of this land,- they cried out at once: "Nonsense, man! you know nothing about it. But look into my great Anniversary Oration before the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightened Growth of the Tails of Young Codfish, and you will find the whole thing explained." Along with these idealists, to sweep out shop and pick up the pins, came a "consid'able many" other men made out of only common clay, who said, "jes' so" to everything, under all circum- stances "wanted to know," and always "guessed you warn't a doin' on't ship-shape." They all had broad, projecting, canker- covered teeth, a skim-milk sort of faces, noses like so many fiddle- bridges, and stingy little ears which grudged the skin nature page: 174-175[View Page 174-175] 174 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. wrapped them up in. These were not- free-thinkers like the rest -no, no, but "Israelites in whom there was no guile." They prayed, "O, LOED, Thy will be done as WE understand it." Once every year they gave thanks to the God of New England- for not making" them like other men. They said grace a mile long over codfish and potatoes without meat or coffee, and of course this brought heaven in debt to them on account. They went often to the "mountings" to spread the light of the gospel and organize "Sahbath-skules." They always had a "pas- sage" on their tongues. If you did not at once attend to that passage and their exposition of it, your reputation would not last five minutes after your back was turned. If you did not know what kind of a washbowl the Jewish priest dipped his hands in, or how many prongs the holy candlesticks had, you were no better than a heathen. Frau Ilithyia makes astonishing blunders in geography sometimes, you see. What right had you to be born in this land of gospel light, and thus keep out some perishing heathen who would have known these things, adored New England, and been saved. These saints, if you innocently aroused their pungent and implacable malice-and that was not hard to do---knew how to stab you with the "Laward's prah'r," to assassinate you with the "Pentytook," to anathematize you out of the Army "lRiggelation," to march you off to perdition by "Hardy's Tactics." All men, they insisted, were created equal- for the glory of New England. The negro had certain inalienable rights for th ebenefit of his friends in the vicinity of Cape Cod: first, that they might agitate him- and get office; secondly that they might agitate him over again and keep office; turning an honest penny, meanwhile, whichever way they agitated him. When the negro was freed, no Southern man, woman, or child had any right to touch him. They must not even say to him: "Sambo, take. good care of yourself now, my ,boy." All they had to do was to stand back and watch the Holy Spirit of Codfish regenerate Sambo. There were present, too, a number of those prosperous and pol- ished Magi who did not believe that anything seriously uncom- fortable could ever happen again in this, world, but that Broadway must speedily go on and wrap itself around the rejoicing earth, and then tie itself in a double bow-knot of Central Parks, operas, and general fatness between Albany and Washington. These DII SUNT SIIME I 175 Cosmopolites detested slavery in an age when not to detest it was infamy. But it was not hatred of slavery that dictated their polit- ical course; they pulled the Abolition string because, at that par- ticular moment, it made our limber-jack democracy jump highest and wriggle most. As statesmen these comfortable persons had a fixed idea. It was office. Nothing could hurt the country when they were in; nothing could save it when they were out, but to put them in. Their sagacity furnished their friends a never-end- ing theme for admiration; but in what Jew-shop of the land can you not find a superabundance of this peculiar kind of sagacity-- the long-nosed-Moses sort which scents the loaves and fishes from afar? However, they did not have the sagacity, it would seem, to discern that the true political duty in that age was not to demagogue with the anti-slavery sentiment, for this was already safe and sealed for its triumph, but to toil and teach for the pres- ervation of society. 'Such were the very best specimens of those who, being the heirs of civilization and trustees of its fruits, had power in their hands and responsibility on their shoulders, and thought they also had wisdom. Such were they who enjoying the largest degree of mastery and light yet granted to man, used them-for what? If we were to answer, not ten copies of ounr book would sell. Therefore we shall not answer just at present. Imagine what, when these were the Drummond lights, the buccaneers and smug- glers who steered by them must have been. From the other section came the political Sadducees of the age, hot believers in Moses and the law, and fierce haters of interpola- tion. These were the great Southern "statesmen," of whom the world once heard so much, but whose greatness has since collapsed forever-who, having held office all their lives, had no well-settled idea left but that of their divine right to the loaves and fishes, led a confiding people to ruin rather than take a lower place at the political bran-trough. Then there were dialecticians who could take a drop of sweat from the beaded brow of benighted Africa, put it into the alembic of their logic, kindle a gentle fire under it with the chips and shavings of the American Constitu- tional job-carpenter-shop, and forthwith bring out, in a somewhat vaporous condition, the whole of social and governmental science. The physique of these men was of a strildng and peculiar type. They had, as a general rule, clear-cut, determined features; eyes, page: 176-177[View Page 176-177] 1 10 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. gray and engleish; noses thin, high and beak-like; chins sharp, but- firm; lips thin, leathery and vise-like; form lathy, springy, Cassius-like. Their talents were great, but their views were nar- row, their temper peevish, their judgment dogmatic and technical, petty and captious, their ambition turbulent and insatiable, their audacity boundless, and their pride unconquerable. Their coun- tenances indicated a strange mixture of snug-tubbed cynicism with querulous earnestness. They Were much like the spiteful hypo- chondriac who imputes the effects of his own distemper to the agency of others, and plays the role of a sneering martyr. Prompted to domineer over you, hector, hawk and carp at you, they would pettishy complain of you, and feel deeply injured if you would not let them do it. Within the narrow circle of their real convictions they were matchless in their heroism and forti- tude; but in the whole vast world beyond this they would overturn and destroy without the slightest suspicion that they were doing any harm, or with a grim and fiendish delight in their power to do so. There were also a few devoted and far-seeing Southerners who, down in their great hearts, both loathed and feared slavery, and afterwards rejoiced at its destruction, yet regarded it as but a trifling and transient element in the contest about to begin. But these, like pearls in a pig-sty, had apthing to say. Till supper was announced, the uncouth fanatics on either side sat sullenly apart, and glowered at each other like tied curs; but the graceful devil-may-care destructives, and the common- place placid stomachs mingled freely, and the conversation ran on in the gayest, most sparkling, most unconcerned style imaginable. There was wit, or what passed for it. The puritan gambolled, and the fire-eater applauded. The spavined jokes and dropsical anecdotes were as thoroughly enjoyable as a hornpipe at your mother's funeral You would not have dreamed that these jovial prattlers, these amiable gossips, ever nursed an uncelestial thought. You would not have believed that any of them were at that moment thirsting for blood, and bent on havoc. You would never have imagined that the ever-present thought with all of them who were not mere dunderheads and imbeciles was, not what the inter- ests of this shaken land and of mankind required, but this: "I know that if revolution come, I can get a better office than I have now." A single exclamation passed boyish Auswutrf's lips, as he DII SUNT smLE. 1" looked long and curiously at these men--asking himself with bound- less wonder, whether it could really be true that these were the po- tent leaders by whom the destinies of this land and of civilization were to be decided, and of whom he had till now actually had some hope, or rather uncertainty-and what Nature meant by the grim buffoonery of placing them in such a position. A darker and holier feeling than the scorn he abundantly felt swelled up out of his heart, and from his lips: "Alas for thee, my country, and for mankind! Alas for you, widows, orphans, maidens, whose husbands, fathers, and lovers are slain from this day! Alas for thee, O, Holy Truth, to whom in all the world no knee bends but a powerless, exiled and dying beggar's!" Supper was announced very early. As Auswurf's foot crossed the .threshold of the same room from which, at nearly the same hour, years before, his mother had been driven out into the arms of waiting Death, and as his sorrowing eye took in the brilliant tapers, the flashing silver, and all the vain parade and shallow ostentation of the scene, it seemed as if the tide which had been rising higher and higher around him all the evening, and the first wave of which had burst upon him at the gate, suddenly lifted up the whole of the lurid ocean from which it came, and poured it over him in sheets of dreary and sepulchral flame., Never before in all his sad life had he felt such outlawry and pariahood, such a sense of rejection by Fate and all the world; and for an instant hunger of the heart, refusing to be longer held in check, devoured all other emotions like a ravenous wild beast, and then disgorged them again in tenfold acridity and pungency. They brought corrosive fire out of the bilious and volcanic void where the loveless spirit of his manhood craved and mourned, and burnt within his heart like vitriol. Everything that could work anguish to either the strongest or the tenderest parts of his nature, now laid hold of him. Memory, borrowing fresh dark- ness from the future, flew back along the line of his own and his mother's life, and reviewed their incidents afresh, and called out of them flocks of portents that rent his heart as if with eagles' beaks. It seemed as if the very ghosts of all the joys he had sacrificed in the past disturbed their palls, and rose and gib- bered curses at him as their murderer. The desolate and flinty path which ho still must tread stretched on before him, wrapped in eclipse, and already gory with the blood of his torn feet, and- page: 178-179[View Page 178-179] 178, THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. along it moved the cowled procession of his years, bearing with them now the coffin of his last hope. He had thought that no word or act of man, no studied and cruel experiment of Fate, could ever again awaken in his heart the feeling of personal hunger. He thought he had long since passed through the weakness of even knowing that he was desolate; that, for his truth's sake, he could even watch the red currents of his heart turn drop by drop to stone. But, along with the holy pity and appreciation for his mother, which the occasion awakened, came the sense of his own loss, and the feeling that, were every star a mass of gold, and his, he would gladly give them all to buy back one hour of her love. Ah, if Fate had given him but a tithe of the blessings which these gloomy jesters were making hideous by their incapacity, his life would not have been, as now, a waste, where the sands held up before him a lake which fled forever as he approached- where every prospect dissolved as he grasped it, because he had not the alchemy of fortune to transmute aspiration into fact. Then his mother would not have died as she had done, slain by poverty and care, and he who could not seek satisfaction of the heart, nor now ever accept it, would have grown up in the nour- ishment and peace of her love, without excision or distortion, a king among men, with power to serve and save. But while his emotion was of this character, he was not on that account less equal to the burden which the movement of the uni- verse had laid at his feet and left for him to bear. His lips were human and must bleed, but they could not murmur; and ihis heart must hanger, but it could not falter. And, strange appar- ent contradiction, he even loved, far better than he loved his own life, the dark decree which imposed his loneliness and anguish: and kneeling in the dust at the feet of the Infinite, and kissing with adoring lips the hem of Its robe, he asked for nothing, he needed nothing, but knowledge of the truth which is in It. A CONFEIENCE OF PATRIOTS. 179 CHAPTER VI. A CONMFERENCE OF PATRIOTS. AFTER supper, those whose presence the holy man desired with- drew into a retired parlor, as experienced politicians abundantly know how, and then began a scene which Juvenal himself should come back to earth and paint. The man of God and of politics "opened the house" by stating, in felicitous and oily phrase, that, "in view of the alarming condition of public affairs"--the way politicians always put it when they want a better office--"he had felt it to be a duty which he owed the country, to invite to his house, simply as friends, and on a social pretext, the best known and most influential patriots of either section, in order. that they might confer together freely and informally under the seal of honor, with a view to ascertaining means of harmonizing unimportant but inflammnable differences, and averting the im- pending danger." This periphrastic conjugation of the American verb "wire- pull" deceived no one. Everybody understood that his object was to penetrate the secret, designs of both parties for his own advantage, and they laughed in their sleeves at so bald and fatu- ous a trick. But very shrewd politicians understand that the best way to undermine an enemy is to mislead him into digging under some superficial stratagem of your own, when you just dig under him again and send him to the skies. The Doctor had an idea that if he could once get these men to talling freely, trying to cheat him and each other, they would .be very apt to go on and say things they had scarcely thought of making public, and, therefore, the more successfully he humored each party with the thought that here was a splendid opportunity to mislead the other, the more apt he would be to secure results. It should be explained that, up to this time, the Doctor had considered it safest to continue to actpublicly with those pain- fully respectable gentlemen of the Border, who were properly called Conservatives, for various reasons; some, because they devotedly desired to conserve union and liberty; some, because they wished to conserve slavery; some, because they wanted to conserve-the loaves and fishes for their own use. The patriotic *distress of these last, when the earthquake they had been trying page: 180-181[View Page 180-181] 180 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. to hamper at last shook itself out of the hair net of compromise, and set the country reeling, was pitiable. For was there any telling now whether, in the confusion that was coming, they could any longer monopolize the public stalls for themselves, and their- sons, and their sons-in-law, and their nephews, and their nieces' husbands, and their cousins to the fortieth removal? As if that were not enough, other considerations increased their distress. It was not clear to them at first that the Government would con- test the issue of disruption, and they commenced packing up to go along with the "wayward sisters." Afterwards, when they saw the Northern tempest gathering, they determined vigorously that it should strike south of them, and concluded not to go. Many limped to this conclusion, with longing, backward glances of their halting loyalty. Others, with a clearer perception of the nature of saving grace, seeing that, to be perfectly sure of their pork, they must make it Abolition bacon once for all, struck for spoils as well as safety. The patriotic comment of the Heverend Theospolophilus Greed, D. D., M. C., on the situation, after a renewed calculation of the "chances, was: "The Abolitionists are a---d strong." Of course that made him loyal; but before boldly taking his stand and bleeding the Treasury in proof of his loyalty, he wanted to find out precisely how far the "Abolition- ists" were likely to use their strength. Of course, the Secession gudgeon swallowed the holy man's hook first, thinking it was only playing with the shadow and encouraging the Abolition 'shark to dine off the barbed steel; and the gentle shark, the moment it saw that the astute gudgeon had the hook comfortably stuck in its bowels, at once snapped up both hook and gudgeon, in its fraternal love for gudgeons gener- ally, and its anxiety to help this one, particularly, out of a bad snap. And so the holy man, giving Satan a hint by which that eminent statesman seems to have profited since, sat back and played with them. This thing of "saving the country," which the holy man had suggested, was something with which both parties were qtiite familiar, and for which they both had a lively relish. They had been engaged in it all their lives, and liked it better the more they did of it. The country seemed to labor under an astonish- ing but most convenient burden of "original sin," and, though redeemed an incalculable number of times, had a way of getting A CONFERENCE OF PATRIOTS 181 lost again just before every election. These men had saved it time and time again, with banks, tariffs, sub-treasuries, free trade, coon-skins, pokestalks, hard cider, Mexican wars, great American ,parties, Kansas-Nebraska Bills, Lecompton Constitutions, and various other efficacious appliances, and had found the salvation so brisk and profitable a line of trade that they were now entirely disposed to thimblerig it out of purgatory into bliss again. For it had got lost again worse than ever, and the commission for saving it this time was sure to be long and fat. They all saw very clearly that things had come to such a desperate pass that whoever saved the country thiat time would have a veritable fee simple, not only of the Washington teat, but also of the thirty odd other little dugs that adorned the milky belly of mother Columbia. As a matter of course, as everybody was to be cheated, the con- versation, at the beginning, was rose-water itself. It was gener- ously confessed on all sides that, perhaps, there was some little "excitement" of the public mind, but this would soon "blow over," and everything be very serene again. One side disclaimed all intention of interfering with the domestic affairs of the States until such time as Gabriel should be pleased to gently wind his horn, and the others as vociferously disavowed any design of dis- ruption. Cape Cod squeaked "Constitution," and Carolina yelled "Yune-yon." This was the cue of the cosmopolites, the men of liberal ideas, and they forthwith opened their parotid glands, and drenched the company with political philosophy. But presently, under the shrewd manipulations of the man of God, with an amiable doubt here, a patriotic suggestion there, an information-seeking interrogatory yonder, a great change began to develop itself. The chivalry began to bluster in order to frighten the North, having no suspicion at all that they would go straight on presently, and rebel sure enough, and be ruined. This' game, however, was not strikingly successful. For the "North- ern Statesmen," having at last come in sight of the loaves and fishes after a weary season, ridiculed the idea that' the South -would secede, and swore they did not care a curse if she did, for she could not take the offices along with her. Yet six months later, these same men, seeing that the South was actually seceding, were trying earnestly to appease her by surrendering every point in dispute, and guaranteeing the existence of slavery forever. page: 182-183[View Page 182-183] 182 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. The most sagacious Southerners were earnest secessionists, be- cause they saw clearly enough that slavery in the Union was doomed; and in this they were only playing into the hands of the acutest Yankees who wanted the South to rebel so that they might first conquer and then plunder her. But even these keen- eyed extremists scarcely anticipated a millionth part of what stands revealed to-day, and only a small and intensely hated clique in either knot desired what both have since freely done. The fire- eaters who advocated secession as the only means of saving sla- very, and who laughed at the idea of disunion's being followed by war, were, a year or two later, arming and freeing their slaves to save themselves from being conquered. The uncompromising Abolitionists, who had themselves been secessionists all their lives, mildly assured their Southern brethren that, if they wanted to go, they might go in peace. Some of these were actually sin- cere; that is the part of it which is now hardest to realize, but it is true. Others were simply playing Mephistophiles. While the conversation was going on in this key, the storm with- out grew louder and nearer. The wind was rapidly rising to a tempest; the music of the band, blown all awry, now burst in loud crashes on the ear, and now died almost out; and the light- ning began to flare angrily in the faces of the speakers. And paripassu with the approach of the storm, another and still more startling change; not wrought this time by the satanic agency of the man of God, came over the discussion. It was evident that the mere blatherskites had had their day, and that men of very different stamp were now coming to the surface on both sides. The speakers no longer conversed, but delivered set speeches of unwonted vehemence and fire. We should be doing a real but thankless service to the country to recall here some features of the late conflict which are rapidly fading from the public mind,.and which we think Fate is surely reserving for yet ampler and blood- ier illustration; but satisfied that what we might present would be misconstrued, we omit it.* At length Claiborne, his ardor bringing him to his feet, with his fine face glowing, entered into an argument so vehement and so elaborate, so passionate and so metaphysical, as to be a * Consequently, it must be remembered, this chapter and several subsequent ones ' are fragmentary. A CONFERENCE OF PATRIOTS. 183 marvel of its kind, his Fabian lips now following the most pru- dent counsels, and incendiarism now pouring her hot breath in torrents through every word. Then Cheveril followed, dwelling more particularly on the moral aspects of the questions whose political phases Claiborne had con- sidered, reviewing the argument by which slavery was justified from the Bible, and exposing the subterfuges by which it had been assailed. 1 When Cheveril ceased, the man of God turned to where Auswurf sat, and said: "Well, my lad, we have all spoken but you; now it is your time."' To the surprise of all, the boy stood up, sorrow drowning the scorn that was in his face, and said: "Fathers, if it is presumption in me to speak at all, how much more would it be to doubt that you have all spoken truth; to question that the invectives you have hurled at each other are well deserved, or to deny that you are all that you have called each other. Then nothing remains but to draw the conclusion which you have so abundantly established." Then entering into an analysis which you would not read if it were given here, thinking only of dis- playing as best he could the essential forces at work, and avoiding the presumption of exhorting them to adopt his views, he, tried to serve them by convincing them- that the way which led them to death was flanked by walls of iron through which there was no gate of escape. But while his reasoning was thus abstract, his heart was brealing with grief, and burning up with fire. What hecatombs of slain, what seas of blood, what deluges of tears, the words he spoke imported. What broken hopes, what wasted love, what useless struggles, what dark despair awaited the pure hearts -of the next ages; what legions of demoniac passions, freed from restraint and fed with opportunity, would run riot in the earth, while the holy truth which the universe had planted in the bosom of its child could not save and rebuild, as he had once thought it was appointed to do, but could only be a halo on the brow of a dead civilization. While the boy was speaking, the storm without came nearer and nearer, and seemed every moment about to burst in fury on the mansion. The lightning scarcely died away at all, but played on every side in endless sheets, while crashes of thunder shook page: 184-185[View Page 184-185] 184 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. the house as if its foundations were giving way. The band, not yet driven' from their stand, were playing as their last piece an adaptation of the closing parts of "Don Giovanni," and the masses of sound now began to crash against each other as the final retribution, approached. As the boy spoke on in calmness, yet in high-wrought and indescribable passion, through this confu- sion, now and then a word would be knocked out of his discourse by a peal of thunder, but the vivid flare of the lightning stream- ing across his almost transfigured face would seem to reveal its meaning better than the missing word could have done. The sul- triness of the night had caused all the windows to be left open, and the wind puffing in through them blew oat all the lamps but one, which flared fitfully. But no one seemed to care for such an accident, and the constant play of the lightning almost super- seded the necessity of other light. Thus,-wrapped in alternate flame and darkness, the thunder that crashed though his senten- ces seeming to be only the emphasis of Nature's voice enforcing his words, the boy spoke his strange discourse to its close. Several ladies were present, and among them was Urania-lean- ing forward on her elbow, and looking steadfastly at Auswurf as he spoke. She. sat not far from one of the windows, and the wind thrust in around her the luxuriant and crowded boughs of a rose- bush which grew just without. Unconsciously breaking off a number of the branches, she twisted them into a wreath which she held in her hand. When Auswurf's last word was spoken, and before he had time to sit down, Claiborne sprang to his side, and grasping his hand, exclaimed: "In heaven's name, who and what are you, incom- prehensible boy? Did you come out of the storm, and will you presently vanish into it again? Feel my hand, and tell me if you do not find something very unusual in it. There is a heart in it- as sincere a one as ever beat. Will you accept it, seraph of the storm? Take it; it is yours." Would that we could describe him as he looked at that moment. He was the Apollo-Belvidere glowing with Promethean fire. "And may I sink into perdition," he continued, ' if I ever refuse to honor noble power, even when it is engaged in destroying all that I personally hold dear." In the twinkling of an eye, quite a circle had gathered around the two, and such questions as, "Who is he?"What's all this about?" "Is this the same boy the Doctor introduced to us?" * . . . A CONFERENCE OF PATRIOTS. 185 leaped from a score of tongues. Almost a spasm wrung Auswurf's still pale face, as he replied: "Recover arms, mighty Nimrods. There is no lion here." "No, we will not be cheated of our prey," cried Claiborne. "What better fate shal we deserve than to perish as you predict, if we do not now bring you forth 'and give you your proper place in the world?" Then Auswurf quickly extricated his hand from Claiborne's and said : "I have but one path in this world, and it lies out there "- pointing to the storm. And he moved towards the door. "But go not," cried Claiborne, more impetuously than before, "go not, crownless king, till we have crowned you with our love, and proclaimed ourselves your faithful liegemen forever," A single word from the Doctor, "Your wreath is opportune, my daughter," was enough for the girl's noble and applauding heart; obeying with alacrity, she stepped forward, and before astonished Auswurf could interpose objection, she had laid the wreath on his head, and said: "It is the emblem of the reward of virtue." How open, noble, clear and beautiful her face was; and more, how noble, clear, and beautiful to Auswurf's quick eye was her spirit. "I must quickly remove the misplaced wreath," said-the outcasts. suiting the action to the word; "but the amia- ble hand that misapplied it I reverently thank, thus;" and at the same time he kissed it. Surprised and confused, she hastily with- drew her hand, but did not move away from him. A thorn on one of the roses had pricked his forehead, and a drop or two of blood oozing from the puncture trickled down his face. A flare of lightning revealed the slight stain in an exaggerated form, and looking at her hand, she saw a drop of his blood on it also. Auswurf, seeing that the accident had frightened her, quickly wiped the spot from her hand, and then the scarlet line from his face. "I ought to apologize for this," she said, " unless my fright is a sufficient atonement for my carelessness, and my carelessness in such a case is a sufficient reason why I should be alarmed." Auswurf was puzzled for a moment by the very unwomr lly honesty with which she took all the- blame upon herself, where it belonged, and by the extremely womanly ingenuity with which, in doing so, she at once flattered him and proved that she was perfectly excusable. Then saying only, "The rose has its aroma, and so has a kind word from woman," he passed quickly out of the room and the mansion. page: 186-187[View Page 186-187] 18 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. Sharp ear-splitting peals of thunder and vivid flashes of light. ning were now following each other with scarcely a moment's in- termission. The wind swelled suddenly into a tempest and tossed the oaks and chestnuts as if it would wring them out of the ground; and large globes of rain began to fall like the first drop- ling shots along a battle-front. As he stepped out into this scene, Auswurf felt in his wasted heart one sudden and mighty throb of pride and joy--the first that he had known for years. It was on such nights as this that, in boyhood, he had delighted to give himself up to that same dark sea and skim the wine of danger from the waves, feeling that no barrier stood between him and the Infinite. In an instant more the tempest had burst in unex- ampled fury around him. Springing away as if winged by the storm, he flew to the cove where the boats were lying, and loosing one from its moorings adjusted the sail. It darted from the shore and flew out to sea like a feathered amrow. Standing under an awning that covered the stern of the boat, he looked back towards the mansion, and the hill where the leafy Titans wrestling fwith the wind seamed to be fairly writhing out of the ground in their con- tortions. At that moment, a louder crash and fiercer flash than any that had preceded them came simultaneously. It seemed to Auswurf that they had cleft the earth asunder, and though the storm continued with unabated fury it seemed to have suddenly ceased, so wide was the contrast between that terrific crash and 'all smaller ones. He saw by the dying glare of the bolt that it had crushed the tower of the mansion, and by the light of the next flash he saw the bricks and splinters falling through the air; but the body of the building was not hurt. Soon he was miles away upon the sea, where the red thongs of the lightning seemed to be trying to entwine themselves with the cordage of his vessel, gaz- ing with gleaming, mourning eye, and sorrow-pierced soul, on the gloomy grandeur of the scene. And on the crest of every wave he saw a -question written. The lightnings scribbled it on every cloud. The- thunder asked it of him. Each flash and peal were but the prolongation of its shock. It was this: after the fresh evidence he now had of the certain ap- proach of disasters which he had long foreseen, what did duty re- quire of him? It was necessary that ceasing to-care for any pain, he should adopt a bolder purpose than before; but how could he avow and accomplish this? Interrogating himself thus as he MDNIGHT AND MORNING. 187 swept onward, a glimmering light, as if on some far shore which he- was approaching, rose up and played before him. Now it would shine through the misty darkness in the dimness and diffusion of twilight; then a few wandering beams of intense brilliancy, all re- fracted and tangled, would shoot into his mind's eye; then, these expiring, as he still shrank, but for no personal reason, from that haid and terrible duty, all would be darker than before. CHAPTER VII. MDNIGHT AND MOENING. IT was two or three hours before the storm had passed entirely away. Its last stifled sighs wafted Auswurf again to the shore. More than half the sky was now clear as crystal, and in the west the moon was shining in moist, mild splendor. The cloud still occupied the east like an ashen-hued curtain stretched tight across the firmament from wall to wall. Its square-cut. leaden edge moved slowly away, leaving larger and larger spaces of liquid clear- ness behind.- But as a retiring army covers its retreat with preda- tory bands of light cavalry, so, in the wake of the storm, scudding clouds, converted by the moonlight into snow-white fleeces -and festooned webs of gauze, sailed low in flocks of twos and threes about the sky. Auswurf first went up to the mansion to ascertain the effect of the stroke of lightning, and found that the damage was not con- siderable, while the quiet which reigned within showed that the occupants were safe and asleep. He then passed, on a holy pil- grimage, through the damp, dark woods where the great shadows fell in strata, to the graveyard where his Mother slept. Most of the flowers which his haud had planted over her had long since died out; but some of the rose-bushes surviving, displayed their rich bloom overlaid by rank weeds, and diffused an overpowering and sepulchral fragrance through the damp air. He put aside the brambles, and read aloud his mother's sacred name upon the stone; then kneeling by the gTrave, he gave up all his heart and memory to her, forgetting the hardness of her earthly lot in the thought of her heavenly rest, and feeling that it was for himself alone that page: 188-189[View Page 188-189] 188 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. he should mourn. Something of the same peculiar sensibility with which he had beheld the sunset and the storm again came over him in a tenderer and serener form, and the scene before him seemed to be a more mournful correspondence and prediction than any he had read before. The clouds in their whiteness, the tan- gled roses in their wildness of both aspect and fragrance, the pines above, the monumental devices around, the globes of rain that glittered on the marble, and the moonlight in its tearful softness, seemed to have found voices, and to be chanting a mass in which his heart made responses: "Kneel, mourner, kneel! Bend low thy burning brow and weep, But, oh, not for the dead who sleep -On low, calm pillows, To climb again life's radiant steep When Christ His morning bell shall peal, And Love shall know and own his seal. The darkest, deepest tide of tears O'er other and more awful biers Rolls its long billows. On through the wilderness of years Thy bleeding feet on thorns shall tread. No joy thy withered breast shall feel, But this, to kneel and kiss its dead Beneath the willows. Response. Dead, dead, all dead! And marble, white and freezing cold, Chilling the wasted arms that fold It ceaselessly- And pines, dark pennons of the host Of Death, where shades of all that's lost March by to weird, wild minstrelsy, And troops of wailing ghosts are led In bondage to the hope that's fled-^ And anchor, cross, flag, sword and shield In rigid fixity congealed, Alone I see. O symbols, what a sense ye yield, O symbols, what a sense ye cloak, For weary hand and aching head MDOGHT AND MORNING 189' And heart that loved and broke. Ah, me! Ah, me!" The gray, damp dawn, saturated with oppressive sweetness, now broke, and he returned to the mansion. As he paused. at the eastern front and looked at the sea, the rising sun had just reached the thin upper skirt of the storm far off in the horizon, but was not' yet visible. The summit of the cloud was a moun- tain of bubbling mist, around whose base untold fathoms of pitch darkness rolled. The scudding clouds first changed to flocks of golden-feathered birds, swooping about capriciously, now skim- ming along the surface of the sea, and almost dipping the points of their brilliant wings into it, now darting up, down or aside to where rays of different color fell, and shifting their yellow backs for robes of carmine lined with snow. As the light still strength- ened, their sudden changes of position and corresponding pecu- liarities of color made them look like peacocks, alternately spreading out and folding up their plumage, dipping their glit- tering necks into the dark green sea, and then lifting them up to dazzle the sun himself with the reflection of his own image. Presently one burning whiff of the day-god's breath puffed through the cloud, like the red flash of a single rifle seen through a rainy night. Then instantly a long, waving line of fire shot out to right- and left, as when a battalion fires a volley, and the cloud was scattered, and the sun seen to be already risen to some height. Rain-drops glittered on the grass and flowers like jew- els; heavy odors hung in the air like fog; and myriads of birds poured out their joyous notes in wildest profusion. The jay's termagant scream, the shrill call of the blackbird, the springing song of the lark, the twitter and chirp of wren and sparrow, the woodpecker's ringing rat-tat, the liquid whistle of quails in the distant grain-fields, the lordly gobble of the turkey-cocks and rolling whir of their wings as they strutted round and round their droves of modest hens, clashed and rattled against each other; each happy creature pouring forth its own joy, quite unmindful of any other. Auswurf keenly enjoyed this joyous reception of the sun by the earth, and then passed down one of the gravelled walks, to the extreme eastern brow of the hill, where a cast-iron settee beneath a tree commanded a fine view of the sea. To his surprise, Dr. page: 190-191[View Page 190-191] 190 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. Greed and Urania were there, and he at once approached them with inquiries in regard to the striking of the house by light- ning, and congratulations on their escape. As Auswurf took a seat by them, Urania, casting down her eyes with a pretty air of mortification, said that, greatly as she admired sublimity in nature, she seemed to lack, in some strange way, the faculty of discovering it-a characteristic, it would almost seem, of all women of the nobler cast who have warm personal sympathies. She was sure she loved nature, but, for some reason which she could not comprehend, its beauties and grandeur had always to be pointed out to her, before her sense of appreciation could be aroused. She was not at all conscious that she was making a request of him, and neither was he quite conscious of the call; but his quick spirit responded to it at once in a few i brief sentences, which were a curious combination of terseness with far-reaching and suggestive imagery, expressing his sense of the grandeur and beauty of the scene. "By the way," said the Doctor, with a desperate attempt at archness, "speaking of frights, as we were doing just now, the- stroke of lightning was not the only nor the greatest one we had last night." "What other had you?" asked Auswurf. "Why, if you must know"-with an amiable freshness like a lamb with April rain on its soft wool--"when we all rushed to the eastern front to ascertain what damage our old classical friend Jupiter-genitive Jovis, devilish irregular and hard to remember had done us Christians, we saw a boat out in the bay, driving madly through the storm; and when I expressed an opinion as to the identity of the reckless mariner, the consternation of our party was as great as if forty thunderbolts were dancing a hoe- down in the hall." Auswurf, who never liked to be made "an object of interest," was more than disgusted at this, and wondered at it, too, in case it was meant for him. The Doctor, however, was experimenting with Urania, who was visibly flurried to have the interest she had manifested freely enough at the time, in the matter of Auswurf's mad sail, alluded to so openly now. The sight of the little boat flying across the terrible scene had instantly connected itself in her mind with the grand words of the boy's discourse, and, while she trembled for his rashness, she' thought this no unapt image MDNIGHT AND MORNING. 191 of his destiny. And she had thought, too, that there was not in the universe another so sublime yet terrible a sighllt as such a spirit standing at a helm which no one, else was qualified to approach, and defying- the billows that hurled him to the stars. "Miss Moultrie," asked Auswurf, in so sharp a tone that it sounded like a command, "shall we now return to the house?" She gave a quick, surprised look at his thoroughly disgusted face. There is a freemasonry in humor such as you find nowhere else, because nowhere else, not even in pathos, is there such vari- ous and delicate sensibility. It gives a genuine humorist no pleas- ure to see a person destitute of humor "in a fix," because the latter does not know the fun of it himself; but show him one of the fraternity with the lines of his face drawn in that peculiar way which means chagrin, self-restraint, shame, and many other things at once, and you give him the most enjoyable sight in the universe. The girl's keen and sparkling eye read the lad's mood, even to its minutest shade, at a flash; and to say that she was amused would not tell half her pleasure. She was delighted. She saw an old acquaintance in his face, a racy, familiar and delightful spirit, which she had not dreamed of seeing in company with his other qualities, but which she hailed at once, with a recognizing flash, and longed to challenge to a romp or steeple-chase. Keeping a sedate countenance with some difficulty, she asked her guardian very respectfully whether they should not go in. Auswurf at once took the question to himself, and answered that they would. They all then arose, and marched in silent, solemn procession to the door. This was the drop that made the cup overflow. Ura- nia, with the clearest, most rippling, most ringing of little laughs, sprang up the steps, and, looking back, said: "Now, please be good, somebody, and say something funny, to justify me in hav- ing laughed in advance," and disappeared. The holy man went off to the library, cursing Auswurf's perversity, as he called it, and swearing to make him pay for this display of it. page: 192-193[View Page 192-193] THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. CHAPTER VkH. A PARTY OF AMERICANS TALK OF SOMEI'THNG BESIDES POrITCS. MOST of the guests had departed on the abatement of the storm; but some had remained to breakfast, and-Claiborne and Cheveril had consented to prolong their visit for several days. Auswurf did not breakfast at the house; but at Jerry and Cleo- patra's cabin he was welcomed as if he had been a prince, and simple long-hoarded stores were lavished to regale him. He spent the rest of the day in raising the sunk surface of his mother's grave, and planting" fresh flowers there. After tea he entered the parlor where the guests, host, hostess, their ward and Mr. Snort were gathered. An unusually animated discussion was going on, and incredible as the statement may appear, the topic was not political. The opinions which they were advancing, each glancing along the face of some great truth yet not hitting it, were better calculated to move Auswurf's word-disliking tongue than any of the expedients they had spent the day in devising could possibly have been. He, therefore, entered into the subject with them, and expressed startling and holy truths which high moral motives of the kind which usually actuate modern authors prompt us to suppress. As to any romantic idea of instructing you by putting you in possession of what he uttered, we have reason to know that "would not pay"-to use a strictly appropriate Americanism-and we don't intend to try it. With Auswurf's last words, as the strange discussion closed, Urania's figure drooped, and a sigh escaped her lips. Scarcely was the action noticeable at -a11, but Auswurf saw it, and also that her face was overcast with sadness. "Miss Moultrie," he said, quickly, I have spoken plainly and given you pain." "I am willing to admit," she replied, " that this conversation has made me sad. And if you will pardon me, I could almost wish your utterances were not so earnest, your eye not so full of vehement fire, so that we might hope these terribly sublime, yet perhaps disastrous opinions sat more loosely on you." This certainly was bold, but precisely in its boldness and sincer- ity consisted its charm. The quickness, clearness, vitality and truthfulness of sensibility indicated by both words and tone actu- ally startled Auswurf; but the effect was lost by his thinking they had their origin in a commonplace weakness which he supposed- made her-.misunderstand his bold expressions. v "Remember, Miss Moultrie," he returned, "that what seems very sacred to one, may be only frippery, farce and folly in the eyes of another. And then he spoke of the sweetness of the Tnfinite Father's love, with a tenderness and fervor which you would call blas- phemy. ' At that Urania wept, trying hard to keep from doing so, but womanlike, trying still harder to keep from being seen to do so- averting her face in an unconcerned matter-of-course way, and wiping away the silent tears as only a woman can. If-all fear for him had not been relieved would she have wept? No; for then the tenderest and truest part of her sensibility would have been lacking. If she had not felt that these subliine but novel views really contained momentous and heavenly truth in some form, woulde she have wept? No; for then she would not have known what was sweetest, saddest, and most powerful, yet most unde- fined of all her experiences at that moment. So successful was her concealment that none but Auswurf noticed the two or three pearly drops which still jewelled her long lashes; and so calm were her face and manner that even he had to look again before he was certain that these were tears. When she saw that he had seen her weeping, she did not seem to feel any mortification, but only said: "I hope there is no need for any of us to upbraid ourselves for exercising either the nobler faculties or the nobler sentiments of our nature mere- ly because they may be misunderstood by others. Else those of us who have offered fear where we should have -offered reverence, would have most cause of -self-reproach. And whether the same charity shall be general or not, I say that, painful as some parts of this conversation were to me at first, I would not now have one of its words unspoken." The explanation was complete, and Auswurf was smitten with remorse; for he had charged her with weakness when he should have credited her with the deepest, noblest, and wisest sympathy he had ever witneased. "No," he replied, "the boldness which page: 194-195[View Page 194-195] 194 THE STORY '? AN OUTCAST. makes the truth seem harsh is :.ot to be excused by the same rea- soning which justifies unnecessary forgiveness on the part of those whom it wounds. T' it must be a vulgar spirit, indeed, who would not rather one \istaken tear should fall for him than that all the stars should echo with his name. Even the eternal rock of truth is but a dreary footing when in all the universe there are only it and the foot that presses it; and I think that after the certain possession of the truth, and next to sympathy in it, the sweetest feeling any man can know must be the assur-. ance that gentle hearts among those who differ from him sincerely deplore what-.they conceive to be his errors." * "But I trust," she replied, "that, when mortals must be iso- ated by either truth- or error, it is only the- old and cold, whose pilgrimage is- nearly done, that are ever so, and that the young can never know so melancholy and destructive an experience." "The young in years," he answered, "are often old in sorrow and in the disastrous wisdom which teaches the present unprofita- bleness of sensibility. The wise man of these utilitarian ages counts his age neither by the furrows on his brow, nor by sears upon his heart, but by his annual balances in coin, and is bnly as old as he is rich." It was now very late; good-nights were spoken and they sepa- rated. The Doctor had early in the evening been called away to the city on business of importance, and had requested Auswurf not to leave Druid Hill until he could get back. The boy, thus compelled to remain there another night, went to his room, and sitting down by the window where the-moonlight poured in in floods, gave himself up to tender and mournful emotion. He drew forth from the deep chambers of his heart the secret of his own life, as a miser counts his gold at dead of night, and pon- dered it through all the lonely watches as he had been pondering it all his life, but never with such a heart as now-looking out at the tranquil stars and the light-flooded abysses of the universe, then laying his burning brow down upon his hands, as if they must assist his brain. A WOMAN'S PHLOSOPHY. 195 CHAPTER IX. A WOMAN'S PHLOSOPHY. THE Doctor returned the next morning with abundant explana- tions of his prolonged absence. But he again had important letters to write, and begged Auswurf to wait till evening for the transaction of their business. The conscience-eager boy was keenly disappointed by so many delays, but being unwilling to interrupt "great " things with small, he consented to wait. He spent the day in the woods with one of Heeren's volumes on the polities of ancient Asiatic nations for his companion. Towards sunset, returning to the mansion, he efncountered Urania strolling in the grounds and enjoying the beauty of the day's decline. He joined her, and -they wandered together along the walks, where the evening wind laid its fragrant fingers on their temples. Soon, by insensible steps, the conversation began to approach the subject which had all daybeen uppermostin Urania's mind. She had been thinking constantly of the power and beauty of this most strange youth, whose words at first appeared so unintelligible, but each of which now seemed to her to have the single meaning of a thunderbolt; and her feeling had been in all respects the perfection of artlessness, unconsciousness, and beautiful sympathy. Her admiration for him was already boundless, and so was her sympathy. He seemed to her to be so grand, and, alas, so deso- late ; that last word was conclusive ; it is always sweet to a true woman to pity a great and unhappy genius. Shall we say that under this holy and sympathetic feeling lurked an unacknowledged personal wish to know more fully his attitude towards certain truths which were the very life-breath of her womanly spirit? No; it would be easy to give the expression too great a latitude. She had no idea that the real drift of her thought was, "This match- less, mighty boy should love, and that would lead him to a perfect life." Her conscious thought was only this: "Perhaps a single gentle and powerful word might correct this noble and beautiful boy's great error of predetermined isolation, and so heal all his sorrows." But how could it ever be properly spoken? She could not make out; at least she thought she could not. As they talked on, and the conversation approached nearer and nearer to the point to which her own tact, apparently against her page: 196-197[View Page 196-197] 196 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. will, and under the compulsion of some unseen, resistless power, was leading it,- she began to feel flurried and ill at ease. At last she stopped in some confusion, and, as if there was some sort of re-assurance in the act, reached out her hand to pluck a rose which grew in one. of the borders. "Do not pluck it, Miss Moultrie," quickly interrupted Auswurf. "It is so beautiful that it is almost a crime to pull it and let it wither." "No," she replied, as she broke the stem ;" if this rose were conscious, and its spirit were as beautiful as it ought to be, it would gladly die to promote the happiness of a higher spirit." "But that,' said Auswurf, dryly, "is no reason why the higher spirit need pluck it." He was talking, at that moment, of the gulf which, in this age of the world, separates sensibility from power, experience from action-of the disqualifying iflue pce of affection in active life, the impossibility of realizing the ideal of any noble heart, and the certain failure and disappointment that must befall every high spirit in whatever sphere. Then she asked him what remedy he proposed for the evil. He said none was needed except the nerve to bear it. "But is not some compensation paid us for our suf- ferings?" "Certainly ; but the question of compensation is one which it is crime to think about. Give men the ide- of an Infi- nite Father, and at once, little knowing what they do, they set Him to work violating every law of nature in order that their petty pains may be eased, bringing Him from His throne to bal- sam even bee-stings." He thought that sort of theology was to be especially discouraged both from piety and self-respect. Of a piece with this degradation of-the Infinite, was the self-degrada. tion which made men and women stoop to low objects to satisfy the yearnings of weak hearts. As he talked thus, the subject which had pressed heavily on her mind all day began to take the form of a purpose. The conversa- tion, in spite of her efforts to prevent it, as she thought, was coming round, in the most surprising manner, to the very point where a word might be spoken. Might there not be something of a Providential' leading in this, or, at all events, if she neglected this opportunity, would her conscience ever afterwards feel quite at ease? They had reached the extreme western end of the path where it terminated at the fence. She pausedthere, because the movement A WOMAN'S PHLOSOPHY. 197 which her tact had been unconsciously conductingwas ended, and asked decisively: "What, then, is the conclusion? This, that it is a weak and fatal error for any human being to admit into his life the sentiment of love for any fellow-creature." X"Not at all," he answered, resuming the walk. "All I say is that our impulses are blind, dumb, and worse than aimless, until intelligence and spiritualization open their eyes and give them speech and purpose. There is in human nature a yearning for love which we cannot, and, if we could, should not stifle. -If we could stifle it, all the grandeur and bliss of our nature would be gone. Its first unintelligent impulse is towards near and particu- lar objects; and considering the final redemption and enlargement of every passion, it is well that, in most men, it never in this world progresses beyond such objects.", "We should be content with the impulse as the Creator made it," she replied, " and not distort it into something purely arti- ficial, not strip it of every quality that blesses. The very loftiest spirits among men are not always, in their strength, as truly wise as the weakest woman. The robust qualities and studies which render them so worthy of admiration, have a tendency to make them despise the true sources of happiness; and, since there can be no cool and entirely normal reason where there is a bitter, rest- less or unhappy heart, they behold the grandest truths with a perspective and through a medium which distorts them into error." The strangest part of this was the precision and directness with which she was urging home upon him the more tender and ad- vanced consequences of his own opinions. It was not as if a stranger were presenting something foreign to him, but as if she were turning over his own doctrines before his eyes and showing him their heart-ward face. "But granting that in any instance I behold only distorted truth," he replied, "I would, not cure im- perfect vision by the extinction of vision. Because, for all I know, there may be strice in the lenses of my eyes, I would not therefore either put out my eyes or fill them with the mush of sentiment. Truth, however partial and in whatever manner seen, is mistress of the soul, and the supports of her throne are not to be treacher- ously torn away because they stand awry. -The real question is whetlhr the highest parts of our nature shall be fostered and filled out, or only the weakest and most slavish. The office of the affec- *t page: 198-199[View Page 198-199] THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. tions is, or should be, to inspire and energize the nobler faculties, not to degrade and imprison them. The strength and capabilities of human nature have been meted out to it with stringent measure- ment. We have received our allowance of power, and must make it stuice. If we waste it In trifles, the great labors which invite us must go undone. Human nature grows like the pine, by sloughing its lower boughs and throwing the whole power of its life upwards. To prune our nature of these lower boughs is the office of disappointment. In the first pains of the wholesome and elevating process the passion of love is apt to imagine there is nothing in the universe which it may call its own and securely appropriate-that it is the sole hungerer and thirster in all the world that is left unprovided. Every other passion has its corres- ponding object and is happy; love alone is cursed with an eternal craving that has no corresponding portion. Often, in its first desperation, it is converted into intense and rancorous hatred, and, like a blinded and infuriated serpent, strikes at everything on earth and in heaven. But at length the maddened and bloodshot eye, as it rolls and glares, catches a dim glimpse of Truth as a unit and a personification, and is medicated by the life-giving ray. Love has now found an object which is unchangeable, eternal, and infinite, and like a sickly scion transplanted into rich earth, grows up and fills the garners of both intellect and heart with the wealth of its Hesperean fruit." "Your argument," she replied, "at once and forever excludes woman from any share in the highest life and progress of the world, becausewith her the affections are supreme. And with the loftiest spirits of the stronger sex also, the teachers, priests and poets of the world, a warfare against the affections cannot but always be fraught with overwhelming disaster. For there is a higher element in love than beauty. There is in it the grandeur of living and eternal truth. Can the highest truth be eitherfound or lived apart from our fellows ? No; for the highest truth is not a perception but a life, and whatever is heartless is also false. I Em no metaphysician, but I know that those philosophers are arest right who class reason as feeling. The fact is not simply tat Truth does not long nor willingly dwell in any soul without her whole court, though this is so. It is not simply that an an- chorite may catch glimpses of her train, but that her dwelling- place and constant home is with all the angels, though this is so. There is also, beneath all this, something, I know not what, which makes the highest truth a living, breathing, loving something, which those can never know who do not love. We may depend upon it, the love of the concrete God and of our fellows is the line of the soul's and the world's progress; all genuine and lasting ex- altation of our being is born of it, and the broadest, highest, and noblest life of individuals and of ages is that whose law is the purest, deepest and holiest love. God, the Concrete Truth, is best adored by those who love most truly. To love and serve Him re- quires no sacrifice of the tender and passionate emotion which our fellows may inspire; no, but without this, our adoration is not incense, but a flint hurled at the bosom of God. And I do not hesitate to say, speaking no doubt with irreverent boldness in re- gard to so sacred a matter, that if the sentiment of pure spirits for each other in the immortal life be only the cold and general in- difference it is commonly said to be, then it is a mockery to have a heaven, and I, for one, could never be happy there." He did not stop to explain how thoroughly all this harmonized with his own opinions as to the highest spiritual and metaphysi- cal truth in the universe, but answered: "But what men call common-sense--the faculty of understanding a situation-must be the rule of the highest even more completely than of the lowest life. When the glacier is the highest perch, when I must stand there in order to see at all, I would cling to it even till my arte- ries were a branching icicle. It is not doubtful that he who would rise beyond this age, must write it on the palm of his hands that present love is trash and ashes-poison, slavery, weak- ness-sloth and death. There have been monks for religion's sake, who have laid on superstitious altars the sacrifice of all con- flicting joys. And shall not Truth be adored with equal fervor ? The strong soul kneels to kiss her holy sceptre most devoutly when it crushes most, and chooses even the acutest pains of knowledge rather than any comfort of delusion." " It may be weak," she replied, " but I would rather be totally and forever blind than to possess penetration which would resolve the only blissful realities into delusions. I should not want to undertake the study of astronomy with a telescope which would dissolve the very stars, scatter the sun into mist, and leave the planets without a centre. I should not want to refine away the cohering principle of the universe and bring Jupiter and Mars, page: 200-201[View Page 200-201] 200 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. Venus and the Asteroids rattling about my ears; but if I should do so, then I would want to mount the ruins and proclaim-for then it would be time to do so,-There is, there should be, no such thing as affection on the earth." "What, Miss Moultrie, all this profusion of imageryover a sen- ment which never said, 'My friend is such,' but whose eternal screech is, 'My friend has much; and over that more venal and detestable one too, which, like a huckster, plies the trade of carry- ing hearts--no, no, I beg pardon of the genius of language-not hearts, but houses and lands, to market." "But let us not draw from a few disappointments-no, nor from many-a law of unbelief to make us miserable." "Nor from weakness a law of self-delusion to make us more than miserable--to make us despicable." "Ah, well," she said, "I wish that I could convince you of your one great error, but you will not heed me, and I am powerless. Yet I am sure there is not in the universe so sad a sight as a human spirit chilled and perishing in the cold seas of abstraction and unbelief." "The sight you mention, -Miss Moultrie," he replied with emo- tion, " is, no doubt, a sad one to a sensitive heart, though you greatlyover-estimate its importance. But there are darker specta- cles than that. What say you of a young and vigorous nation plunging in madness and agony beneath the waves forever, and dragging down to death, with her, civilization and the holiest in- terests of mankind, simply because the world's impulses and life are blind and low--because its worship, philanthropy and home affections are mean-minded and without light? And there might be a spectacle even darker and more disastrous yet, It would be the Spirit of the Future abdicating its mission, forgetting the purpose of its isolation, betrayed by a kissing Judas, and selling itself into bondage under the power of this age. But let us not forget, Miss Moultrie, that antipodes may both have the heavens above them. Experienceis the mother of opinion. I occupy, per- haps, a very frigid stand-point; but when so fair a traveller tells me of constellations that blazon warmer skies, it would be unamiable to doubt that they are realities and that she has seen them." "You rate my testimony much too high," she answered seri- ously. "I have only stood and looked at the firmament trying to see the stars which Hbelieved were there. And possibly at last A WOMAN'S PHLOSOPHY. 201 you may be right-possibly at last they may be but a dream. Will you convince me, and make the missionary a heathen?" A contradictory and unreasoning thing is the heart of even the noblest and most steadfast woman. She felt at that moment, although she did not realize it, that if she could not bring him to her opinions they would scarcely be worth holding any longer, and that she would be tempted to throw them away as if they had cheated and disappointed her. "I sincerely hope not," he replied to her last question. "I should not like to deprive your profound and beautiful opinions of such an advocate. Let me only construct a parenthesis within them and fill it as I choose, and I am not their adversary. Beyond a doubt the richest personal satisfaction and the most profitable one, that any mind can know, is the society and association of other pure, exalted and beautiful spirits in the highest life." "How hard you are to understand," she said with a half-sad smile, as if she had gone to a certain place expecting he was there and had not found him. And would she have been better pleased to have him hold an untenable principle, than to see him except himself out of the argument entirely?"But should you not rid yourself now at once and forever of the feeling of isolation, which may be the beginning of frightful disaster to you . You will not remain unrecognized and unappreciated by the world, unless you will have it so. What were not the admiration and encomiums of that band of distinguished men? You neither heard them nor cared for them; but I both heard them and"-- ( Offer me not as a life-portion and a solace what I would des- pise as a pastime." His words, and especially his manner, produced an indescribable effect on her. She looked at him an instant as if he had torn a veil from her eyes; her cheek alternately paled and flushed, and her hand trembled violently as she first held up, for-an instant, the rose which she had plucked, and then threw it away as if it were an adder. Then the lashes drooped upon her cheeks and she bent down her face and began to walk rapidly towards the house. "What is the matter?" asked Auswurf. "Are you ill?" ( No; only let us go in at once." Without another word they -walked to the house and parted at the door. 9* page: 202-203[View Page 202-203] THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. CHAPTER X. TURNING THE TARTFS. AwTER Cleopatra had given him his tea, Auswurf, with his bundle of manuscripts under his arm, proceeded to the library, and entered without knocking. The holy man was sitting in his chair in a deep study, much as he sat that night in the long-ago, when the beggar and her son came in upon him-only older and more worn now, showing far more plainly here in repose than in society the ravages of evil passion, secret drunkenness and slow decay. From his preoccupation, and the manner in which he sprang up to receive him; Auswurf saw, and at once made note of it, that he had been thinking and scheming in relation to him. But the holy man had vastly different material to deal with now from what he had on that former memorable night, and to mould it to his secret purpose would require far abler tactics than had sufficed for a heart-broken, care-crazed woman. He did not leave Auswurf standing, that he might the better play upon his con- sciousness of his own poverty and weakness, but grasped his hand warmly, and begged him to be seated. The demonstrative wheedling- which had marked their meeting on the evening of the soiree was repeated, and Auswurf, sitting there where that soul-harrowing scene- in the past had been enacted, and contrast- .ing that reception with this, felt that if he were to do his whole duty, he would seize the holy man by the throat and choke his lying words down into his heels. But, quelling his burning heart, he sat down, his scorn, however, malting it difficult for him to listen with patience. "I am glad, very glad, indeed, Auswurf," continued the Doc- tor, "to see you back in this old familiar room once more. I have often wondered what had become of you, and especially of late you have seldom been absent from my mind." "Doctor, that is twice now you have told me that in precisely the same words, and I have already expressed my opinion of it." "'I believe I did express the same sentiment before," smiled the Doctor. "I scarcely thought, however, that you, who received it with such indifference, would remember it long enough to observe the repetition." "But it is not often, you know, Doctor," quoted Auswurf from TURNING THE TABLES. Ivo -: that conversation long years before, "that you meet with so quick an ear or so keen an eye as mine." "So much the more reason, then," said the Doctor, "why we should at once proceed to business in a spirit of frankness. For I admit I have something to say to you in great plainness." His candor overshot the mark, and produced results directly the opposite of what lie intended. The outcast knew at once that the holy man was trying to disarm his suspicions and take him at disadvantage in some way. "Stop a moment, if you please," therefore commanded he, as the Doctor was about to proceed. "It is important that, before we talk of your affairs, we attend to mine," unrolling the bundle of manuscripts. "You see I have brought you what I have here. They are too full of truth and holy feeling for me to lay them on your tongue without a pang; still, I am willing to let you have them, with the understanding that you are to deliver them pre- _ cisely as I have written them-not one sentiment hacked or botched by you, not one tittle abated, not one fragment of a clause omitted or toned down." "But you may have put in something that is not orthodox," returned the Doctor, testily. "Now, while I have no objection to your going to the devil in any way you choose, I am not to be tricked into preaching any of your heresies." "Vex not your tender conscience, Doctor. I have carefully kept the highest truth from the pollution of your breath; never- theless, within the precious limits of your orthodoxy I have led you now, as in the past, some such theological jigs as Satan him- self never dreamed of." "Well, well, you know," said the Doctor, recovering his smile, "that a little heresy once in a-while, hashed up very fine and shrewdly disguised, makes a sermon spicy. You used to know how to do the thing to perfection. It makes everybody listen, and talk about the discourse, you know." " I can no longer doubt that you are worthy of them, Doctor; take them." The Doctor, to retaliate, whipped out his pocket-book, and, staring hard at Auswurf's dress, handed over to him a very consider- able sim of money. "Look, Doctor," said Auswurf, putting half the money in his pocket, while he quietly tore the rest into little pieces, "here is' a free lesson for you in exegesis. It is, page: 204-205[View Page 204-205] 204 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. that you must always construe the text according to the refer- ences in the foot-notes. For, though these rags tell you that I am sadly in need of money, there is a canonical excerpt under my fifth rib which throws a red light on that foggy question, and shows that I will not take more than my due." The Doctor smothered his feelings, but he was terribly enraged, and bent on the largest vengearice that would not upset his cher- ished scheme, and immediately began to devise ways and means to wound Auswurf as severely as possible in capturing him. "And now, Doctor," said Auswurf, "will you tell me what scheme in which I am to figure it is, that is working in your patriarchal brain?" "I only wanted you to come back home and live like a decent white boy,- instead of roving about the world like a stray nigger, as you are doing." "I know, Doctor, you always were fond of a joke, but I think your jokes, always coarse, used to have more point to them before gluttony and drunkenness had begun to sap your powers, than they have now." "Is this the return you make me," cried the Doctor, in a husky voice, "for all that I have done for you-for receiving you, a beg- gar, into my house, giving you food and shelter, supporting your raising you?" "The less said on that subject the better for you, O, hoary- headed lecher, O, cool and devilish conspirator," cried Auswurf. "Leave that subject at once, I warn you, and get back to the rascally business you have now in hand." "Well," replied the holy man, "granting that some of my traits are of doubtful excellence, I suppose you are scarcely per- fect yourself*" "No," replied the boy, deeply moved by this shrewdest of all possible appeals, "I am only the poorest, weakest, and most lowly of mankind. I am not judging you; I only want you to know that you are to attempt no false practice on me--that I will not be lied to, nor submit to even the appearance of being duped by you. Therefore, tell me at once and simply what it is that you have in contemplation at present." "You have not said yet that you would not consent to visit Druid Hill frequently?" "For what purpose?" TURNING THE TABLES. 205 "Mr. Claiborne is a relative of the wife of my bosom, but between them there has long been a breach which I have vainly strived for years to heal. You will see that now is my opportun- ity, and how it is that you can help me. He and Mr. Cheveril have consented to remain here several weeks. It is not flattery to tell you that there is a certain charm in your conversation on speculative subjects. They would be delighted to have your soci- ety, and I want you to come often, stay long, and talk much." "That is to say," said Auswurf, "you want me to make a cheap show of myself for the entertainment of your aristocratic friends." "A show, you perverse and impracticable imp? No! Is there nothing you will not pervert? But I was in hopes, for your own sake, that you would see in this arrangement an opportunity to turn your wild fancies to practical account, by causing men of influence to take an interest in you and befriend you." "And you think, then," said Auswurf, rising, "that even if you had all the royal puppets on earth strutting up and down there on the palm of your hand, I would crook my knee for all their little crowns? No; you know that I would not. But I begin to see that there is something more in this business than I have suspected. You say you are very anxious for me to come here andtalk. Now, the question is, what is your real designin that? For that it is what you said it was I do not for an instant believe." "My design was," said the holy man, evasively, "to invite you to simply come home to stay.!' "Don't dodge around the tenses, Doctor. It isn't respectful to them. The only question is, What is your design as manifested in your desire to have me come here often?" For an instant the holy man was livid, as he ejaculated, "The devil!" "No," replied Auswurf, reassuringly, "it is not Satan; his turn has not come yet; it is only I that have hold of you now." "Will you be kind enough," asked the holy man, fiercely, "to tell me what you mean?" "I mean to fetch it out of you," cried Auswurf. "I mean that you shall state your dirty plot, in all its details, plump out and unequivocally. Out with it! Out with it! Deliver your tongue of its load of stench and rottenness. Do you refuse? Well, be it so. - But you know well enough that I can break you in pieces, and if it is necessary, in order to defeat some atrocious page: 206-207[View Page 206-207] 206 TEE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. plot which your silence prevents my defeating in any other way, I will do it." "Hold your fiery temper, parson," replied the holy man. "What possible objection can I have to saying what I called you in here on purpose to say?"But he had not called him in to say it, nor had he intended to say it, if he could accomplish his pur- pose without it. "None at-all that I can see; so go on." "I only intended to propose to you that you should lay aside your sillyresolution to do nothing, and strike boldly with all the power that's in you, in the times that are coming. The country is gone to the devil. Well, who cares for that? You, yourself, know all about that better than anybody else. You say there is going to be war, conquest, despotism, and the devil to pay. If you go in, who else could win? Why might you not be Caesar as well as anybody? All that I ask is to furnish everything you may need, and just take whatever you are a-mind to give me at last." Ah, what a stroke was that! Auswurf, struck to the inmost soul, fell upon his knees, as his mother had done that awful night in the long-ago, and laid his head against the table as she had done, and groaned aloud. He knew far better than even this shrewd observer and calculator what he was able to accomplish in the world of action; and if, while yet so young, he entered the field with all this wealth at his disposal, and this politician's influence-to back him, what might he not achieve for his uncon- scious countrymen; what woes might he not turn away? The proposition, too, had taken him fearfully unprepared. He had not expected anything like this, but something vastly different. The wily man of God had, in his malicious shrewdness, even in the moment of defeat, struck him a terrible blow. Might he not still hope, he for a moment asked himself, to teach and save, after he had thus acquired power and position? But instantly upon the heels of this fair but deceitful suggestion, followed the question: What would thy teaching be worth-what thy qualifi- cations to teach-when thou hast driven Divine humility from thy breast to make room for ambition? No, no, he felt that it was treason to the one idea of his life, to dream of any other achievement even under the deceitful guise of aid to it. He knew clearly now that, whatever ephemeral success he might obtain TURNING THE TABLES. 207 for it by extraneous means, it could not triumph in his day and through his agency, and he resolved to knit himself to it with fresh tids of sacrifice, to divorce his soul from it never for the duration of a thought, to abide with it alone, and perish with it folded in his arms. But as Auswurf knelt there with his head bowed in agony, the holy man thought he was carrying his point-that in a mo- ment more the struggle would end, and that the spirit of light and power would renounce its birthright, and apostatize from its celestial estate, and rising shorn of its purity, while its power remained, declare its willingness to be his slave. But knowing what Auswurf's opinions and resolutions had always been, and remembering his emphatic declarations a few moments since, when part of the scheme had been put at him in disguise, he thought it best now, when the enemy was shaken, to hurl in all his reserves, to state the details of his plan while Auswurf was too dazed to notice them critically or object to them strongly, and so finish the victory by a grand, strong stroke. "I will loan you ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars of my wife's money for ten, twenty, thirty years on your simple note of hand, or even on your spoken word of honor, without interest. In six weeks you- could pay it back with ease, if you wished to. My ward is worth half a million in her own right. It is part of my plan that you shall marry her at once; the appearance of wealth on your part must be assured for propriety's sake; and as the marriage ought to take place at once, notwithstanding your youth, I will give you checks to-night for whatever sum you may name." "Insult me no more," said Auswurf, rising to his feet. "I will not say tempt, for your propositions are no temptation. Do you think Caesar can come out of the social war? We live, indeed, on the eve of a mighty war, but it will be mere child's play compared with the events that will soon come after it. But how dare you take that lady's name into your polluted thoughts in any such connection? To even speak her name in the same breath with mine, is an outrage that only a'beast would offer.- What right, nay, what apology have you, her guardian, for injuring her thus?" "Keep in the traces, parson, and don't defend the lady against what may be greatly to her taste. Wait till she calls on you to challenge and shoot me for proposing that you shall marry her." page: 208-209[View Page 208-209] )8 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Then, to set your mind quite at rest, as nothing else will, know that if she were to come to me herself this moment, and kneel at my feet, and offer me her hand and fortune, I would only say: 'Sweet sister, Satan there has deceived you into making this sacrifice by persuading you that it is right and noble. Take back your offering, my sister, and farewell.' " "What possible reason can you have for such an insane step as declining this marriage ?" "Go ask the winds, experienced blunderer; perhaps they will tell you half the reason, which is more than I will ever do. Ask them if they are fond of prisons and slavery." "As for yourself, parson,"-taking another plan-" you never would love anything but a storm, or a volcano, or a revolution. Of course, I never expected anything like love from you; but meantime, how about the lady ? I have intended, for a long time past, that she should marry you, and I have been very care- fully smoothing the way for that result. I am greatly mistaken if my plan is not already a success, and the infection working deeply. How has it happened, for instance, that you have remained here so long and encountered her so often ? And if her heart is really engaged, or shall be, what will honor require of you then, my nice punctilio ? "I will show you when the case arises-that is to say, when the sky shall fall. But, Doctor, let me give you a little wholesome advice. Play upon avarice, ambition, lust, hatred, or any passion of that sort you will; but if there is at present in the world any such thing as love, let that alone. With it you will be like a blind savage tampering with chemicals; you will only burn up yourself and your laboratory. You will misunderstand the situa- tion in every instance, fail to comprehend the simplest truths, miscalculate the chances, attempt absurdities, oppose the inevita- ble, mistake the proper means of accomplishing that which is feasible, and find yourself overwhelmed at last, and put to shame by the very steps you thought would lead you directly to your object." "I am not sure of that," replied the holy man. "However, we will not discuss that point further just now. But tell me what you are going to do towards improving the opportunity this conference has afforded you, of making your fortune forever, through the aid of my guests ?" ' Nothing,"' replied Auswurf. " Nothing, you maniac ? Do you still say, Nothing ?" "Nothing," returned Auswurf, "but to withdraw myself as soon as possible out of this circle which would fain, in their mis- taken kindness, damage and destroy me. Nothing, but to go back and live among my books and my own thoughts, and go on my own way in peace. I cannot even consent to have my studies interrupted by seeing these people often. -If I cotld do so with- out inflicting still greater injury on myself, I would gladly snap the meshes of this indigence and free the cankered prisoner from the toils; but I cannot and will not do it now." 'But you will, at least, continue to write sermons and ad- dresses ?" " 0 yes, Doctor," replied the boy, with the brightest of smiles breaking over his gloomed face, "we will still keep up our old partnership character of eloquent divine. While I remain in the city, I will gladly write you many sermons, and will ask for them only enough to put into my mouth the crusts which -are sufficient for me. But as to one point, Doctor, I must say that I am rather particular. It is that when you preach these sermons, you must get them off with an effective and becoming whine, and throw in a pathetic snivel occasionally. That is all I insist on. And now good-night, Doctor. Sing a psalm, and go to bed; but don't pray, for that would be sacrilege." "Gopd-night, incomprehensible simpleton," returned the man of God. "You have rather beaten me to-night, I must confess." "No, no, Doctor," returned Auswurf, "don't surrender so gracefully. Still wear the wreath; I have no need for it. Per- haps we have both suffered somewhat in this tilt; but you had a prestige to sustain, and I had none. Good-night." So saying, the lad left him, and walked down the long hall to the front door, and passed out. When he reached the open air, he seemed to have stepped suddenly, and without a moment's warning, into the calm and pulselessness of Eden. The crescent moon was sailing down the western sky, pouring tides of mellow light from her silver seas upon the earth. Not a breath of air was stirring; the languid winds had gone to sleep among the flowers; the dark green leaves seemed held in stillness by an en- chanter's spell. The motionless shadows lay on the green sward like ranks of angels bivouacked there with- their tired wings fall- page: 210-211[View Page 210-211] 210 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. ing negligently outspread. The abundant and cooling dew imparted indescribable freshness and sweetness to the mildness of the world. Auswurf had not taken three paces from the granite steps out into this scene, when his step grew soft and slow, and almost still, and all the sacred and subduing influences of the hour flowed into his soul. A whisper and a sigh, as if from the lips of personified Nature, fell on his pensive ear, lulling every tumult, and starting trains of feeling and association too profound and remote for perfect consciousness. A hot and clouding vapor seemed to clear away from the surface of a great mirror in his mind, and in unfathomable stillness beneath the reflecting plane he seemed to see, within him and as a prefigured state of his own being, some such majestic calmness and grand repose as this his physical eye beheld. Lingering over the sensation in both won- der and delight, he moved slowly on down the pebbled- road to the highway, and along this towards the city, pausing often in the dark shadows which fell across the gray road, sitting down sometimes beside the way and looking at the world's majestic sleep, and drinking to the full the spirit of the scene. And every moment, as he walked slowly onward, or as he sat in reverie, his lips would wreathe into smiles as he repeated: "Thine, Thine only, Father of the Stars-my own and free, only because I am Thine." Moving on thus, he presently came to the summit of the knoll whence the road swept away from higher ground on the east into the low plain on which the city slept. A dense, cloud of dew-washed smoke interpenetrated with fog wrapped the city from his sight. The dun canopy hid every building and every cupola save the extreme apex of one, the highest in the city. This was the golden cross on the steeple of the great cathedral, which, lifted far into the sky, and glittering in the moonlight, soared above the sphere of gloom. The steeple and every other object beneath it was quite invisible, so that the shining cross seemed not to be attached to earth, but to be traced against the opposite wall of heaven, even as Constantine beheld it. "O, syn- onym of all earthly and celestial grandeur,' cried Auswurf, kneel- ing. But even while he looked at it, the :smoke and fog, slowly mounting higher and higher, at last entirely obliterated it from his gaze. Not the same feeling of disappointment that had seized him when the promise of the sinking sun had been broken A SINGULAR VISIT. 2" to his gleaming eye now possessed him, but a calmer, sublimer, and more pensive emotion. He passed on down the hill and entered the thick, obscuring cloud. Presently he saw again, through the openings of the leafy trees, and between the long rows of high-piled bricks, that gilded cross, but how different its aspect now. He arrived at length in front of the cathedral, and stood on the pavement beneath the cross and looked up at it, a piece of gilded wood resting upon the earth. "But, symbol," he exclaimed, "though thou be illusive, that cross graven on the sky, where the Tnfinite Saviour suffers for us, His children, to purify and cleanse us, is the first fact of the universe." And in this state of mind and feeling, he found his lodging and his bed. CHAPTER XI. A SINGULAR VISIT. THE next morning, Auswurf awoke with a feeling of lassitude such as he had never experienced before. He looked back with surprise at the incidents of the last two or three days, which seemed to him to have occupied a long time, so great was the. change they had wrought in him-so different an aspect did all the world wear from what it had once worn. He examined curiously the strides which his own consciousness had made since he last sat in that room. He felt that he had swept around a bend, that new reaches had been opened before him, and that, impelled by a force which he'could not resist, he was bearing down with the speed of lightning full towards a goal which he had never before so plainly descried. At last, after he had re- viewed the severer phases of his recent experiences, he thought of the beautiful Urania; and he almost felt remorse for not having thought of her sooner. It seemed a sort of neglect of her, a lack of appreciation, not to have done so. Then beginning to think of her critically, he asked himself more particularly than he had yet done precisely what opinion he ought to have of her. That she was a truly noble spirit did not admit of question; but now that her wonderful beauty and intelligence, the magnetism page: 212-213[View Page 212-213] Hl2 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. and witchery of her presence, and above all, the quick, unequalled sympathy she had shown for him, and the astonishing vigor, pro- fundity and point with which that sympathy had led her to argue of the reality and beneficence of love, were only matter of recol- lection, he began to think of her as he had not done and could not have done when near her. For now, the clearer and more in- disputable her nobleness and goodness became, the more vivid and disgusting grew other considerations which made him sick of the very thought of her beauty. To what lot, from which home- liness might have saved her, was it sure to lead her ? To marry as a matter of course, and bear children for almost anything called man, to be lowered to the tone and standard of the creature she should call husband, and to grow at last into a gossiping crone, in whose gross, commonplace soul, the thought of what she might have been excites no regret-nay, never comes. He doubtednot, and even her beautiful argument enforced the opinion, that she was entirely able and very willing to look such a destiny as this squarely in the face without repugnance-even to adapt herself to it with wonderful facility and contentment, as her sex are wont to do. Suppose that possibly, at the prospect of deterioration, or in the first experience of it, she should show signs of conscious- ness and pain, as from the elevation of her character and feeling, and from the example of similar cases, she might do, this would not prove that she would have been qualified for a nobler life, but only this, separated from that by an infinite distance, that in merit she stood somewhat above many of her sisters. He winced, and winced terribly, at the thought, but he felt that any intenser emotion than a mere sesthetic pain, at seeing her beautiful soul dragged down to coarseness and hideous loss of grace and sweet- ness, would be only one of the usual cheap criticisms on.the order of nature. But those unfathomable eyes looking at him now again in all their wealth of wonder and recognition, as he had seen them constantly when with her, seemed to reproach him, by their very unconsciousness, for treason to the queenly soul that lived within them. Finally, dismissing the subject from his mind, he thought, with vexation and regret, of the number of days the holy man's base schemes had cost him. For, even if he had had the strength of manhood, perfect health, and every needed facility, the underta- king before him would have been a very formidable one, but under existing circumstances it was not less than appalling, and he knew he would not have an hour to waste. He surveyed the whole field of his thought and knowledge, and marked the points on which his information was most defective, then calculated how much time probably re mained to him before canker and disap- pointment would finally incapacitate him, and how much work he could reckon on accomplishing. Then bringing from the library an armful of dusty and neg- lected volumes, he began the task of searching out and sifting more closely than he had ever done before, the characteristics and connections of the civilizations of the past. No joy can be compared with that of him who reads under- standingly, the great romance in which all ages ranks and condi- tions of men are actors, and of which God, our Father, is the author. Occasionally, the boy's eye would fairly flash with its gladness as he came upon the confirmation of some far-reaching surmise of his own, entertained for years, apparently without any reason that could satisfy the understanding. His swift pencil flew over page after page of the white paper at his side, sketching down a world of facts and propositions to be compared with all the truth of every kind he had; for to him all truth was a unit, because the product of one force. At last it was dark, and still he had not unbent himself from his task. Then he laid aside his book and pencil, and sat there in the dark, reviewing the fresh treasures he had gathered. He was interrupted by hearing some one come blundering up ' the stairs to his door, and, to tell the whole truth, swearing vig- orously at the dark and narrow steps as he came. Auswurf's as- tonishment on recognizing the voice as Claiborne's may be imag- ined. Hastily lighting a candle which persisted in looking like it intended to go out if anybody looked at it, admitted him in answer to his knock, offered him the only chair the room afforded, and found a seat for himself on the lounge which served him for a bed. Claiborne, intensely shocked at the poverty, meanness, and tomblikeness of the apartment, could with difficulty repress either his horror or his tears. Two medical students had occu- pied the room just before Auswurf, and they had left a barrel of human bones in one cormer, and two or three skulls on the man- tel-piece ; where they still remained. "With what treasures of wisdom, O philosopher," asked page: 214-215[View Page 214-215] 214 h THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. Claiborne, "will you not now reward me for all my toil and trouble in hunting you out. We could not endure it at Druid Hill another evening without you; so directly after dinner, with only some general hints to guide me, I set out to capture you and bear you back in triumph. The Doctor insisted in terms at once emphatic and clerical, that I was a fool to attempt to bring you back before you got ready to come yourself, and Cheveril expressed the same opinion in less priestly terms. The ladies all said I must be desperately in love with you, and I acknowledged that they described my condition exactly." "I am very glad," returned Auswurf, with deep sincerity, " that you came." "Most abundant thanks for that, my boyish demi-god," ex- claimed Claiborne, with pleasure beaming from his eyes. "And now answer me this further question quickly, before cynicism has time to come and drive out this better angel: do you intend to allow me to be your life-long and devoted friend?" "Would that you could be, and were!" /' Could be and were? Behold, I am and will be. So let us vow at once, that henceforth forever we will be all that friends should be, and that neither Fate, nor chance, nor change, nor any evil shall ever sever us." "Words spoken in lightness are often eaten in bitterness," re- plied Auswurf. - "I accept the answer of' the speaking eye and soul-revealing face, rather than that of the skeptical and reluctant tongue. But that, too, shall forget its skepticism in good time." "No ; believe me," said Auswurf, very gravely, "it is not cyn- icism, but forecast, that speaks. I know that the day is coming, and- is not far distant, when, swept away by the madness of your people, you will not only shrink away from me, but disown and spit upon my very name." "Tut, tut," said Claiborne, merrily, "virgin love is always timid and mistrusts itself and others. Why, sweetheart, I could no more do what you say I'll do, than the sky can fall. But you have admitted you liked me, and as I am somewhat ardent, I make a very slight avowal mean everything I want. So now your timid troth is plighted, and I am going to assume my privileges. You have no right to any thought or project which you do not share with me. What are your plans for the future?-for I know that you have glorious plans." A SINGELAR VISIT. 215 "The great of this world have plans," replied Auswurf. "My only plans should be how to obtain what I must eat and wear." "But all these frightful books, and this mass of notes-surely these mean something more than you seem willing to confess. Have I not the right now to be admitted to your confidence?" "The confidence is quickly granted, -if you really desire it. I cannot quite prevent my heart from beating, and must live out my lowly life. I intend to try to explain to my countrymen, for their good, so far as I can, the present crisis in the history of civiliza- tion and the human soul, and to point out some of the new truths visible and attainable from hence." "The words are only the grander for their humility," said Claiborne. "But you have granted only half my wish in grant- ing all that I have requested-your confidence. Make me now completely happy by allowing me to share with you the sacrifices of this undertaking." "It is impossible. Ask no such thing as that." "But I do ask it, and you will not pain a sincere heart by the wanton rejection of its tributes; for you cannot act from com- monplace motives. If I desire above all things to have a part in this enterprise of yours-if it affords me a profound and most real satisfaction to stand even in so low a relation to it-why should you refuse me?" "Because I cannot degrade the truths which I possess by sub- jecting them to such an arrangement." "But consider, on the other hand," replied Claiborne, "what right have you, as guardian of these truths, to spurn the means of propagating them? Your opinions will be too far removed from the masses to be popular--nay, that they will reek with heresy, so-called, and be odious, I do not wish to doubt; and thus, after you have written your book, at the very pinch of the exigency, when you might accomplish something by the promulgation of your views, it will be impossible for you to find a publisher. The damning indifference of the public to everything that deserves the name of thought, and the proper prudence or stupidity of its caterers, will stand like the everlasting Alps between the comple- ted book and the good it might achieve. But if you have means to publish never so small an edition of it yourself, you may hope that it will attract the attention of a few, and work its way slowly to the public." page: 216-217[View Page 216-217] 216 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Butwhat have I to do with that?" asked Auswurf. "Nothing but to take care that disguised ambition shall not prevail over scruples which hunger and thirst, nakedness and bodily pain, have not shaken. The Tnfinite' knows His own purposes and will achieve them; my only duty is to do what lies in my power, leaving the result to Him. I will not degrade this truth in any weak and wicked hope of helping on that Hand which I should only impede by my impatience." "That may be right," said Claiborne, "but it's grim." Presently he added: "It would take long to tell, nor do I care to do so, why your views possess such fascination for me. I expect to wield the sword against them to the death; but from your lips, and in con- nection with your youth, they bring me a strange, far dream of a happier age. Within my own age, and in my position, I know that I am right; but at the same time it would be with deep, secret satisfaction, like that of one who is watering a germ which will bear fruit when he is dead, that I should leave this bag of yellow earth upon your table." And at the same time he laid a purse on the table. "This yellow dust, then,"--taking up the purse and giving it back to Claiborne-"is all you have for the truth; but to error and crime, you give strength, talent, influence, manhood, every- thing which you should use against them. You would contribute this in aid of that which every act of your life is to be put forth against. Keep your gold, sir. Insult not heaven and yourself by such a mockery as this." "Nay, nay, strange boy, beloved and beautiful boy," exclaimed Claiborne, while enthusiasm and sadness at once lighted up and clouded his face, "'the act is not mockery. You grievously mis- take me. It is not for error and crime that I draw the sword, but for the lives and safety of those I love. For these I draw the sword-for these I would die. I draw the sword for slavery too, yet not because I love it, but because, while Christianity makes it lawful, with it survives or perishes all that I hold dear." "Your apology is mournfully cogent," answered Auswurf. "Ah, would that I might still, even by the sacrifice of my own life, warn this unhappyland to reconcile its interests with the progress of mankind and holy truth." "Would to God you could, noble boy," cried Claiborne, clasp- ing and kissing him. "And perhaps you will do so yet-who A SINGULAR VISIT. 217 knows? You are surprised to hear me say this after former ex- pressions of opinion. Alas, they were only boastful taunts made for different ears from yours; this is the groan of my darkened and doubting spirit breathed in uncertainty and terror into your ear. If heaven and earth be what they seem to be, my people would be safe enough; but we are trembling on the brink of a volcano which may swallow up the world. I know not, I freely admit that I know not, what is -coming; I only know that I have faith in nothing." "I cannot tell you," answered the boy, deeply affected, "how I thank you for this confidence." "Thank yourself alone for it, beloved," answered Claiborne. "And hear me further, my beautiful; hear me appeal to you, almost babe in years, to save my people and society from me and all other helpless, incapable, well-meaning architects of ruin. Go on, and raise us and all the world to the same ground where you stand. AMadness itself could not resist the accents beneath which, in a single hour, all wild and criminal ambition was melted out of my heart. Save us from the dark and awful future but now re- vealed to my eyes, Iand in whose lurid depths I see deluges of blood and fire swallowing up all that I hold dear on earth. Open the avenue of light which leads from this awful scene to a new realm of peace and bliss. Do this, O wonderful boy, in the name and by the power of God!" Auswurf looked at him as he stood with beads of sweat upon his brow, and every sign of extreme agony in his noble face, and for a moment made him no answer. Presently he replied, slowly, with his eyes bent on the ground: "Your words, like an eastern spell, unseal a cavern out of which darkness comes and eclipses my soul; and from its dark abysses creep up lifeless and noisome winds which chill me even to death. I will close its mortal mouth to be opened no more forever. Fate has written death upon -this land, and I cannot erase the word. And should I even repine at what the Tnfinite says is well? No; though every hope and aspi- ration of mine must perish, 1 say what you too should say now and henceforth, 0O Thou that rulest, I thank Thee for even this.' The wild ambition you have renounced was wiser for this world than the halting knowledge of the truth you now display; for that there is a mission and a placej, but for- the latter as an active ele- ment within the age there is nothing." 10 page: 218-219[View Page 218-219] THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. ( But surely you do not intend to renounce your destiny insuch madness as this. Surely, you intend to strike for the immortality which may so easily be yours." Then a lonely rapture lighted up Auswurf's face and beamed from his eyes. "No," said he, "I cannot renounce my destiny, for my Father has given it to me even in my being, as He has done to all of His children. And I have no need to strike for im- mortality and grandeur, because He giveth them to all. For myself I can achieve nothing that is so good as the child- like acceptance of what He has already given. There is no other greatness, and how could I have ever dreamed of any good but this?" "But you will at least complete the work you have already laid out?" "Something warns me I shall never do so; but I will do the best I can." "If you had sold me an interest in the enterprise, as I desired," said Claiborne, with droll chagrin, "I should have had some pre- text for coming here every'day and being profited. But now I dare not intrude myself upon your labors as often as my selfish- ness would dictate. I, too, must maintain my independence, you -know." "I can settle that point," answered Auswurf, " without the farce of selling you what is pecuniarily worthless-by cordially bidding 'you come as often and stay as long as you wish." "But will you not also visit me often at Druid Hill, during my stay there.? I came here this evening on purpose to extort, at the very least, a promise to that effect." "Business with the Doctor will require me to go there more than once while I remain in this city, and I shall take pleasure in prolonging my calls for the sake of enjoying your society." "Farewell, then, for a little while, matchless boy," returned Claiborne, again embracing him. "Come to-morrow, will you not? I know it is vain to urge you; but I hope that you will come." Then again wringing Auswurf's hand, he went away. Answurf listened to the sound of his footsteps till they ceased to echo on the stairs, and then went to the window and watched the noble form pass along the street through patches of gas-light and patches of darkness. At the nearest street-corner he got into a carriage and drove rapidly away. Auswurf stood at the window and looked after him with a heavy heart until he had entirely disappeared, and then long remained there in gloomy meditation. CHAPTER XII, CHESS AND OTHER GAMES. THUS Auswurf went on in his garret for two or three weeks. Then, again, compelled to make his remote studies available in bread, he spent two or three days moulding into sermons for the Doctor the essential sum of his thought upon the causes and course of civilizations. Taking up the Bible, and turning over its pages with profoundly reverent fingers, he sought for some of those much-revealing words that so often stand in their context like rifts through which patches of eternal blue and here and there a far-off star are seen. On these as texts he hung discourses; and finally, when the most abstruse truths were set in terms which no one would suspect of being profound, and which a child could understand, he again, in the evening, took the bundle of manu- scripts under his arm and returned to Druid Hill. When he arrived, the lord and lady of the house, Urania, Clai- borne, Cheveril, Snort, and several aristocratic ladies and gentle- men from the neighborhood were in the--dining-room at tea; and he at once went in and sat down to tea with them. It seemed ut- terly impossible for the Doctor to cringe and fawn enough to satisfy himself; but one glance of Auswurf's filmless eye told him that the holy man's motive for fawning was different now from what it had been when they met before. He noticed, too, that Mr. Snort sat next to Urania, and was trying to make himself very charming. Claiborne cheerily drew Auswurf into a seat at his side, and exclaimed: "Welcome, our boy-king, welcome once more among your subjects. And now we intend to serve our ty- rant as the Asiatics sometimes do theirs-we intend to imprison him in the palace, and keep his sacred person among us by force. while we bow submissively to his will." "Oh, yes," annotated the Doctor, with bustling insincerity, " it, has been settled by at least a dozen different councils of malcon- page: 220-221[View Page 220-221] THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. tents, almost of insurgents, within the last two weeks, that hence- forth the court is to be established at Druid Hill, as I suggested some time ago. The king may rule with a rod of iron, if he pleases, but he shall at least reside where we choose." He overdil the thing, however. From the moment the lad entered, blushes and paleness had been alternating in Urania's, face, and, with a fluttering, unman- ageable heart, she awaited his reply to these importunities. When she saw that he was going to decline the pre-arranged invitation to remain there, she scarcely knew whether she was very glad or very sorry; but when he was done spealking, the blush was all gone from her face, and paleness alone remained. "Doctor," said Auswurf, quietly, "I think you explained to me when I was here last how much you then wanted me here." Then remembering the sincere and amiable interest of the rest, he said: "It may be boorish, kind hearts, to refuse your request, but it would be more boorish to offer you only weariness and exhaustion. Once I could work day and night, from year to year, almost with- out intermission; but now a tithe of what I once endured without a thought, exhausts my energy, and leaves me without life enough even to amuse you." "You study too much," appealed Claiborne. "Throw off the harness for a while; unbend your bow, Ulysses, and stay with us i' "No," answered Auswurf, " only more of my sand would run away and my flagging strength not be restored. My time, I know, is not long ; my real duty is scarcely begun; and economy requires that whatever force I still retain shall be devoted without loss to its accomplishment." "But your time shall not be lost, even in respect to that to which you would devote it," rejoined Claiborne. "Come and season our languor with your freshness; sail with us, ride with us, play with us. Infect us, too, with your piquant and fruitful disre- gard of the trammels of routine, etiquette, imitation, servility and cowardice, which are the bane of our lives, but which you defy and conquer hourly in the smallest as in. the largest things. But while you do this, assume also the position to which our hearts invite you, and reign over us with the supreme sway of the teacher among his disciples. Make us first proselytes and then catechu- mens. Instruct and electrify us with the grand and lofty utter- ances that fall from your lips like winged stars. Love is no name for our devotion and affection. Reveal then to us fully that world of thought and emotion of whose existence even we have never dreamed till now." "The Catholic and Absolute," replied Auswurf, "assert them- selves wherever there is reason, and do not need the proselyter's prod. He who would now assist his unwilling brethren must sim- ply scatter on the soil the good seed of truth, and leave the Infinite Spirit and His seasons to do the rest. Whether what he shall say shall produce any effect at all, whether it shall ever gain one ad- herent, is a question which pertains not to him, but to That which sent him. And propagandism would be as far beneath him as be- neath the truth he teaches." In the pause which followed these words, the Doctor fixed on Urania's pensive face a look that would have wrenched their se- crets out of the iron doors of the Bastile. Before him sat a plate of slices of cold- fowl. "Mr. Snort," said he, being the first to break the silence, " let me help you to a slice of the breast of this tender pullet. Mr. Auswurf will have the courtesy to pass your plate." "That's my ticket, Doctor," chuckled Mr. Snort, in his custom- ary slang. Auswurf, with a quick transition of feeling, looked up at both the Doctor and Mr. Snort, and instantly the indignant blood rushed into his face. "'Certainly, Mr. Snort," he said, "let me pass your plate." Snort gave it to him and he extended it for the tidbit which the Doctor laid on it, and returned it towards the ex- pectant Snort. But just as the fingers of the latter touched the plate, it fell on the edge of the table, where it broke into a dozen pieces and went rattling down on the floor. "It seems," said Auswurf, " you have lost it. You ought to have made a quicker grab. But I never could be used successfully by anybody." Mr. Snort swore as usual; the Doctor bit his lips and snickeredin spite of his anger. The rest all stared and smiled, knowing that the occurrence was not accidental; but precisely what it meant, they, of course, could not divine. The moment appearances were saved, they rose from the table and withdrew into one of the parlors. "Doctor," said Auswurf, as soon as all were seated, "I have brought you some. more ser- mons. I laid them on the sofa in the front hall." "Ah," replied the Doctor in trepidation, "a rare old volume of sermbons, I suppose, which you have brought me from the library in the city." page: 222-223[View Page 222-223] 222 .THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "No," answered Auswurf, " they are some I wrote for you in our old partnership character of eloquent divine." "Hush, you insane devil!" whispered the Doctor in his ear; "I will meet you in the library." "It is not worth while to go to the library to settle for them this time," answered Auswurf, aloud. "Have you- fifty dollars about you, Doctor.? No? Then, Mr. Snort, have you got a hun- dred dollars in your pocket you can loan yourfriend, the Doctor? You'd better hurry. Sermons are going up at the rate of twenty- five dollars a second." The Doctor dexterously got Snort into one corner of the room in less time than he could have spoken his name, and cast a look at Auswurf like that which drowning infidels wear when they pray. Snort gave the Doctor the hundred dollars, and while the company were very busy pretending to talk and not see, the holy man with a scowl handed it over to Auswurf. "Place it to the Doctor's ac- count as so much advanced for services rendered, Mr. Snort," said Auswurf. "I hope I am not taking what belongs of right to your washerwoman. " "If you don't stop, you mad devil "-- began the Doctor in an awful whisper. "Let mealone," was thereply, ' or I willexpose you on the spot." "Expose what? What can you prove?" "Your proposal to me that last night in the library, will do to begin with." Confused by this reminder, and not knowing what might come next, the Doctor mechanically took a step or two towards the door, as if to leave the room. "Come back, come back," whispered Auswurf, striding to his side; " don't dare to leave this room till I get through with you." The Doctor, with an effort like that with which a defeated as- pirant before a convention returns his " thanks," and promises to support the nominee, put on a placid face and came forward into the company. "What shall be the theme," he asked smilingly, "on which our king shall instruct and delight us this evening?" "We will not talk this evening," said Auswurf; " we will have games." "We shall have a rebellion certainly, if the king takes such despotic ground as that," fawned the Doctor. "Are we not all agreed, Mr. Claiborne, that the king shall talk?" CHESS AND OTrHE GAMES. . 223 Claiborne gave one quick glance at Auswurf's face and at the terrible spirit which in spite of its calmness was working there. "No," said he,!" le roi le vent, and if we are true subjects we will obey the king and love him better for playing the tyrant." "We will have games," repeated Auswurf. "I will be Miss Moultrie's antagonist at chess. Where are my chessmen,-mine, not because I ever played with them, but because I hacked them with my penknife once upon a time to make them more expressive?" "My ward seldom plays chess," said the Doctor. "Miss Moultrie will play," rejoined Auswirf; "if the most powerful of all the feudatories set an example of disobedience, the king must, of course, forthwith descend from the throne." "I will play," answered Urania, "but I know I shall be no match for you." "I am not so sure of that," said Mr. Snort, sotto voce. The chessmen that Auswurf wanted were now produced, a small table was wheeled into the centre of the floor, and Auswurf and Urania sat down to play. "Give me the black," said Auswurf, as the men were potired out on the board. "This bishop goes on the black spot; you see the prongs of his mitre are carved into a fox's and a snake's head; I spent a whole week once in fixing him. But this broken- nosed knight here by him is common stuff; one whack of the knife was enough for him. Miss Moultrie, let me be a generous foe; I don't care anything about my other pieces; my queen I'll put back in the box," suiting the action to the word; "mv king will get along better alone. My castles, white bishop, decent knight and pawns, I shan't touch. I'm going to checkmate you with this knight of the monstrous nose, supported by this muti- lated episcopal Cerberus, who in this case is only two gentlemen in one. And I'll bet a button against Mr.- Snort's dukedom in Cuba--maybe it's in Central America-that I'll beat you over- whelmingly." The curious game then began, with the entire company for spectators. Urania .played most wretchedly, Auswurf, with the keenest, bitterest, and most successful vigor. Seeming to have no foresight, she blundered about the board, and moved whatever piece she happened to touch first; and no sooner was the move made than it was seen to have been the-very worst one possible. page: 224-225[View Page 224-225] 224 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. She was certain she could do nothing that would in reality please her antagonist better than to beat him, and would have given the world to do so; yet he was playing against her with a determina- tion that made him invincible. In a few minutes the bishop had captured one of her castles, and the knight the other, and the game was visibly near its end. Urania's agitation now became extreme. Her face was bent over the board in intense anxiety; her long, dark lashes drooped; her cheeks alternately paled and flushed; her hand fluttered about over the pieces like a charmed and helpless bird; and Aus- wurf felt her foot tremble against his own. Then, another transi- tion took place in him; he who had but one moment since been so alert, so- embittered, relapsed into preoccupation and the world within, and the conversation of those around him fell on his inner sense like words we hear in dreams. He thought not then of some mighty problem or far-reaching purpose, but only of the beautiful, unhappy, unprotected girl there before him. Little suspected she, as presently her clear eyes looked up at him inquir- ingly, and half imploringly, how plainly revealed to him at that moment stood the Scylla and Charybdis of her destiny, which as yet were quite unknown and undreamed of by her, and how, though he would have endured any other pain rather than have betrayed it to her, compassion and sympathy for her far pro- founder and more melancholy than any she had ever felt for him, had suddenly possessed him. "Let us quit playing, please," she said, beginning to pick up the pieces; "I am no antagonist for you; let us quit before you really beat me with those ugly pieces." "No," said Auswurf,. arresting her hand, "play it out; pray have the nerve, Miss Moultrie, to play it out. I shall checkmate you the next move." "I surrender the game for that matter," she replied, more than ever determined to have her own way, and picking up the pieces one at a time. Auswurf, anticipating her, swept off the remain- ing pieces with both hands, and thrust them into the box. "I hope you are not displeased," said Urania, in a low tone. ' Have you done right?" asked Auswurf. "Yes." "Then, why should you care whether I am pleased or dis- pleased?" -CmHEss AND OTHER GCAMS. 225 Auswurf had knocked one of the pawns off the board; Urania averted her head, and stooped to pick it up; as she did so, a glance almost of fire shot from his eyes to her troubled face to read it. In another moment she stood erect. As she raised her eyes, he beheld far down in them, beyond the reach of common- place experience's longest plumnmet, a timid lingerer in the twi- light of a new existence-a wondering Eve just awakened on her couch of flowers in the dawn of her first morning in Paradise,. and reluctant to leave the world of shade for conispicuous day. It was no longer the general sympathy and compassion which she had at first expressed for him, but a far nearer -and more particular emotion. He did not understand it fully, he had not enough self-opinion to do so, but he saw enough to be startled as if the firmament had parted, and a new creation had burst upon his sight.: An agitation, as if a stream of light had shot down into his soul, and stirred the bottom billow of its sunless bed, passed over him. For a single instant, he felt like one who, worn and travel-stained, at the end of a weary march beneath the blazing sun casts himself upon the turf under peaceful stars, and lets the cooling dews steal over him. For a single in- stant the strong barrier of his will gave way, and surges which had long been bound swelled beyond it; and troops of yearning and sorrowful emotions, which he had thought were cold and deadcl beneath the ashes, bounded up in vigorous life, and rushed in tumult to his eyes. He turned his face away as if carelessly, and looked out at the sky. The sun had long since sunk, leav- ing the mild moon to hold his conquest; displanted Night, returning in his absence, was now picketing the heavens with her boldest stars; and among them, promptest to come, and brightest of them all, made gleaming silver by the softness of the air, shone the star appointed to remind him of his destiny. In an instant the wand of the enchantress was snatched from her hand and broken; the beam -as quenched in its dark descent, and the tremulous wave went back to death. The 'most fragrant and glittering of all the seas broke over him as many dark ones had done before, and he was not dazzled as he had not been shaken. Him whom no hunger could subdue and no desolation terrify, deceitful Fancy could not delude, as she does too many; and had heaven itself opened at that moment, and an Eden been let down before him, he would have turned his back upon it s 10* page: 226-227[View Page 226-227] 226 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. a cheat, and strode away into the night, if he had not heard the majestic voice of Truth calling from its midst that she was there. Greatly relieved at the close of the game, and at the undenoue- mented manner of its close, and eager to prevent a recurrence of anything similar, the Doctor at once proposed that the entire party, including himself and the wife of his bosom, should take a moonlight sail. The proposition was eagerly accepted by all, and by none more so than by the disgusted and indignant youth. Then they all walked down to the beach. The Doctor at once began to arrange the parties who should go in the different boats, his object being to keep both himself and Snort out of Auswurf's way, and also to prevent his having opportunity to act any more charades before Urania. He went on, therefore, arranging and specifying until he had disposed of every one else, and then said: "As for Mr. Auswurf, I know he cannot be prevailed on to sail in anything but the Seabird." "No," said Auswurf, "but the Seabird can carry two; Miss Moultrie, the Seabird will have the honor of carrying you." "The Seabird is, at least, a spirited craft," laughed Urania. "I will risk the Sea- bird." So saying, she let him lead her aboard; he at once cast loose, and before the rest had left the beach they were away upon the sea. The night was one which, once beheld, dwelt in the memory forever. The moon, somewhat past her full, poured upon the glimmering sea and the dark outline of the shore deluges of soft and spotless light. The actual world passed out of sight and thought; the jangling- strife of day was lulled; life's heat and madness were assuaged by the sweet blisses and peace of beauti- ful night; holy feeling stole over the spirit, and sacred emotions pealed in the heart like distant bells. Passionate indignation and scorn were quickly melted out of Auswurf's heart, and ten- derness and beauty reigned fitfully in their stead. At first the calm of the universe seemed so holy that either of them would have deemed it sacrilege to break it, even if they had not both been too absorbed in deep-souled contemplation for much speak- ing. Yet Urania thought afterwards, as she recalled that hour and his few utterances, that she had never experienced such sweet and perfect communion with nature, or with any spirit, as she did then. He seemed to lift her up, and bear her with him into depths of which she had not dreamed. Every impulse and CHESS AND OTHER GAMES. 227 emotion she experienced seemed to be but the reflection of some mood of her brother spirit. His few words started trains of reflection which had never occurred to her mind before, and presently, when he spoke again, it would be to express in clear- est and most living terms some vague reflection at which she had that moment been vainly tugging, striving to bring it out. At length, under the influence of the scene, even the sorrow and solitude which all his life had held his soul in bondage relaxed their grasp, and their captive walked abroad and breathed. Then, as he talked and she listened, celestial music, born less of his words than her own sweet spirit, filled her ears; almost without breathing, she watched his unconscious face as the gorgeous pro- cessions of his half-uttered thoughts marched across its plains of light. At times, as he talked, tones, not words, which seemed to have explored and exhausted all the depths of tenderness, and to be sweet with their inmost fragrance, would fall from his lips. It needed no other sign to tell her, whose own heart so fitted her to judge of these things, the unapproachable tenderness of his nature, and the boundless wealth of his heart. Whether he was or should ever be fully conscious of its existence himself, she knew that it was none the less true that 1 this treasure was there. And, after a while, it seemed that as he talked, these sweet, vague, far-off tones had acquired a strange vitality and quickness, as if they pulsated with an unconscious life-as if they had a nearness and almost a meaning which they had not possessed before-as if they were putting on an application and revealing an actual experience. And it seemed that presently some con- scious and decisive word must fall on her expectant ear. But, in a moment more, embittered and sorrowful invective, or some expression of hopeless and enduring melancholy would break in, and when she would look again at his face all its radiance would be gone, and darkness would be sitting in its place. And then she would feel an unaccountable sense of injury, as if some beautiful thing in which she had a property had died, as if some blissful promise to her soul had been perfidiously broken. But within her own heart and its outgoings, how fared it? Need we tell? Can we tell? No; for the experiences of her beautiful spirit are beyond our power of expression. From the first moment she ever beheld him, she had been profoundly im- pressed with the opinion, that this strange, pale boy stood in the page: 228-229[View Page 228-229] 228 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. very front rank of human spirits. And being such, she saw that he was desolate. Then to her first wonder was added the exalted sympathy which her great and tender spirit necessitated. She could not think of his loneliness and sorrow without being moved to tears, and she had wished to say something to him that would cheer him and make him smile. This is why she had with such alacrity laid the wreath upon his head. The accidental hurt- ing of his head with the thorn had drawn her closer to him, and given her interest in him a personal turn and reality, which the spectacle of his rash sail had not diminished. The next day and evening had deepened these impressions, but had left a strangely perplexed, uneasy and uncertain feeling; and it was in the con- versation which this had prompted she had first discovered that she was deeply and forever devoted to him with a strange union of womanly and heavenly love. Till then she had been uncon- scious; but henceforth, to her last hour on earth, she scarcely ceased for one moment to think of him, and exalt him, with no veil concealing from her sight the holy altar where her heart offered itself for him. She thought it was because he was so noble, and pure, and great, that he was so desolate, the "excepted dust under the common rain of daily gifts. "In every tone of his, a strong and sorrowing spirit spoke to her: "None saith, Stay with me, for thy face is fair! None saith, Stay with me, for thy voice is sweet! ^ And yet I was not fashioned out of clay. Look on me, woman! Am I beautiful?" And while her heart repeated, "Thou hast a glorious darkness," it answered, too, "Stay with me, for thy face is fairer than the stars; stay with me, for thy voice is sweeter than an angel's.' And in regard to his opinions, how different from what they had been at first, her feelings and impressions were every hour becom- ing. What power, what grandeur, what almost perfect truth they now seemed to contain. If he would but become her instructor and guide, into what majesty of thought and life could he not lead her? She had felt from her infancy the yearnings of the idealist; but she knew she could not climb alone ; she felt the need of something, not to take her up and carry her, indeed, but to support and comfort her while she should walk. Nay, more, she knew that without precisely him for an instructor and CHESS AND OTHER GAMES. 229 guide, it would be forever impossible for her to rise into a larger and purer sphere. When, at length, they neared the shore again, it was at the mouth of the creek which flowed past the foot of the hill where his mother lay buried. Then he told- her his mother lay there, and asked permission to make her acquainted with the spot, for he wished that her pure eyes might look upon his mother's grave, and that when he was far away her hand should keep -it from neglect. The subject at once aroused her ready sympathies; for she had never heard- before that his mother lay there; the sub- ject being oue that never was alluded to at Druid Hill. As they entered the mouth of the creek to moor the boat there, a water- fowl, alarmed by their approach, and- deceived, perhaps, by the brightness of the night, rose from the bank, and soared away into the sky. The moon was now in the clear zenith, but broken masses of light clouds lay below her like a great inverted funnel, through which her floods of light poured down, increased by them in brilliancy. As if guided by a sudden inspiration, the water-fowl rose from the dark wave, and out of the shadow, and, as they gazed at him, soared away towards the moon, scaling the firmament in successive hspires, sweeping round and round the funnel of clouds in broad circles as he ascended. The arrange- ment of the clouds and the downpouring deluges of light con- verted the concave heavens into a dome of silver inlaid with ebony and pearl. Now the pilgrim bird would be lost from sight among the dark flanks of the clouds, and now would reappear in the gulfs of glittering spray, and now would float away through open seas of mellow light. They stood together on the shore watching him, until, as he ascended, the spiral flight seemed, from the apparent contraction of its gyres, to have become a steady and direct ascent. He was no longer lost at times in darkness, but moved constantly within the domain of light a spirit of the upper world, bathing in the silver seas of heaven. And at last he was lost from their sight forever, melting away in the Wirwana of pulseless and eternal rest. "Behold," said Auswurf, as 'he still gazed after the lost bird, "behold the manner and theend of the lonely upward flight. And they who should have been his mates are still upon the sea." "But if, he had soared in the light of day, and to the sun," replied Urania, "perhaps his flight -would not have been com- panionless." page: 230-231[View Page 230-231] 230 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Yes," said Auswurf, bitterly, "he is but a poor fool at last." Then mooting the boat, they climbed the hill and entered the little churchyard. Auswurf pointed out to Urania his mother's grave, and then, as he always did whenever he approached it, knelt down and kissed the sacred name upon the stone. Then he asked her whether he -should tell her who and what she was who slept there; for he wished her to know his mother, and, if his power should suffice, to love and pity her as she deserved. She begged him, at once, to tell her fully of the holy sleeper, omitting nothing that could help her to know her, and to love and pity her. When the story of that sad life, and sadder death, with which you are already acquainted, was concluded, Urania had long been weeping, and with the last word that fell from his lips she burst afresh into floods of tender and passionate tears. Powerful as the pathos of the recital had been, it was not this alone which affected her. The terrible emphasis with -which here and there he had pronounced a scathing word, had revealed to her 'the landscapes of his desolate life and more desolate purposes, as a flash of lightning out of a midnight storm reveals the rent and blackened peaks of the mountain; and in this, the first womanly sorrow that she had ever known, she wished that his mother were living, since her own was dead, so that she might lay her head upon her breast, and tell the story of her heart, and be comforted. He did not ask her to cease weeping, but he asked her with a strange light in his eyes, and increased paleness on his cheek, whether she thought it morbid that when his mother was such a being, he should so cherish her memory, especially when his heart knew that her memory and the tender recollection of her love were the only treasures it could ever possess in this world. "No," she replied, with a faltering voice, "I -consider it neither morbid nor ignoble." "Thanks, beautiful and noble Urania," he replied, "many thanks for that last epithet. It is comfort to the desolate to know that the choice spirits of this world, -the Tnfinite Father's owri beautiful children, appreciate the purity and sorrow of their desolation." "But if condolence and gratitude be the only reciprocity between spirits, then the sick heart of the world, mocked in its throbbings, might indeed long to be turned to stone. The only CHESS AND OTHER GAMES. 231 garb tenderness could ever wear would be the robe of mourning; the only tongues she could ever speak would be those of bereave- ment and despair." "Nay, beautiful Urania, but I would save tenderness forever from the robe of mourning, and from the lament for the lost and irreclaimable. I would have it give only one sigh of pity to the desolation which it can never heal--which in this world never can be healed-and then resume its holy mission of cherishing and -blessing those to whom heaven has granted the bliss of being cherished and blessed by it." "But that," she replied, with unusual bitterness, " is to deny all individuality to tender and cherishing emotion, to refuse it any place in- the world's higher life, and to consider it fit only to be degraded and debased by the appropriation of that which happens to stand next to it." "No; but it is to consider sincere emotion too pure and holy to be sacrificed and undone. It is to consider its blameless life too sacred to be convulsed with pangs and fever-pulses. Look at this, Urania," he continued, stepping to a rose-bush that grew upon his mother's grave, and lifting up a queenly flower by clasp- ing its stem between his thumb and finger. "You see my touch toying for a moment with these petals; my fingers freely caress, this royal bloom; the fragile stem is in my grasp, and Heven H might snap it. And I remember you once said, Urania, that if the rose were conscious, and if its spirit were as beautiful as it should be, it would be glad to die for the happiness of a higher spirit. But, Urania, if my heart were at this moment burning up with fever which the contact and perfume of this rose alone could heal, and if the rose should find a tongue and bid me pluck it, think you I would not die rather than stain my fingers with its beautiful and devoted life?" "Perhaps," she replied, looking down, "the rose might long to be plucked and worn next your heart forever; yet delicacy would prevent its expressing the wish." "And even if I knew that, " he answered, "I should only feel the keener anguish. For I could only kiss the rose, Urania, as I do your hand"--raising it to his lips--"and say, '0, matchless flower, if- my soul were burning to possess thee, it should perish of consuming fire rather than either forfeit its destiny or make a sacrifice of thee," page: 232-233[View Page 232-233] THE SORY OF AN OUTCAST. In tumultuous and overpowering emotion, she sank rather than sat down upon a broken tomb, which had been walled in vwith brick and overlaid with a marble slab, and covered her face with her hands. Auswurf, with his face pale as ashes, yet in per- fect calmness, sat down upon the tomb at her side, removed her hands from her face with gentle violence, and bade her in firm yet tender tones look up once more, and listen to him. Her shuddering form, which was trembling and fluttering like a wounded bird, grew calm beneath his touch, but she still per- sisted in keeping her eyes fixed upon the ground. " Nay, Ura- nia," he continued, "but you must look up. I cannot talk to you, my soul is speechless in your presence when your eyes are turned away. What do you see upon the ground, that you look at it so steadfastly? That 'lay is inanimate; there is no soul there to burn for you; that unconscious dust cannot thrill through every atom of its being beneath your look. Then do not look at it, Urania; but look hither. Look into my face and see the workings of a spirit like the calm, strong god of storms, which the spell of your beauty and goodness has evoked. Think not thattit is love, Urania. No, no, may the God you worship, may the Father my mother loved, forbid that it should be igno- minious and insult-breathing love. No, it is no such base thing as that. But it is appreciation, knowledge, the tribute of my own spirit-adoring spirit to the purest and loftiest of all the souls of woman. What, Urania," he exclaimed, as, abashed by his pleas- ing words, she averted her face yet more, "you are not going to hide your face from me entirely? What grief, what pain, what deep, deep pity it would send down into my heart, to think you could find in any word or action of mine aught to either mortify or flatter you. " " Do not misjudge me," she answered, looking him full in the face. " Ask my very soul, Selric Auswurf, a soul that never felt a lie, if it could ever insult you by finding in your words any smaller meaning than your own spotless spirit has put there." Then as they rose to go, she broke off the rose which he had previously held up before her. As he was helping her into the boat, she gave it to him to hold, and when they reached the man- sion she did not demand it back again. He was just turning away to go back to the city, when he saw Mr. Snort's nose pro- CHESS AND OTHER GAMES. 233 1 jecting out of the shadow in one of the angles of the building, and asked what he was doing there. "In war and the like, all things are fair," replied Snort, sul- lenly; " I hate you to-night more than I ever did, and I intended to see when you came home." "Of the insult you are offering a pure-minded lady I say nothing, because you are unconscious of it. But Jehu, how you compliment yourself, and me you send to the seventh heaven like a rocket. Ninny that you are to let that scheming priest scare you with a bugbear in order to make you pay him the more." This view seemed to strike Snort. " I believe there is a good deal in that," said he, "Greed is a great scoundrel. I really don't think you care for this woman or any other, but that's not the trouble; I wish I had you to trust, instead of Greed, for you are honest; but I know it would end byyour playing hob with my ducks some way or other." "Snort," said Auswurf, "you are certainly improving, and if you were not so utterly detestable I might possibly think a good deal more of you than I do. I am going to tell you seriously now what to do, and I want to know, flat out at the start, whether you will do it." " I shall be afraid either to do it or let it alone, but I guess I had better promise to do it." " Why, Mr. Snort, if you but knew it, you are practising policy, diplomacy, statesmanship, very king-craft. I have no doubt you will be King of Brunerstown or some other dung-heap yet. But the question is, don't you want to give Miss Moultrie to under- stand that you have very tender feelings for her ?" "I indorse that platform; that's my tender Cincinnati plat- form," said Mr. Snort, feelingly; " but I could never in the world make my drotted tongue tell her so." "Very well; I will manage the matter for you. You see this rose here; well, this rose is Miss Moultrie; how or why it is so, is none of your business, yet this rose is she, and she knows that well enough. Now, do you take it, keep it fresh by some means, and wear it on your left breast the next evening I come out here. I will point her out to herself reposing sweetly on your manly bosom, perhaps then may e'en be able to lead her t'other self-the one that carries half a million with it-to that same heaven of rest. Think of that, Sylvester; think of that, sir. I didn't intend to page: 234-235[View Page 234-235] 284 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. come here again ; but to help you out with this affair, I will con- sent to come just once more." "If you don't like to come here," said Snort, uneasily, "how would it do for us to fix it all up at Claiborne's party? He - ar- ranged it to-night to give one at his cousin's in the city next week, on purpose to have you there." "That is to say," replied Auswurf, " that you would rather I would stay away from here; so would the father in Israel. Very well, I appreciate your motives; probably it isn't pleasant to be banged like dogs, as-I did you and him this evening, and if I were to come here, I'd be certain to do it again. But I don't want to; no, no, I don't want to touch either you or him again while I live." So saying, he turned on his heel, and with no thoughtful loiter- ing, but almost with the rapidity of flight, returned to his garret in the city. CHAPTER x I f. CRPJME DE LA CReME AMERIOAINE. CLAMBORNE, in the nobleness of his heart, hoping by this means to throw around Auswurf influences which would wean him from his seclusion, had resolved on the course stated by Mr. Snort; and besides, he secretly hoped, it might so happen that some of the strange boy's portentous utterances would fall on the ears of those whom he would meet, and give them pause in their parricidal dreams. He could never himself face the cheap epithet of cow- ard, or endure to be accused of abandoning at the critical moment a ship which he had helped to bring into peril; but he had a sort of dreamy and desperate wish to see the same influence at work on them, which he was conscious had wrought so mighty and startling a revolution in his own secret consciousness. Engage- ments preventing his calling at the mean garret again, he wrote Auswurf a note in which he laid his wish before him, and with importunity which would have taken no denial without deep pain urged his attendance at the party. The lad at once accepted the invitation; because this afforded him precisely the opportunity he required. CREME DE LA CREEME AMERICAINE. 235 Auswurf had read at a glance the plan which the holy man had built upon the ruins of the brittle scheme in which he had been cast for the part of Christian consort. It was-nothing more nor less than to sell his ward to Mr. Snort for a satisfactory sum of money-Urania's, of course. That is to say, Snort was to take the woman, and he and the Doctor were to divide her estate be- tween them. The plan was as bold as atrocious, but hesitate be- fore you call it hare-brained. It was singularly characteristic of the holy man in many respects, but in none so much as in the reasons to which he looked for its success. He who delighted above all things in searching out and playing on the weaknesses of human nature-who had spent his whole life in that particu- larly contemptible business which the operators are pleased to style managing others-who would at any time rather succeed in some scurvy trick based on keen perception of the psychological defects of its victim than to be President,--founded his present plot on an acute calculation of the working of those very forces in his ward's nature which would have exalted her in any noble mind, and have excited for her first sympathy and then boundless love. He saw that Auswurf had deeply touched her heart, and knowing the truthfulness and constancy of her nature he knew that she would never again look on any other to love him--nay, that the nearer any might come to being capable of having ex- cited her love if she had never known Auswurf, the deeper repug- nance would she feel to marrying him. But, of course, she must marry .somebody; and, therefore, the more certain it was that any particular candidate could never disturb those dreams and memo- ries with which she would now forever continue to feed her heart, the more apt she would be to marry him. With thisto start with, the holy man relied on his own tact and shrewdness for the rest. In fact, though for his own interests he would far rather she had married Auswurf than a king, he perceived that, since that could not be, the fact of her having met him was a very lucky circum- stance for himself. Previously, eagerly as she had been sought, she had manifested surprising indifference in regard to marriage. Even Claiborne, who had addressed her, she had kindly yet quite decisively rejected, and this to the great satisfaction of the man of God, who was then full of his designs on Auswurf. ]But now, the holy man doubted not, her woman's nature, having once been stirred, would never let her rest until she found some sort of a page: 236-237[View Page 236-237] 236 THE STORY: OF AN OUTCAST. stock or stone on whom she might ostensibly lavish the tenderness which she meant all the time for the idol in her heart; and thus she would fall into his nets as naturally as a dazed bird flies to a light. If Auswurf had gone away from Druid Hill that night without discovering this hideous conspiracy, it is likely that he would presently have turned aside from Urania and never have beheld her face again. But now every scornful and every noble impulse of his nature was at once aroused. He, indeed, bitterly refused to entertain or consider the idea that there was any such thing as love in her feeling for him. Yet he thought she had permitted her kind and amiable sympathies to lead her fancy towards him for a moment, and, therefore, a terrible apprehension, a very hor- ror now tortured him. He knew that the holy man would indus- triously try to make her believe she was deeply interested in him, and he knew how surprisingly women sometimes deceive them- selves or may be deceived by others in regard to such matters, how comparatively little of the analytic faculty they possess, how difficult it often is for them to obtain a clear self-consciousness, or to know the state of their own minds. He judged that the social tyranny which compels women, whether they are willing or not, to engage in the impure scramble for husbands, would, of course, compel Urania also to marry. He thoroughly understood the touching fallacy with which the womanly heart, when sore from disappointment, cajoles itself into thinking it will find securer re- pose in wedding an inferior spirit than in wedding an equal-the consciousness of shame, the secret fear of detection, the guilty preference for uncurious blindness at home. He knew -that this is a compromise which women, even of the tenderest and most beautiful natures, often make between the social or emotional ne- cessity of marrying and the weariness of their own breaking hearts. While he felt personally indignant that the sincere and beautiful sympathy and esteem Urania had given him should be. seized by this sacerdotal demon as a handle with which to work her deep and irreparable injury, this feeling was lost in unutterable pity for the noble and beautiful woman who was exposed- without protection to such machinations; and he was firmly bent on first upsetting this Vile plot and then withdrawing out of the reach or knowledge of any more such. He could not, indeed, inform Ura- nia plainly of the plot against her;- but he intended, at least, to " REME DE LA CREME AMPRICAINE 237 show her, in a manner which she would never forget, how utterly abhorrent andrepugnant to her were grossness, beastliness and stupidity, and to render it forever impossible for her to disguise them to herself under deceitful names. The days which intervened before the party, Auswurf spent assiduously with the Schoolmen, sifting out from among their works more narrowly than he had ever done before, the germs of the nature-conquering theology of Calvin, and grappling the modern world with the Aristotelian age by means of their iron, back-reaching methods,--speculating, too, with curious analysis, upon that concrete inner element of which the abstraction of the Schoolmen took no hold, but which burst forth in such majesty and power through the souls and from the lips of the Reformers- that warm, living something, that personal, embodied, tangible, and breathing truth, that growth of consciousness and life and spirit, which had enabled Christianity to furnish a Rest for the soul. If, Auswurf had really been his betrothed, as he delighted to call him, Claiborne could not have been more attentive and anxious about him than he was during the interval which separated them. . He wrote to him at least a score of times, informing him of the progress of events, exacting a new assurance every day that he would attend, and insisting on sending a carriage for him very early in the evening. It so happened that the party took place on Friday night. -True to his promise, Claiborne sent his rela- tion's carriage and pair to Auswurf's lodging very early in the evening; but the lad dismissed the equipage, intending to walk to the house at a late hour and remain but a short time. It was very late when he arrived, Claiborne was waiting most impatiently for him. All his other guests had arrived long before; and many of them having no taste for more sober amusements, the drawing- room and a large parlor back of it, made into one apartment by throwing open the folding-doors between, were devoted to quad- rilles. Claiborne conducted Auswurf into a parlor which was devoted to games and conversation, and presented him personally to the most aristocratic, famous, and fashionable of the guests. Numbers of groups were disposed about the room, some engaged in playing cards and chess, others in the more excitable and ridic- ulous amusement of talking politics. The company was exclusively Southern, and of the intensest type. The season and political events had called an immense page: 238-239[View Page 238-239] 238 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST throng of Southern sojourners to the city, and these had been in- vited by scores. There were present Senators, Congressmen, Gov- ernors, and a perfect mob of Judges, Generals, Colonels, Majors, and Doctors. There was none but had a title, the dignity of which was fixed partly by the bearer's age, and partly by his social standing. The rule was to start the young politicians in life with the rank of Major, and promote them to higher grades as they advanced in years, and rose in civil office. It appeared, however, that the editors, of whom several were present, never got beyond the rank of Major ; that was thought to be title enough for a poor devil of an editor. Another peculiarity was that the title of General was invariably bestowed on a certain class of su- perannuated and windgalled fogies, whose political careers had been failures. This was a genteel way of retiring disabled and distanced politicians. For, after a man got to be a Colonel, his next step, if he was successful, was to get to be a Governor, or a Senator, or at the very least a Judge, and to be addressed through- out the rest of his life accordingly ; but if he was unsuccessful in his pursuit of further political preferment, he was forthwith, to save his feelings, dubbed a General, and thenceforward to the end of his days devoted his talents and experience to the work of getting up, manipulating and presiding over, the caucuses and conventions of his party in his county, and managing the local affairs of "the party" generally. He was chronic president of the County Executive Committee, always took possession of the candidate for Governor, Congress, and what not, immediately on his arrival in the county on his stumping tour ; led him to the platform, introduced him to the people, sat there with listening ear while he spoke, and tipped the party claqueurs the wink when to split at the great man's anecdotes. Then, once in a dozen years, he was rewarded for his distinguished-services as a General with a seat in the State Legislature. Such were the duties of a "General" in this country at that time-not of a Brigadier Gen- eral, or a Major General, or any other sort of a General in partic- ular, but just of a General. As for the title of Doctor, it must not be supposed to have had any reference at all to medicine, surgery, divinity, dentistry, farriery, midwifery, or anything of that sort. It was a designation for what may-be called the politi- cal reserves. For example, if a man was supposed to have mate- rial in him for a politician de facto, yet for want of blood and CREME DE LA CREME AM RICONE. 239 birth was not a politician de jure, he was called a "Doctor." The fitness of the name consisted in this, that whenever the local affairs of " the party" happened to be in a desperate condition, and defeat impending, the rule was to put forward for office, not one of the genuine political Howards, but one of these "Doctors " as a dose for the opposition. Of course, the "Doctor" would nearly always be politically smashed up for life-that was expected -but it would be managed so that the opposition also should be greatly damaged, and the way paved for victory in future. There were many different grades and orders of "Doctors," one in fact for each grade of political preferment in the State. A-nd as it would sometimes happen, by a rare streak of huck or a miscalcu- lation of chances, that the "Doctor" would run in, instead of being beaten, it has thus come to pass that there have been "Doctors " even in the United States Senate. When Auswurf entered, a' buzz went round the room: "Is not that the boy who made the crazy speech at Druid Hill the other evening against the rights of the South?"For it must be known that some of the Southern female politicians, in order to aid in firing the Southern heart, had given it out confidentially, as a great State secret-quite a grape-vine affair, in short-that the meeting at Dr. Greed's had been a mask for a deep-laid and artful conspiracy to entrap and defraud the innocent South, and Aus- wurf's incomprehensible speech had been much commented on. "I wonder," said a General, deprecatingly, " that Major Claiborne has anything to do with that little Abolition upstart., He must know that, in the present temper of the people, he will injure his own prospects by such associations." "And do you know, Gen- eral," inquired a "Doctor " from Claiborne's own neighborhood, and, therefore, anxious to injure him with the General, "that they do say Major Claiborne is about to become a convert to this little vagabond's crazy notions?" "It is false,. sir; a calumny, sir," roared the General, who took great pride in Claiborne, and re- garded him as the rising young man of his State, "Manlius Claiborne, sir, with the blood of six Governors in his veins, sir, can never be false to his country, sir." "But they do thay," lisped an effeminate lad, "that Major Claiborne thinkth the Nawth will thwash uth iff we thethede." "What an opinion for a Southerner!" sneered a Georgian whose ponderous paunch had kept him forty years in Congress--his constituents thought he had page: 240-241[View Page 240-241] 240 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. the seven wise men of Greece in it. "Whose family came from Caroliner too," added another. "As if the Yankees would fight, or as if wte could not whip them twenty to one, any day," com- mented a pugnacious young lady--a sort of Amazonian sparrow in petticoats. "I don't believe Major Claiborne ever said it," pouted another bloody-minded belle; "Major Claiborne is too handsome to say anything so atrocious." "Do you think, Sen- ator, there is going to be a war?" inquired a languid young lady" pretty much as she might have asked whether there was going to be a shower. "I am afraid not," responded the statesman, with a smile; "I don't think we can either persuade or provoke the Yankees to fight us. " "Then you think," exclaimed the pugna- cious young lady again, "6 that we shall miss the glory of bapti- zing our new confederacy in the blood of heroes? What a mis- erable fate for our glorious, sunny South! I wish we had the " French, or the English, or some other brave people to oppose us, so that we should have to fight for our independence." "For my part," said a serious and rather elderly man, "I should be very willing to get out without a fight." "No, no," cried an excitable youth, "I want war I I shall never be satisfied without war! We must have vengeance and reprisal! I want to burn New York and Boston, and make my niggers plough up Boston Common." "But how would you like it," suggested the serious man, " if by some mistake or other, the burnings should be at Charleston and 'Richmond, instead of New York and Boston?"At this there was a general outcry, and the bare idea was voted ridiculous. "Well,' said the serious man to the excitable youth, "I am willing to come to an understanding with you now, that if there shall be war, you are to do my part of the fighting." With this the other professed himself delighted, and the ladies all looked on the serious man as a disgrace to his section-or, as they would have termed it, to his country. "General," inquired a tall, dark-haired, sweet- faced woman, of the most splendid type of Southern beauty, turning, with deep anxiety depicted in'her countenance, to a man who had more claim to the title by which she addressed him than other Generals present,!" you have not yet given us your opinion on this grave subject. Do you think that if the discontented States secede, they will be permitted to go in peace?" "I think," an- swered the person addressed, confidently, "that there will be such war as Yankees can make. But I would agree to hold in my EMCRE DE LA CnEaME AMERICAINE. 241 hand all the Southern blood that will be shed in this war. We will leave our old men at home to defend our firesides and keep our slaves in subjection, while our young men will invade the North and carry terror and retribution to every hearth-stone." This opinion was regarded as settling the matter, and besides was eminently satisfactory to all concerned, as the beastly and craven North was to be buffeted and ravaged to their heart's con- tent, and not a cent to pay. "But, General," asked some one, "after we have conquered the Yankees, shall we annex them?"' The majority cried out at once against such a proposition as this, and declared that when once free from the odious and con- temptible Yankees, they would never live with them again on any terms. Some one suggested that it might be well to make the Yankee States re-establish slavery, and then admit them into the Southern Confederacy. 5Many assented to this view, but more stood out stoutly against it. The ladies declared that they were opposed to giving up Saratoga and Cape May; somer of the gen- tlemen, the great financiers and statisticians in short, thought that the manufactories, canals and roads which the South had built at the North should be recaptured and brought back by some means, or else the Yankees made to pay the dividends arising from them into the Southern treasury, for the support of the Southern Government. After considerable discussion, the General was again appealed to to decide the intricate question. "The States on the North Mississippi," he answered, as gravely as if the application for admission were a fixed fact, " we might admit into our Confederacy, after a sufficient probation, on the condition of their adopting our institutions. But we must hlave no so-called free States in our government, and the Middle and Eastern States we would not have on any terms. It is- to our in- terest for the Yankees to keep up some sort of a government, and we must be careful to let them do it." A long debate then en- sued as to which Northwestern States should be admitted, and which rejected. All west of Indiana were admitted without diffi- culty, and Indiana, too, in spite of the odious name of Hoosier, was finally let in, out of chivalrous regard for the staunch and enlightened friends the South had in and around Jeffersonville; especially as it was conceded that that the Southerners need not associate with the "Hoosiers " any more than the Spartans did with the Helots. When the name of Ohio was mentioned, a perfect " page: 242-243[View Page 242-243] 242- THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. storm of hisses arose. One gentleman with a red nose thought the South ought to have Cincinnati, because they made such good Ca- tawha there. Another gentleman said the South could make her own wine. This view of the case, however, proved unpopular, the ladies especially declaring that it was beneath the dignity of South- erners to manufacture even wine. Ohio, therefore, was about to be admitted for the sake of Longworth's sparkling Catawha, when one of the ladies happened to ask if that horrid place Oberlin was not in Ohio. "Yes, by Gosh!" roared a s"Doctor," who had- been a ne- gro-trader, 1" and Portsmouth too. I have lost a dozen niggers in my time through the Portsmouth thieves, and I'll be blowed if they didn't send them all to Oberlin, to study theology." This star- tling declaration came very near entirely upsetting the advocates of sparkling Catawha and causing Cincinnati to be left out of the Confederacy, -but finally a compromise was made to the effect that the boundary line should cross Ohio forty miles south of Oberlin- at least that distance beingsupposed necessary to preserve Southern olfactories from being offended by the smell of the place-and that Portsmouth should be got rid of by burning it to the ground and sowing salt on the ruins. The question was then started, what should be done with the Apostles of Abolition. It was agreed, without a dissenting voice, that Seward, Sumner, GarLrison, Gid- dings, Wade, Greeley, Beecher and Phillips, were to be hung; but a difficulty arose as to the manner in which they could be got at, as the idea was preposterous that any of them would ever come within a thousand miles of the frontier. The expedient most in favor was to demand their arrest and extradition of the Yankee government. Some one suggested a doubt whether this would be in accordance with the law of nations. It was replied that this made no difference, as they could make the Yankee government give them up any how. The objectors rejoined that this was true enough, but wanted to know if sensitive Southern, honor and self-respect did not require them to observe the forms of interna- tional intercourse, even with the Yankee rump. It was, therefore, about to be finally agreed to make the Yankee government first sign a back-action extradition treaty, and give up the miscreants prod forma afterwards, when some one appealed tojthe same high authority, as before, for a decision. "The offences which these men have committed against us," he responded, with the utmost gravity, 4were committed under the Federal compact. Each sovereign Southern State has been injured and her laws v;rlsted CREME DE LA CREME AMRICAINE. 243 by every word these men have uttered. No matter that these words have been spoken in other States. The Federal compact extends over every foot of American soil the prerogative of each sovereign Southern State to protect herself from insult and injury. Therefore, the Southern States, whether individually or collect- ively, would have the right to demand the surrender of these men, and it is unnecessary to say that they would have the power." Seward, Sumner, etc., being thus captured by the running noose of Southern State sovereignty, deftly flung at all creation from the platform of the Federal constitution, and Southern vengeance sated, and the boundaries of the Confederacy satisfactorily ar- ranged on the North, Cuba and Mexico were speedily annexed, England soundly thrashed for giving birth to Exeter Hall, and even the revival -of the slave trade and the establishment of aris- tocracy broached. At first, these later topics wete not very vigo- rously pressed, as it was admitted that the benighted Border States were not ripe for these movements, and their premature discussion might, therefore, prove impolitic. Buts presently nature proved stronger than discretion, and a11 the talkers broadly launched into the thrilling topic. Amazed and sickened at this wild and awful folly, Auswurf had till this moment sat in almost entire silence, both unable and unwilling to compel his tongue to speak. But now a scornful and bitter light flashed into his eyes, ready to break out on the first suitable mark that came fairly within striking distance. They^ were all now rattling away on the inspiring theme with reckless abandon; they were to be the nobility, of course; and presently the more volatile got to selecting the titles they intended to wear. Snort was present, sitting near Urania and paying her devoted attention; and the matter of selecting titles for the future aristo- cracy at once set him all aglow with enthusiasm. So he was the first one to fly at the chance of fitting himself with a title. "I'll be the Duke of--, the Duke of---, let me see, what-in the world will I be the Duke of?" he asked. "Shall I select a title for you?" inquired Auswurf mildly. "Oh I yes, of course; you are always so smart; you can tell me at once what to be duke of." "Then," replied Auswurf, while a single quick flash streamed out of his eyes, " call yourself the Duke of Half-a-Dozen-on-the- Shell." At this everybody laughed, and Snort turned blue with passion, but he understood the situation far too well to either page: 244-245[View Page 244-245] 244 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. l retort or try to mend the matter any way; so he vigorously held his peace. When the laugh had subsided, a pursy, red-faced bully, j who had killed a dozen men in the course of his life, came strutting up from the far end of the room, and squaring himself in front of i Auswurf, with arms akimbo, said with a menacing swagger: 'Come, now, suppose you just try your hand on me once; tell me what 5 title I shall take." Auswurf read the fellow through at a glance. : "Let me see," said he, as if musing, "didn't you use to be an overseer?"A snicker from the group the fellow had just left told how plump into the centre the shot had gone. "Suppose I ' did, what then?" demanded the bully. "Nothing, nothing at all," answered Auswurf demurely, " only a baronetcy will do for you; we will dub you Sir La-hem Lickspittle." The fellow ripped out a, horrible oath, and said he knew a chap once whose smartness had cost him his ears. "One of your field-hands, no doubt," said Auswurf, with as completely commonplace an air as if-he were reading : c And Josaphat begat Joram." "I reckon : you don't know who you are talking to," cried the bully; "I've killed a dozen men in my time." "Oh, I supposed you had killed ft: at least a hundred without counting the white men." "And I 1H think," bawled the fellow, strutting up close to Auswurf and thrust- , ing his nose forward into his face, "the next one I kill will be an : Abolition hound of about your inches." "You can have the job :i at any moment," replied Auswurf, taking hold of the -fellow's nose, : and with it as a handle rearing him back to his proper place again; "pray try the experiment whenever you have a mind to." "But you won't fight, will you?" asked the astonished bully, step- ping back. "They told me you was one of them bookish fellows I ,who believe that when a man hits you on one cheek, you ought to , : turn him the other." "You were slightly misinformed," said Auswurf very quietly; " my precept is a little different from the one you quote; it is, when a brute strikes you on the left cheek, 1: turn around and knock off his right one, lest, owing to your lack of manhood, both you and other innocent persons suffer." ! This had all passed so rapidly and withal so quietly, that in the !) loud buzz of voices in the room, very few persons had noticed it, and these had not clearly understood it. One circumstance that prevented undesirable publicity was the fact that the bully's group had come up and formed a circle around the two in order that I' their friend might have full swing. Claiborne, however, had no- x"'! CREME DE LA CREME AMBIICAI NE 245 ticed what was going on, and stepped quickly to Auswurf's side and taldking his arm tried to lead him away. Auswurf at once dis- engaged Claiborne's grasp and remained where he was. " they-are bad men, very bad men," expostulated Claiborne in a low tone, "and they will certainly hurt you." "I don't care how bad they are," said Auswurf. "Then, if you will stay here," returned Clai- borne, "I will stay with you. " I am abundantly able to take care of myself," said Auswurf, somewhat haughtily. "Besides it would be disgraceful to have a scene here, and if you will leave this to me, there will be none. Walk off quietly, and no one will dream that anything wrong has happened;" and he seized Olai- borne's arm and gently forced him away. Then turning to the circle of the bully's supporters, he said with the volubility of an auctioneer: "H suppose, gentlemen, you have all come for your titles; your friend here is delighted with his, and I can do just as well by the rest of you. First come, first served, but all shall be suited. This saffi-on gentleman must have a flowing Spanish mane and tail to his title; pale-haired Saxon won't do for him; Don Hugh de los MuLtos, is he. The gentleman with the round stomach shall have the plumpish name of Baron Philpaunch. The Teuton there with the waxed mustache and prettily pompous, nobody-in-particular look, is milord Shouspeeler Lauternichts. And as I live; there's a sprig of divinity, one of your secession he- Jezebels; ah, my Lord Bishop of the see of Touslewench, all hail! a most spiritual person, truly." At that the -yet unchris- tened part of the circle, not relishing the prospect of receiving names which would stick to them for life, began to break and straggle to the rear. "Hold on, gentleman," said Auswurf, "'you are not all served, and our stock is not exhausted; we have a beautiful lot remaining; we make it a point never to let anybody go away unserved. What, gentleman," he exclaimed, as the last fragments of the rowdyish circle drifted away, "you are not going sure enough? Well, I'll just throw a dozen or so titles after you, and you can divide them to suit your tastes; every aristocracy should show its orion and characteristics in its nomenclature ; here you are, my lords.--Lord Kickem, Lord Cuffem, Lord Gou- germ, Lord Scrougem, Lord Slashem, Lord Gashem, Lord Mash- em, Lord Squashem, Lord Niggerdogge, LordrKnoutslinger, and so forth, and so forth. My lords, are you all served? Call again, my lords; noble lords, your servant bows you adieu." page: 246-247[View Page 246-247] 246 S THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. It happened that his ne;xt neighbor, as he took the nearest ii chair, was a furious female "statesman," whose notorious lack of common-sense had caused her-to be excluded from the conference !- at Druid Hill, but who had heard of Auswurf's speech and had ! made boasts of Vhat she intended to say to him if she ever met him. She accordingly forthwith pounced upon him most vigo- rously, and roared away like a maniac for half an hour, telling him what "we" intended to do--that "we" intended to fight for "our rights," conquer the whole world and the Yankees in parti- : cular, take what" we "wanted, and burn up the rest. "Now," said she, concluding with a grunt of satisfaction, " what do you think of that?" "Madam," he inquired, " did you mean that for me?" "Yes, I did ; and I demolished the whole set of you. "Well," ? said he, " will you please demolish me over again,. so that I may watch you and know of it? "No," she snapped savagely. "1 "Maybe it don't matter," he said meekly. She bounced up an- grily and took a seat on the other side of the room. . Near him, on his left hand, sat the beautiful, mild-faced lady, who, earlier in the evening, had inquired so. anxiously whether there was going to be war. The outcast's great but bitter heart warmed towards that woman; he knew that she was as true and noble in mind and heart as she was beautiful in person. Not only had she been present at the conference at, Druid Bill and been in- troduced to him there, but she had been an understanding witness of his rencounters with the bullies and the female "statesman,." So she turned towards him, and concealing, for a woman's reason, the extent of her knowledge of him and his opinions, said seri- ously: "They say your sagacity is great, and your spirit noble and profound. Will you not tell me, whether you think the Southern States will be allowed to go in peace, and, if not, whether enough States will withdraw to preserve themselves from con- quest?" , He answered that he never talked politics. "But -these questions are more than political" X/ "True, but as I am neither a woman nor a slave-holder, I cannot be supposed to be competent to form an opinion about them./' -, "Please do not misunderstand me so far," she replied with a a blush, " as to think I put the question in the spirit of either of ^s the classes you have named." Then she added 'rith excusable ! -KS ' " , - * ^. CRtIME DE LA CBEME AMERICAINE. a= pride: "I am the daughter and the granddaughter of a Senator. I have been accustomed to hear public questions discussed from childhood. You doubtless have a correct opinion as to where the boundary line will run ; will you not favor me with it?" "Since you really wish it. For a brief year or two, the northern line of the Confederacy will run a zigzag course from the putrid heart of one Border State, or Northern traitor, to another. After that, you will have to hunt for it in the moonshine that fell at Palmyra a thousand years ago." "Do you mean that the South will not succeed?" "I mean that what you call the South will be blotted from the face of the earth." "You mean that slavery will be destroyed." f "Yes, and the slave-holders with it. Those of them who sur- vive the conflict of sections, will be quickly obliterated by the con- flict of races. But after them will probably come a wiser genera- tion, who will understand their age, and not, in their sectional squabbles, fly in the face of destiny and every law of nature." "But in case of a conflict of races, I should think the negro would be exterminated, as the Indian was." "Unquestionably he will disappear, but not altogether: in the manner you suppose. The Indian had not power of endurance enough to survive servitude ; the negro has thrived and prospered under it, and if madness shall precipitate a conflict of races, you will find that, with the assistance he will receive, he will outride the storm in which the excitable, weakened and suicidal Southron will perish." "How do you mean, then, that the negro race will disappear?" "By being incorporated, to some extent, with the white into a new race of men. The overplus not needed for the new type will be removed.", "But I should think," she replied, " that the passion and sub- tlety of the mixed races would render them unavailable for civiliza- tion. " "The passion and subtlety of the mixed races, when they shall be raised, enlarged and purified by new spiritual forces, as they will be, will be precisely what the next civilization will need. " "Heaven save us from the fate you indicate," she exclaimed. "Heaven will do nothing of the sort," he answered curtly. "But shal I tell you how you may save yourselves from massacre page: 248-249[View Page 248-249] 254zJ THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. and other horrors which you are now assiduously courting? It is by a voluntary fusion of the races, instead of a -forcible one. But, of course, you would all rather die; and future ages will thank the Father they adore, that present society could not fuse the races except by its own extinction." She recoiled with horror and turned pale. "The picture," continued Auswurf, " is the offset to slavery in this country. Let haughty, dainty, race-crushing crime, contemplate it and say whether slavery and plunder are so comfortable a thing, so special a boon of heaven, at last. I have no wish to either shock you or offend you. I bid you good-evening;" and he bowed and was about to withdraw. "Stay a moment, I beseech you," she exclaimed. "You shock me indeed, in one sense, but you are far from offending me. Can you not, will you not, at least tell us, without mockery, how you think we may save ourselves from the awful doom you predict?"- "Do you think," he asked, "I would lift my hand to oppose the state of things out which alone, the world being what it now is, the future can be born? I weep, indeed, over a high-souled people doomed to perish, and I loathe the whole state of things which renders their destruction necessary. But the richest boon the misguided and sinful spirit of man has in this world is the retribution which purges- it of crime and prepares it for a larger and holier life." Then, as he left her, she looked after him regretfully; for the interest he had inspired in her beautiful heart was very great, and she never ceased to remember him. Urania, surrounded by her usualthrong of admirers and pressed by many solicitations, had danced a little, and then complaining of fatigue and a slight headache, had declined to make any further -* engagements for the present. She was paler than usual and much less vivacious. She thought that when she quit dancing, she would get rid of the crowd- of dandies and fortune-hunters who worried her with their attentions, and for the first time in her life severely tried her complaisance; but half a score of them still hung around her, chattering, bantering, simpering, exhibiting their little graces, snapping their little repartees, each striving to incline the even balance of her civility into some special indica- tion, however slight, of partiality for himself. Sick of the silly compliments which were dinned in her ear, and wondering whether i' rf . ^ CRi M DE DE A CRE"ME AMbRICAINE. 249 beaux cease to be simpletons after they are at last. securely married, she sought relief in silencing, by agreat deal of tact, the clamor of the dandies and giving the lead in the conversation to two or three really able men, who honored her by their attendance. But unfortunately these thought that a woman can talk nothing but nonsense, and so instead of conversing on subjects which would have entertained her, they made themselves ridiculous by trying to imitate the gambols of the dandies. Thus matters had stood at the moment of Auswurf's coming. After that, she became still more impatient, and was fast becoming unamiable; but instantly remembering herself, her eyes filled with tears, and she was for the rest of the evening particularly gracious to all those to whom she had spoken impatiently-which caused each one of them to thank the gods for the shot he had received, and to dream of fair archers and huntresses for a month afterwards. At length, she commenced putting her party through a round of games which was somewhat funnel-shaped, and cut off two or three disconsolate fops every time the game was changed. Finally, only Mr. Snort and two other persevering geniuses remained. Mr. Snort, when his interval of ten minutes was up, oscillated back to the brandy-closet with the regularity of a pendulum. Then she broke her fan, and one of the gentleman bolted off to mend it in some very ingenious manner known only to himself. When her fan was gone, her headache grew worse, and the other gentleman was very anxious to go and fetch her some ammonia, but did not like to leave her when she was ill. She assured him this made no difference, and he departed. Then she looked around with a sigh of relief, and saw Auswurf coming towards her. "You prefer conversation to dancing?" he inquired, as if he wished that she did not. "I danced earlier in the evening," she replied, " but in declin- ing other solicitations did not say that I should not dance again." "The evening is not warm, and your color happily excludes the idea that you axe ill. I have the honor to solicit your hand-for a waltz." ' Both the request and the manner in which it was put were pur- posely audacious; but she at once arose and laid her hand on his arm with manifest pleasure. Then suddenly recollecting herself she said: "A waltz? I have never waltzed with a gentleman.- Besides, I have refused to waltz with Mr. Snort this evening." page: 250-251[View Page 250-251] 250 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "I happened to overhear his request," replied Auswurft pur- posely ignoring the general observation. "We shall try to pre- vent his being offended with you for waltzing with me. " "You gave what I said a turn which I did not design," was all she said, as he led her away. A large hall on the second floor had been appropriated by a number of particularly fashionable and fast youths and maidens who relished no amusement less highly seasoned than the waltz, and were composing there that dithyrambic poetry of motion. Elfish strains rioted in voluptuous freedom on the strings of the, violins, and leaping off into the air with mad summersaults went ricocheting along the nerves. Auswurf led Urania thither, and soon they too were whirling through the bewildering mazes of the dance with the rest. "Confess that you wonder at my waltzing," said Auswurf. "I thought you might dance a quadrille," she replied, secretly remembering her motive -for leaving herself free to dance again, in declining further engagements; "but I scarcely thought you would waltz." "It must be a strong motive, indeed, that could make me waltz. Now, there is Mr. Snort." "What of him? I do not see the connection. '" "Nothing, only he would give any number of oysters-say a cart-load-to be where I am." "I hope," she replied unconsciously, "you do not think I would waltz with him?" "Why not' with him, if with me, Miss Moultrie?"The question confused her: she made no answer. "By the way," he continued, "have you observed the golden clasp set with diamonds, with which that rose-bud is fastened to his left--breast?" "I have scarcely noticed it." "I confess that puzzles me." "Why so?" "Because Mr. Snort tells very one that the rose was presented to him, and lets every one see that the word Urania is inscribed on the clasp." "I know nothing about it," she exclaimed, as the blood rushed in torrents into her cheeks. "Do not blush so, Miss Moultrie," he replied, as if deprecating an indiscretion. "You may betray to our gay companions here da eCREEME DE IA OEEE LA AM: A OICrAINE 251 your interest in the subject-roses, Snort, and oysters, sweet tril- "It is probably a mistake," she replied, "about the word 'Ura- nia ' being engraved on the clasp." "Not by any means, I assure you." "Then since my name happens to be the same, I will demand an explanation of Mr. Snort." "What, Miss Moultrie, you would not get up a scandal! Be- sides, you would be greatly mortified if it should turn out that some one who had the right to do so had advised Mr. Snort to say you sent that rose to him." Her eyes fell beneath the gaze he fixed on them, and the blood fled back again out of her face. "Or MkTr. Snort might explain that he only intended to pay you a res- pectful devotion in the act you resent." "I do not see that that would excuse his impertinence." "Oh! it is eminently proper, I assure you, for Mr. Snort to wear that rose and engrave your name on its clasp." "Why do you say that?" "Because he loves you-you-and oysters-passionately." No answer.... "And he intends to marry you." Still no answer, but a shudder.... "And there is little doubt in my mind that he will succeed in his design." The assertion stunned her; she paused in the middle of the floor. "Pray, Miss Moultrie," he said sharp- ly, bearing her on with a strong grasp, " let us not be run over by the next couple. "Tis singular-isn't it?" as if asking her opinion, appealing to her experience on some knotty question in psychology--" how we are somnetimes shocked by hearing others speak bluntly of matters rwhich have long been familiar to our own secret thoughts?" "I have good reason to be indignant at you," she returned, "if I ever could be offendedatyou atall. But I have one request to make of you. Will you grant it?" "What is your request?" he inquired, evasively. "Tell me frankly why you gave him that rose." "Because to me it meant nothing, while bestowed on him it would promote the plot, and lead to a happy "- "That's enough; desist." "Certainly, at your request, since at your request I began. But just look at Mr: Snort," he said very quickly, indicating by a glance the spot where that gentleman was standing transfixed with page: 252-253[View Page 252-253] Ad=- . Ad . --A .a - W--:. VX -- l, / vJL V VL JL .AJ . astonishment to behold Urania waltzing with Auswurf. "You see he returned to the parlorsfrom the brandy-closet, and, missing you, followed you here to find that you have slighted him and are waltz- ingwith me. See how angrily he is looking at you just now, and how he is unconsciously crushing that alter-tu rose with his fingers. There's a study for you. Observe him narrowly, and tell me what you think his passion for you amounts to, expressed in bivalves." "I What good can it do you to pain me so?" she asked indig- nantly. "I was just coming to that. You must waltz with Mr. Snort." "I shall not do it." "What, Miss Moultrie! You will not deprive him of the hap- piness of encircling you with that adventurous arm which in romantic boyhood hath: delved for oysters--of pressing you to that manly heart which throbs so wildly with love of you and oysters. Heavens, Miss Moultrie, how can you, for the sake of Natural History, if you value no other consideration, refuse to be his waltzing oyster!" Before she could reply, the music suddenly ceased, and he led her, trembling with pain and indignation, to the upper end of the hall, where the omnibus nose reared aloft it huge porportions. Her head and heart both seemed to be literally bursting, and she scarcely saw or thought whither he was going. "Mr. Snort," said Aus- wurf, with a smile and a bow," I have the honor of relinquishing to you your accomplished partner, who, having never before waltzed with a gentleman, has just been experimenting with me, and will now execute the movemeat with practised grace with you." Mr. Snort's late indignation and- puzzled jealousy-was Auswurf playing him false? at all events, even if he was carrying out the agreement, what right had he to go to waltzing withll her?-gave place to rapturous smiles at this flattering explanation. Instantly Auswurf transferred Urania's hand to Mr. Snort's arm. Gliding through the crowd as if by magic, he was separated from them some distance before Urania, whom he had purposely made any, had sufficiently recovered from the shock to comprehend what 13 had done. It was too late then to recede. Though she had refused to walltz with Mr. Snort, and would rather have been sub- jected to any other torment than that, she saw that she was now under the necessity of doing so, or acting a disgraceful part. With scarcely a moment's intermission, some gay reveller called to the ,. CREEME DE LA CREEME AMTERIAINE. 253 musicians for another waltz, the music began again, and away the giddy couples went whirling madly as before. Urania, scarcely able to support herself, begged her partner in a faint voice to conduct her to a chair, but her request was drowned by the music, and between brandy and delight Mr. Snort was in too glorious a condition to notice that anything was wrong. But before they had taken a dozen steps in the dance she had fainted on his arm. The ladies all screamed at the pitch of their little voices, the music ceased, and in an instant the whole room was in an uproar, those nearest the scene of the disaster rushing away from it, those at a distance rushing towards it, and all alike, no matter which way they ran, crying out at the pitch of their voices, "1 What is the matter?" Springing to the spot where she was, Auswurf literally tore her from Mr. Snort's arms and the flower from his breast, and while the rest were still standing by in indecision, had borne her out of the crowd to a cool balcony and to a settee which stood there. : Fetching water from a cooler near by in the hall, he bathed her temples, and in a moment more she opened her eyes. Resum- ing her self-control at once, she assured those around that she was again quite as well as usual, and hoped no one would feel the slightest uneasiness on her account. Then turning to Auswwrf she commanded him quite pointedly to conduct her back to the parlor. As they descended the stairs together, she, leaning heavily on his arm for support, said: "I know that you have tried to make me angry with you, and, to please you, I almost wish I could feel less confident that some noble motive unknown to me has prompted this action, and so be displeased at it. But I am more just to you than you are to me. I cannot misunderstand you, even at your own command. I shall forgive and more than forgive all to the motive which prompted you to this cruel and needless deed. " He walked on with his eyesbent on the floor, but said nothing. How terribly his scheme had recoiled against him. He had in- tended to make her at once and forever vindictively angry with him and disgusted with Mr. Snort; but she had penetrated part of his plan and had forgiven him. They presently reached the' parlor, and he found a seat for her on a divan. He bent over her a moment and whispered, "It is enough." It was his answer to her last remark--to her forgiveness. Then in a moment more he l page: 254-255[View Page 254-255] 254 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. was gone. As he was talding his hat from the rack, Claiborne came up and expostulated with him for going home so early. Finding that the boy really wished to go, he insisted on sending him home in the carriage, ordered it to the door, and then accom- panied him to it, talking away meanwhile in his most dashing and fascinating manner; but Auswurf, now in the terrible rebound, scarcely heard and did not at all reply to what he said. Claiborne handed him into the carriage with many playful and endearing epithets, then grasped his hand to say farewell, but startled by its icy coldness instantly released it and exclaimed, rapidly: "What is the matter? You are ill. Shall I send for anything? Ice is not colder than your hand. And you have not spoken for half an hour. What is the matter with you, my dear friend?" "( My hand, as you say, is cold-I had not observed it before- it is nothing; good-by." "But you are evidently in great pain-your face is absolutely colorless-you are faint, ill without knowing it, seriously so, I fear." "You are mistaken. I am very well. But let me shake hands with you again. There, let me go now." (c I will call early to-morrow morning to see how you are." "I forbid your doing anything of the kind. I shall be very busy to-morrow, and you must not disturb me. You may know that I shall be very well; so think no more about it." ' Then, good-night." "Good-night." THe closed the door, and the carriage rolled away. Auswurf sank back upon the seat like one who is numbed with cold, and for an instant thought of nothing, recollected nothing-not even where and who he was. The driver turned the first corner above the house to take the direction of Auswurf's lodgings, and as he did so the flashing lights from the gay mansion streamed in through the carriage window, and a wild strain of music gushed out into the night. The explosion of a shell in the carriage at Auswurf's feet could not have brought such consternation to his heart. What mockery, what a mournful farce, for him to leave that scene of festivity in this splendid equipage! Calling out to the driver to stop, he dashed open the door and leaped out upon the ground. II Drive back home," said he, "I and put away your horse I And here is something for you;" for in his effort both to X - CRSENE DE LA CREPME AMfRICAINE. 2i5 conceal and to escape from his wringing anguish, he remembered that it was necessary to bribe the driver to silence. The broad grin of satisfaction which overspread the negro's face as he received the coin, showed that he considered the fact of his not having taken Auswurf home a profitable little secret of his own which he would keep close. He turned his horses about to drive around several squares before returning home, while Aus-- Nwurf darted eagerly forward to rid himself of the sight of the equipage and the now seemingly demoniac shrieks of music which still reached his ear. For a few paces he ran rapidly, and the blood surged hot along his arteries, and his face felt all ablaze; then he abruptly paused, and chilling winds, and eclipsing dark- ness, and flushes of icy coldness, and a feeling as if the universe had fled away, came over him. He seemed to have hurled him- self into an arctic landscape where the lightnings were leaping out of the frozen clouds and shattering the icebergs around him. No, no, he thought,-not in this rapid, life-full manner, any more than in that carriage, should he return to his mean and desolate garret. Then harmonizing his movements with the almost utter pulseless- ness and stillness of his mood, he stole slowly along, pausing in the shadows of the trees cast by the lamps-for the late moon had not yet risen-and looking up inquiringly to see whether, while he stood in the gloom, he could catch any glimpse of heaven and the stars through the dark foliage. He seemed to be con- stantly asking himself whether the stars too had not fled away, and to have to look at them repeatedly to assure himself they were still there. Their light seemed to pacify him. Thus he went on till he reached his lodgings. He did not light a candle; its near, mean light would have been intolerable to him; but putting on his night-clothes in the dark, he stood for a moment gazing on the stars, which were clearly visible from thence, and th4en lay down soothed and satisfied by the sight, and slept. And in his sleep he kept murmuring: "The stars are still there--yes, the stars are still there." page: 256-257[View Page 256-257] ZOOt THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. CHAPTER XIV. THE FAAEWELL. HE awoke the next, morning listless and unstrung. The uni- verse seemed to have lost a portion of its light and beauty while he slept, and its forces to have gone back to grosser forms. The fiery and untempered beams which poured in at the window, as he threw open the shutters,. had suffered a subtraction of their soft, effulgent quality, and were burning away the darkness rather than dispelling it. Something beautiful seemed to have faded from the world, a star to have expired, an angel to have died in heaven. He walked down to the bay in the sunrise, as was his wont, to re- ceive its morning breeze upon his cheek, and to gaze upon its masted cosmopolites fresh from the lands of his dreams, and he longed then, as he gazed, to take their great white wings and fly away to the uttermost parts of the earth. Returning past the res- taurant where he took his meals, he drank a cup of coffee and then went back to his room. He again took up the Schoolmen and turned over the quaint old pages; but he thought not now of their sharp doctrines and stout wrangles; no longer with keen and barbed analysis pierced through the tough integuments of their thought to the unconscious forces at the centre of it and the age; but he thought, with sombre emotion, only of the lonely and un- known graves in various corners of Europe in which the bones of these men lay mouldering, with worms crawling through the sockets where these acute and zealous minds had dwelt and labored. Piling the volumes on top of one another, with the larger at the bottom and the smaller successively above, and looking curiously at the pyramid, he reflected what an amount of toil and thought-yes, and human feeling they represented. Human hearts had throbbed beneath that bonelike dryness; thril- ling hopes and high ambition had inspired these iron-jawed stone- borers, these conscientious, laborious chaff-threshers, with gristly Aristotle for their flail; and as each successive schoolman had ma- cerated another slice of granite, or wrung yet another grainless husk or two out of the beaten sheaf, each stern bosom had glowed with hopes of eternal fame. Yet how despised and derided were they all now! This was the scholar's reward, this his god- like heart's fruition! What a mission of usefulness to the mod- . ::%y![i * THE FAREWELL 257 ern civilization these progenitors of the method of modernmphil- osophy and of the supremacy of law had performed; yet the very names of such as were remembered at all were become a mere synonym for crotchety and pedantic lunacy. Small account is taken now of the forces which cast all the subtile and powerful minds of a succession of ages on the hard Plutonic rocks of- a forming civilization, to expend their strength in rending, carving, pulverizing these, that our castles might be built and our cereals sown. The despotic and cruel requirements of human progress are not thought of by those who eat the fruits of civilization with- out asking or caring how they were produced. How thankless the calling, how melancholy the lot, it seemed to Auswurf then, of the thinker, sacrificing all the joys and amenities of life, freely choosing desolation, then toiling ceaselessly with no reward-not even the cheat of fame-thus robbed by Fate of all that he does not willingly surrender, that future ages may be happy. How unjust the law by which the obscure-laborers of the formative age were condemned to toil unrecompensed, in order that Des Cartes and Calvin, the work of their hands, might be im- mortal. But was there no compensation? Yes; and the grander, purer and more satisfying, because the vulgar alloy of worldly good did not debase it. But it seemed to him that this reward is robbed of both its sweetness and its grandeur by unconscious- ness, and he wished that if his own life- was to be that of such a laborer, he might at least be spared the bitterness of misconceiv- ing himself, might be permitted to know his true relation to the future and the movement of the race. Thoroughly subdued and possessed by the tinged and sombre mood, he laid aside the Schoolmen and took up Dante, and read the poet's description of his first meeting with Beatrice in Para- dise and her subsequent discourses to him upon the sublime mys- teries of his faith. What a singular fancy, thought Auswurf, in that lofty soul, to personify in the woman he had loved the science of things divine, and to place upon her lips the truths and specula- tions which inspired him with unearthly power. Was the act justified by a certain philosophy of human nature which the in- stincts of poets never violate? Dante- was the twin, but in one sense, the antipode of the Schoolmen. Where had the movement which began with the Schoolmen ended, and what was the remedy? He remembered how earnestly Urania had argued that love pf our page: 258-259[View Page 258-259] 258 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. fellows, when it and they are noble, leads to closer relations with an Tnfinite who is Love--that the love of concrete beauty and truth on earth is the surest antidote for the icy abstraction of law- apotheosizing atheism, for that peculiar infidelity which results from too much analysis and too little creation-too much under- standing and too little soul. And then casting his gleaming eye far forward he looked at the time to icome, when perfect freedom and self-possession would be compatible with profoundest and entirest love of God and our fellows-when the soul might kneel to worship without waking from its rapture to find itself in chains -when strength and feeling in every- sphere might be united into a perfect life of the soul-and when the life of the thinker should contairn a higher compensation than the sterile conscious- ness for which he had yearned a moment before. Then he paused for a moment and reflected that, having set out in the two cases from Dante and the Schoolmen, the poles of the Middle Age, he had reached only the opposite margins of one great page, self-pos- session and love. In this age of the stern, unsensuous paganism which had flowed directly from the labors of the Schoolmen, when law had challenged God upon His throne, and demanded that He should abdicate in its favor, might not the antidote indeed lie in the direction indicated by Dante and Urania? Nay, was not it certain that his own central thought was something of which Urania's beautiful opinions were but a corollary, and ought he to feel repugnance to the details of his own doctrine? His initial doctrine was that of. the conversion of forces, and that as a circle is a point flowing onward and returning into itself, so must spirit once begun in the universe become at once an infinite, conscious self, the material cosmos limiting-since consciousness implies a limit-the Tnfinite Spirit, not in extent indeed, but in modes of being. All righteous repugnance to the conception of a conscious and loving Tnfinite ,has its root in the degradation and disgrace which the narrowness and lowness of creeds have cast upon it; but there passed somewhere near the point where his consciousness now rested, an equatorial line, whose poles were the rational and the emotional extremes of the unvierse, and whence meridians as many as there are minds sweep away, one passing through the zenith of every nature, and -at which is is impossible not to arrive at last, depart in whatever direction we will from either pole. And he felt that the perfect truth will be found at last to be liter- ! 259 THE FAREWELL. ally a life which throbs in the hearts of all the Tnfinite Father's children and unites them to Him and to each other. He then laid aside Dante. and brought forth his guitar from its long repose. He wondered at himself for taking it up-for years past, he had rarely played--nevertheless, he put it not down again. He touched its strings rapidly for a moment, with fingers thirsting for the dew of its soft melody; then he paused and slowly repeated the same touches with an emotion of wonder, and with lingering' and curious attention to the sounds evoked. He was dissatisfied; they lacked character and force, lacked the precise expression his ear waited for; he paused and calculated the distance between them and what his mood demanded; there was something in his feeling for which the instrument itself pos- sessed no corresponding tone. His only earthly possession, besides his guitar and the tatters which composed his wardrobe, was a violin which he had bought at an Italian auction. Taking it up now, and tuning it, he tested again and again its boundless power of expression. Its strings seemed to be part of his own being, and to vibrate in perfect harmony with the most peculiar and characteristic movements of his soul. It possessed for him a power of expression far more subtle and intimate than language; for while he thought in words he did not feel in words-but with an eccentric susceptibility to billowy movements of sound, and to every rhythmic mode of force, he had had, from infancy, emotions and experiences too far below the understanding to be organized into speech, but which again and again flowed out in music. Then he began to express in the tones of the instru- ment a fragment of the experience through which he had just been passing, and as his ideas thus grew clearer, he began at length to add words to the music. And presently the completed composition of both tune and language lay before him. Then he went out into the city and sold both his guitar and his violin, and carried back the works of the Schoolmen to the great library; and once there he remained the rest of the day. That night, he carried his few articles of furniture, piece by piece, to a second-hand dealer, and sold them; then he paid his rent, noti- fied his landlord of his immediate departure, and packed his clothing into an old worn travelling-bag ready to be slung across his shoulder. These arrangements completed, he stood at the window of his now empty garret, andwaited for the Cathedral page: 260-261[View Page 260-261] 260 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. X bell to toll the hour at which he must depart. The slightest movement of his feet on the bare floor recalled the desolate echo - of the stair-steps at Druid Hill that morning when he went down ^ them to his dead mother. At last the deep-toned, ponderous :l tongue struck eleven. He counted the strokes one by one, as : the billowy and long-drawn' peals resounded through the air. He had no light burning, and a few faint rays thrown from a distant gas-lamp, and twinkling oin the ceiling, only seemed to fill the music shaken air with scales of mica. It was not now a bell that sounded; the glimmering darkness itself took up the pulsation, and its throbs went rolling slowly on through all the universe, and the swelling of his heart was now a surf-beat of that tide, now a shoreless ripple pushed up by it, and brandished at the twittering stars. Thus he stood still until the last soul-swinging and powerfully suggestive vibration died away; then slinging his carpet-sack over his shoulder, he went forth from his garret for- ever, locked the door, hung the key upon a nail in the hall, and went down stairs. He stopped a moment on the pavement and - looked up sadly at the window from whence his yearning eye, X: night after night, had asked the universe its secret. The great Cathedral, with its bell, womb of the hours, and its cross, their r sceptre, was directly in his way to the railway station, and he paused in front of the tall, dark pile, and gazed upward at the bel- fry and the cross. A side door of the Cathedral was standing open; a jet of gas lighting a narrow passage and stairs, which led I up to the choir, was burning; and the low and solemn tones of : j the organ were swelling forth upon the midnight air. It was Sat- ; urday night, and the choir had doubtless been there practising their part for the morrow, and some one of them was still linger- : i ing to drink in the holy calm of the place and hour. It was no ordinary touch that swept softly and powerfully as a spirit's wing across the keys of the grand instrument. A spell came out of : the sound and crept over the outcast, and chained his feet to the ground. He leaned against the iron railing and gazed up at the golden cross, lifting itself heavenward through the dim starlight, p and listened to the swelling tones of the organ, and watched the ? emblematic light steal forth through the stained windows like a mystery. - Then the present fled away from him on the wings of his own dark, unhappy yearnings, and he-who had been living so much of late with Dante and the Schoolmen seemed to be trans- THE FARIEW LAL 261' ported back into the depths of the Middle Age-and to be a pas- sionate devotee, a soulful visionary of the age of inspiration stand- ing spellbound and adoring in precincts hallowed by the symbols and monuments of his faith. How enviable to his torn and home- less spirit then appeared the privilege of those sincere and pious men who, hiding themselves from the corruptions and agonies of dying Rome, in cloisters gray with religious mosses and associa- tions of martyred Saints, gave up their years to holy contempla- tion. And how he wished that those lonely ages could roll back upon the world, and that he could carry his weary heart into their sacred repose, and find peace and rest. Drawn by such reflections as these, he passed through the gate into the yard; approaching the open side door, he stopped for a moment, and then entered the Cathedral. The sexton was nodding on a bench in the pas- sage, waiting for the long-tarrying organist to leave. Passing by him, Auswurf ascended the narrow stairs to the arched door open- ing into the organ-loft, and looked forth into. the cathedral, and down its dim, long aisles. Two or three gas-burners near the organ, for the convenience of night-practice, diffused a faint illu- mination through the nearer parts of the building, but over the altar heavy gloom brooded, while in the middle of the church light and darkness, contending for the mastery, spread a hue of pallor and ashes on every object. Suspended against a pillar far down towards the altar was a wax effigy of Jesus on the cross. The dim light lent a terrible life-likeness to the representation, and it seemed that the tragedy of Calvary had just been enacted there again. Around the walls were paintings representing various incidents in the tragedy of the crucifixion--the arraign- ment before Pilate, the man of sorrows bearing his own cross amid the jeering rabble, and sinking under it-the heart-rending scene on Calvary; and then, as the closing piece of the series, on the ceiling immediately over the effigy, buried in gloom, and sug- gested to the imagination with harrowing uncertainty rather than revealed to the eye by the few chance rays which fell upon it, was a picture of the ascension of the risen Lord. Language has no power to express the emotions which then swept like a wild, dark ocean through Auswurf's soul. The ceaseless and unsteady moaning of the organ, the cold breath of the night-wind creeping through the dark aisles, the dim light falling on the stained win- dows, the gloom of the altar, the haggard pictures on the wall, page: 262-263[View Page 262-263] the awful indistinctness of the effigy on the cross, the impressions inseparable from the grandeur and antiquity of the great Church, the recollections of the life and sacrifice of Jesus, bowed his soul . into the dust. He fell upon his knees, and bent his forehead to the floor, and repeated again and again the sacred name of Jesus, while his heart seemed bursting within him-lifting his head to look on the mangled sufferer who hung from the cross, and straining his burning eyes'to see whether through the brooding gloom he could catch a reassuring glimpse of the transfigured and all-glorious countenance which beamed from the ascending cloud. A long and slowly-rising peal of the organ, swelling up as a human bosom heaves beneath a mighty burden of grief, aroused him; and then, for the first time, a voice, tremulous, liquid and pure, gushed forth into the sombre aisles. He did not see the singer; it was only a voice that filled the great cathedral and his soul. The passage rendered was the first aria from part sec- ond of Haydn's "Creation." This was given in exquisite style and with magical effect, the singer seeming to see it in a meta- phorical sense, -and to' brinagout of it both a grandeur and a pathos which it had never expressed before. Next was given an aria from the sixth day. Then there was a pause, and the mellow tones of the organ entirely died away. Presently the performer resuming, as if tim- idly and reluctantly, and with a consciousness of something lack- ing, sang the part of Eve in the closing hymn of praise. When the passage, "O thou for whom I am," was reached, the voice sank for a moment, and seemed about to fail entirely, but re- covering its power, went successfully but falteringly through that and the succeeding lines, "Spouse adored, at thy side." At the lines in which Adam should have joined, the sense of lack which the voice had expressed became overpowering, and the wavering and widowed tone died out, unable or unwilling to go through the antistrophe of happiness and joy. A sob, as if from the heart of weeping Rachel, rose from the seat of the organist. Then, abruptly and impulsively the sobs were choked back, and as if overwhelmed by a sense of ruin wrought and chaos reproduced, the voice suddenly and finally ceased, while the deep-toned instru- ment took up the wild disordered strain of the second day: "Now furious storms tempestuous rage- As chaff by the wind are impelled the clouds- H - /THE FAREWELL. 263 By heaven's fire the sky is inflamed, And awful thunders are rolling on high." The billows of sound rolled away beneath the vaulted roof and slowly died, and the cathedral was silent as the grave. Had all the music in the world been culled, none could have been found which would have affected Auswurf like these passa- ges from the "Creation." Accustomed to regard it as at once'the grandest effort and the most melancholy failure of musical genius that has ever been given to the world, it was strangely associated in his mind with the infinite movement on which his own life with its pains and dark glories hung; while the self-complacent and comfortable dogmatism which'debased it revealed to him afresh the danger of all cheap content. No music, however grand or pa- thetic, founded on a later subject, could have affected him so deeply. This took up again the long-drawn and diffusive peal of the Cathedral bell and organized it into a cosmogony. It bore him back to the centre and source of all things, revealed to him the first far undulations of the movement out of which he had come as the child of the universe, and bound him afresh to the necessities in which he had his being, yet by its -failure warned, nay comforted and reassured him now. And as the organist pre- sented in unequalled and unearthly power and beauty the passages of the sublime composition which reminded him most of the sac- rifices and mutilations of his own life, the barred gates of his soul flew open and admitted the gloom, the light, the chill, the cruci- fixion which were there before and around him. The effect was strangely calming. He who a little while before had fallen down on his knees and laid his forehead in the dust, now rose up; the tremor passed from his lips and frame, and his tread was firm as Fate's; but his cheek was pale as death. His burden was part of that eternal movement whose steps the great artist had but par- tially portrayed in music; there was in his life a dignity which overbalanced pain and planted the banner of his victory on the broken ruins of his heart; and with that, that only, he was con- tent. But who could be the organist that at this midnight hour and in this gloom-brooded and deserted Cathedral had so wonder- fully chosen and arranged those strains, and so matchlessly ren- dered them? With light but rapid step, he strode forward from the door-sill, and saw Urania kneeling by the organ. Her coun- page: 264-265[View Page 264-265] 264 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. tenance, chastened by sadness, was now raised to heaven, illumin- ated, almost transfigured by the emotions which the music had elicited. At the sound of approaching footsteps, -she rose calnly to her feet, betraying neither fear nor chagrin at the interruption. "Tell me, if you are still mortal," he said, going straight up to her with his travelling pack still lashed to his back, "what prompted you to play those passages from the ' Creation' in that order. You are not a member of this choir. Did chance or pur- pose bring you here?-and if purpose, tell me, I beseech you, what was its extent, and what inspired it?" "You have that in your face," she replied, " which need never repeat a wish to me a second time-earnest feeling. Hcame here with the choir to-night that I might play those passages from the 'Creation' on this grand instrument when they should be gone. If you ask me why I desired to come, I ask you in return why strong men take delight in wounding and injuring women, and why, when they have wrung our hearts, they wonder that we weep, and surround ourselves with sad associations?" "I may have wounded you, but I have never wronged you, and I have sworn that I never will. It is not pleasant tobe misunder- stood by you, and to miss the gratitude you justly owe me, but even this is better than it would be to be hated by you throughout life for cause." "Use no such word as hate. But why do I owe you gratitude? Candor is not often exercised between your sex and mine, but there are some occasions which demand it. What is your mean- ing?" "You have invoked candor," he replied. "See then that you bear it without wincing. You owe me gratitude for showing you how utterly odious and sickening to you coarseness and brutish- ness and stupidity are, and for causing you to recoil with horror now forever invincible from the thought which, impossible as you may now consider it, you would have been brought first to endure and then to embrace. But most of all you owe me gratitude for this--that in two minutes more we shall have parted to meet no more in this world-that the shadow my presence would throw across your fair brow is about to be withdrawn forever. Tell me, Urania, that you now understand and thank me; for I should like to bear away with me the assurance that you estimate arighlt my wishes for your welfare and happiness." ' THE FAREWELL. 265 "I thought I had much cause to complain of you," she replied, "and from the stand-point of a perfect life, the opinion was cor- rect. From that view, Selric Auswurf, how irremediable an in- jury is this deliberate step on account of which you claim my gratitude--say for yourself, Selric Auswurf-measure the wrong yourself. But if the chain is to snap here-and I see you are re- solved it shall do so-and it is not my place to say one word against it-I promise you, since you desire that pledge of my kindly feeling, that the links you leave me shall never be cast away, but shall be retained as a priceless treasure while life shall last. Looking only at what is, and trying to believe--may heaven aid me-:-that it is that which ought to be, I freely confess that you have a claim to my lasting gratitude. You have taught me much, and I am grateful. Thoughts which you have started, and influ- ences which you have exerted will remain with me, and I know that I shall be nobler and better for having known you." "Deep and eternal thanks, Urania. And can you promise, too --ask your clearest and most certain consciousness whether you can promise, for my peace--that never hereafter, in any different mood, shall any bitter or disparaging thought of me find a home in your mind?" "Yes, i' she -replied, fervently, " let us not go our separate ways borne down by misunderstandings, when truth can make the bur- den lighter. We who have met can part without . them, and you may know securely that you are free to go and forget without fear of them. I sincerely thank God for having met you; and my lips can never open to reproach you. But let me know, at least, before you turn away from me forever, whither it is that you are going." "I go to no seductive scene, no silken haunt, Urania. I only go away again into that desert where I dwelt before I saw you. No flower ever blooms there, no rain ever falls, no dew descends, no zephyr kisses the burning brow of the traveller. Only blazing sands and hot siroccos, brazen skies molten by the furnace of the sun, fiery serpents, thirst, famine, fever and madness are there. Thousands before me have laid them down and died in that pil- grimage, and left their white bones along the way. And I too shall soon sink down and perish in the heart of that Sahara, and vanother nameless wanderer's bones will bleach its solitudes. " "From this fate," she replied, "I have prayed that you might 12 page: 266-267[View Page 266-267] 266 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. be spared. I have foreseen, with far more anxiety than you have shown, the danger which has threatened you, and have felt that I would gladfy die to save you. But since that is no longer possi- ble, I would fain establish some inconsiderable claim to your grat- itude, as you have a great one to mine, by endeavoring to mitigate the destiny you resolutely choose. If it is denied you to love and be supremely blest, at least go far away and seek out from among my sex some select and gentle minister who shall love you with sincere devotion, and teach your weary spirit the calm delights and soothing peace of home. None have ever been truly happy who have not loved, but millions have been content who have only been loved." "You forget the nature of the -tenure by which the student and thinker holds his fee. All the joys that other men delight in he renounces-nay, he has no pleasure in them; but pain, discomfort, indigence and slow decay, a pauper's box and six feet of earth- this is the thinker, lot, Urania. He labors like a Titan, he lives likes a pariah, he dies like a dog; and after death he is a god." "But I once tried to convince you that these sublime servants might the better accomplish their mission without all this terrible sacrifice and suffering." "Andthe endeavor was the perfection of all that is beautiful, Ura- nia, but it was not wise for this world. Nature no more than men can accomplish ends without means. It is a rugged discipline that makes the guides and teachers of the world. Nature that has formed the seed and prepared the soil, sends the season also. Having once beguan, she conducts the process to its close, and does not pause half-way-and weakly yield the lump of clay she has been working on to conflicting influences, to be made into a differ- ent shape from that which she designed. Look down that long, dark aisle, Urania, to where the effigy of that exalted sufferer hangs on the cross, and feel how futile is the expectation that Nature, smitten with imbecile remorse, will ever in any instance abandon her purpose." "But you have taught me too, that the world moves, and it has been while listening to you that I have most felt the nearness of the day when soul and heart shall be supreme in the world, and woman rise to bless and make happy even the loftiest spirits of the race. Listen to me, Selric Auswurf; we said that candor should :!! THE FAREWELL 267 speak and we would ooth endure and not misunderstand. What is it that is separating you and me to-day? A cold insensibility that robs your reason of its skill. Where there are aspiration and capacity is there no claim? If you heed nothing else, hear justice, and your own catholic humanity. We standhere before God to-night not as man and woman, but as two of his immortal children. In destroying yourself, you mercilessly crush me also: You do not merely go away into the desert and perish there; no, but you also bind your sister spirit in eternal winter with a chain of ice, and call every freezing wind beneath the dome of heaven to come and blow on me. For, oh! when you are gone, the once glorious summer will thicken into eternal winter, and I shall long to die." "But listen, Urania, to words which Michael from his throne in heaven would not be ashamed to speak to you. I have told you that I know nothing of what men call love; but while my fare- well to you is trembling on my lips a tempest which you see not, because I crush back all signs of it-a tempest from which I shrink not, because I shrink from nothing appointed for me--is sweeping over me. For myself I complain not, I repine not, I regret not; yet, Urania, through all the depths of my soul a knell is tolling as I say to you, forever in this "world, farewell. From no lips that ever spoke it has that echo of undying pain meant what it means from mine; still with unflinching filmness I pronounce the word, farewell. The decree which opened at my birth the last gates of darkness, and has called mildew forth to blot out every star that ever shone on me, proceeded from no lips, no heart of mine, Urania; but from the iron tongue that spoke law to Chaos, and still speaks it now. Existence is very long, and full of lessons of wisdom not less sublime for the element of sorrow. You stand to-day, and forever in this world must stand, where I can never come. We part here, Urania, but we shall meet again ' over the river' where a higher and holier law reigns. And when you shall reach that Hereafter, whether as a solitary and mateless pilgrim, or the burden and possession of unworthy arms, you will look abroad in its morning light with no film upon your eyes, and behold written on the white robes of the saints many a tale of holy love and sacrifice, which was never told on this earth." "But you, my stainless hero and my king, who, I havedreamed, should be to me that true friend by whose aid I should, become worthy to dwell with you in the Hereafter, how can I give up that page: 268-269[View Page 268-269] 20d THE S'lTOY OF AN OUTCAST. hope now with you? I have watched with searching eye the interest you have felt in me, and I have dared to hope that it might grow and strengthen until it should make your heart a heavenly singer, and love for me its song; but this hope now perishes; and the bitterest pang of this parting is, that the sepa- ration must be eternal, because without your aid I can never overtake you, and even in heaven, must find myself ever farther and farther from you." "No, Urania," he replied; "that hope does not fail now and here. The hope itself will long be dead before one atom of the eternal ground on which it might have reposed forever will pass away. And should I wish it otherwise? No, for I wish you peaceful happiness, and doubt not you will presently find it. I would not that you should ever feel one twinge of regret for me as you look back into the past. I know that oblivion will quickly come, and wrap my fading form from your consenting eyes, and I would have it so. But, no, no, not oblivion, Urania, not perfect oblivion; for I would fain, in days to come, when I'm lying beneath the willows, your eye should raise itself from the happy faces of your children to a dim picture in the halls of memory,-and your ear forget their prattle while your dreamy thoughts revert to me with the just and ample appreciation that I deserve. And if then, when I am drad, you shall hear men speak of me as one too early gone, and whom the world knew not, then look far back, Urania, into the dimming long-ago to this present parting, and see my conduct and my soul as the angels do now, and say with a fervor and a gentleness born of a secret knowledge which can give them to no other lips, ' God rest his soul in bliss.' And so farewell!" "Farewell, self-exiled but indefeasible king; and my last words to you shall be: May He who calls you to make the sacrifice, lead you by His grace and mercy to His recompense." He turned away, and in an instant he was gone; and Urania, who had before prayed for herself, knelt down again and prayed only for him. When she rose to her feet, she saw lying on the floor a paper which he had dropped. She went to it and picked it up. It was the manuscript song and music which he had writ- ten that morning. The words-romantic and irregular-were as follows: THE FAREWELL. 2 ' Zb SONG OF ALCYONE--A SERENADE. Harken, thou beautiful, to the voiced starlight, Singing its love of thee; hear the voiced starlight. All the sphered singers have paused, and are thrilling With the new tale Alcyone is telling; At its deep pathos their flame-hearts are filling, At its wild passion their flame-hearts are swelling; But 'tis to thee Alcyone is speaking, Thine is the ear that the new song is seeking. Harken, thou beautiful, to the voiced starlight. In. Long in the gulfs of gloom, Tethered by hands of doom, Joyless I wandered-- Through the chill night-winds, through the deep darkness. All the sweet world was a corse in its starkness; Mildew spread o'er me, Racking pains tore me; Cursing and weeping I wandered. Rayless was I, a sun, Sealed- with the word Undone; In the thick darkness I burned and I pondered m.- Out of the darkness then I espied thee ; Out of the seas of Night, Pharosed. by orbs of light, Then saw I thee, and thy beauty enslaved me, Then saw I thee, and thy gentleness saved me. In the dark seas of Night, Pharosed by orbs of light, Where erst the spell, O my Beautiful, found me, There- the strong spell, O my Beautiful, bound me, Ever to gaze on thee, Worshipping thee, and none other beside thee- While my beams blazon thee, Asking no glance of thine; Asking for ease of pain, Leave but to look again At thee, O angel mine. page: 270-271[View Page 270-271] IV. I am chief sentinel of the domed sky, Watching through all the night o'er the world's sleeping; Open before me all their dark secrets lie; I see their laughing, their wooing, their weeping; t See the assassin plunge his red blade in, See the seducer encircle the maiden, See the pale mother bend over her dead, See the wan starvelings sell God's image for bread. Many the sights I see, Countless the deeds that be Witnessed by only me, Fearful and wrong. Crime and its votaries, Love and its ecstasies, Fame and its devotees Under me throng. Burneth my heart of flame, ! Calmly and all the same, , At the mad sights grown tame Long since to me. i Kindleth my heart of flame I Wildly and not the same, - Ne'er can its pulse grow tame j At sight of thee. V. Unrobe thy beauty, love, now sink to rest; I will watch o'er thee, warding off harms; I'll guard thy honey lips, I'll guard thy guileless breast, Lest e'en the wanton winds toy with thy charms. But to reward my care, I'll kiss thy hand of snow, Toy with thy golden hair, And e'en thy seraph brow. Kiss without guile. Sheltered by my bright wing, Lulled by the song I sing, Maiden, sleep on. Raptured I'll fondly gaze Until the dawn, Kissing thee with my rays, * L 1BJ.. v A h' ."..L U V V .J i ( J Blessing each smile that plays Over thy angel face; And thou shalt dream the while Dreams of sweet love, and smile In thy sleep. Driven from the watch I keep, Banished from thee I'll weep In the far caves of Night, Till the slow hours shall give Leave to return and live Near thee, caressing thee, Loving thee, pressing thee In my pure arms of light. page: 272-273[View Page 272-273] BOOK; III. CHAPTER I. BETI TNING MTO RXTYR. As Aswurf reached the station, the Cathedral bell tolled twelve. A special train was waiting to bear the remains of an eminent citizen to his grave in the West. Tlurough the whole of the long night, while the telegraph was clearing the track for the train's unobstructed passage, the outcast walked back and forth along the platform, and heard the Cathedral bell tell all the feverish and drowsy changes of the hours. In the first blear gray of dawn, a black-plumed hearse and a throng of carriages came rattling over the paving-stones in dull, sepulchral monotone. The coffin was removed to the train, the mourners took their places in the cars, the engine bell faltered out two or three notes of warn- ing, and the train rolled slowly away with its black drapery streaming in the morning wind. At last he was off-free from the associations which were rasping away his heart in the small filings of drudgery and petty trial, free from the siclkness of the waiting eye and wasting arm, and the vain prayer of anguished insight pleading with heaven and earth. Within his arm, fever- wasted, but not dead, still dwelt his sacred purpose. In a new field, far from the shivered glass that cut his feet to the bone in his daily walk, as he went about among it, he might yet give it scope, and die in palaces of peace which it should build. His debilitated and sinking constitution admonished him that, if he would complete his task, he must seek a pure and bracing atmos- phere, and his slender purse counselled that it should be where 273 RE1TURNING INTO EXTri. he might live cheaply. To the boundless Northwest, -with its free winds and virgin beauty, the sanitary Eden of the spirit-worn and thought-slain, he was betaking himself, to yoke his wasted powers afresh to the car of Truth, leaving the result to Him who doeth all things well. The chanticleering clanging of the wheels in the morning air, the vivacity and brightness of the flying sun, the sparkle of the dew in the fields and on the sides of the rent rocks, the curling of the steam and smoke, and the swift irregular darting of the long shadow of the train, made up an attractive and mind-relieving scene. For hours the track lay side by side with a broad river, from whose shimmering bosom jutted up great turtle-shaped rocks, scattering the sunbeams from their wet brown backs. Now and then, envious groves and spurs of mountains would snatch away the river from the sight; but when the temporary obstructions were passed, it would return again to the seeking eye. The day was conceived in September's balmiest and most golden mood, and shed on the varied-prospect of river and woodland a mild de- lightful beauty. The leaves were yet dark with their summer vigor; and in the green arbors wind and sunlight dallied, dancing together on the swaying tree-tops, lending them brightness and joy, or playing hide-and-seek in the far, cool recesses of the forest. Occasionally, a white-and-golden cloud would pass over the sky, and then, while the sun, playing the part of the "Old Man" in the game, hid his face, the wind would come on with a gayer laugh and fleeter foot than before, and rush away intothe thickets, tossing aside the boughs and tipping over the leaves to make her way, as a young girl might saucily wave her scarf at her eluded lover. Then the cloud would pass from the sun, and the retarded. light would come darting down in pursuit of his merry mistress, shooting swiftly along her very track through openings in the foliage which she had left for him, down through the glades and away through the forest, until her languid sigh in some distant dell told that she had stayed her coquettish flight and awaited his coming. As daylight waned, they left the narrow valley and the river, and ascended to a wilder scene, where nature wore a haggard and romantic mien. The gondola-like moon gliding down the western sky, poured from her silver shell through the clouds a sub- dued and fitful splendor. The mountains jutted up against the pale sky on either hand in contrasted pairs;-the one on the east page: 274-275[View Page 274-275] 274 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. bathed in mellow light, save where the envious shadow of the op- posite fell at its foot, or swept across its side like a sable robe;-the one on the west frowning darkly at her more favored sister, yet wearing a narrow belt of white light at the summit, where the moonbeams fell a little way down the eastern slope as if it were a maiden's brow, and as if the dark pines waving in the night-wind were dishevelled locks of hair bound to the radiant forehead with a band of silver. On the, right hand, gleaming cascades leaped from one precipice of light to another; on the left, the dark tor- rents roared sullenlyas they tumbled into gloomy abysses. Behind stretched the long black lines of the rails, twisting hither and thither like,twining serpents around the projecting points of the mountain, and then squirming suddenly out of sight. Winding and toiling thus nearly to the summit of the mountain, they then plunged boldly into its side, and again emerging from the long tunnel, flew like a bird along the very crest of the range. As they began to descend on the other side, the sinking moon deserted them; the shadows of the western mountains, encroaching more and more on the domain of light, crept steadily up the eastern steep until night had conquered and embraced all the world. The night-winds streaming in through the open windows kissed away the fever from Atiswurf's brow, and soothed him out of the con- sciousness of pain. With his head bared beneath the Argus-vis- aged firmament, catching its scintillating beams with eager, mel- ancholy eye, bathing his burning brow in its fountains of allevia- tion, a crownless king among the beggars of the world, Auswurf looked through all the night on the grander and darker scenery which now met his view. When the sun rose, they had reached the western foot of the mountains, and far above them on every. side, from the dewy and glittering peaks, white clouds floated out like flags of peace, or swept along their sides driven by the fresh breath of 'the morning. On the evening of the second day thereafter, they reached the prairies. The track had lain for many miles thirough a hilly and densely-wooded region, when they burst from this rugged scenery into the boundless prairie, as an eagle swoops out of a cage into the free air, and skimmed away across its surface seeming to in- hale fresh vigor from its winds., Far as the eye could reach the plain extended, covered with tall grass and purple and golden flowers; not a tree, not even a shrub, was visible; not a cloud, not RETURNING INTO EXILE. 275 a vapor, could be seen; but the sun, obscured and reddened by a kind of surly, fumid haze, shone with a lambency and liquidness of scarlet splendor which Auswurf had never before witnessed. Thousands of cattle, broad-flanked and brawny, and glossed by fat and sun, grazed about the prairie, and here and there a neat white farm-house, cleanness and economy made into an epigram, dotted it. At length these evidences of civilization disappeared, andthen for many miles they swept across a wilderness of flowers. When, at length, they stopped at a village in the very centre of the prai- ie, at the- intersection of another railway, they met and passed three other trains, from as many different directions. As he was whirled westward, Auswurf watched the others sailing away like mighty birds far across the prairie, gleaming in the sinking sun, until they were swallowed up in the smoky distance. The broad, red sun, which for an hour had hung like a painted ball in the heavens, was now setting. His glaring disk sank slowly down to the flat plain, till he rested upon it like a hoop covered with red paper, and there he paused and oscillated up and down, alternately rebounding from and returning to the horizon as if elastic. First, the mere rim of his flaming face dipped below the horizon; then, his disk broadened towards the north and south and diminished in depth, so that the lower rim was drawn up above the horizon again, while a succession of fiery light waves, given off in the agi- tation of this strange effort, rolled through the glimmering air to the eye. Then the rim sank again below the horizon, taking with it this time a segment of the disk; again the elastic face of flame broadened and flattened like a viper's head, and- the lower limb vibrated back almost to the horizon, and again sank, taking down a larger segment. Thus, the process of alternate sinking and rising went on, until all of the sun had sunk but a single fiery dot which seemed to be a bolt-head of red-hot iron pinning the sward to the earth. Soon that disappeared also, and all was gone. Presently, in the twilight, a long, wavy black line, like the first thin and creeping edge of night, .streaked the horizon, and far across the dusky expanse could be seen the lights of occasional farin-houses. Gradually, the lights grew thicker, and the long, low, black, spangled line rose up into a zodiac of timber. Passing through this, apparently at a single bound, and out again into the prairie, a storm was seen lying in front of them many miles away; and the instant its motion became apparent, it seemed to leap at page: 276-277[View Page 276-277] 276 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. once, with a sudden rush of winds, to the zenith; so rapidly had they gone to meet it. Their steam-steed, with his red nostrils flaring, anrid his iron heart impatiently jerking on his living freight with fiery pulsations, bore down directly on the face of the storm in defiance, while it seemed to spring at him in fury, as a tiger springs upon his prey, to hurl him from existence. The thunder bellowed far and wide over the prairie; the lightning fanned Auswurf's face and seemed to puff his hair aside with its hot wing ; long trains of sparks flew past the windows like flakes of light- ning, or as if the spirit of the storm were tearing the red down from his breast and scattering it abroad; and then the rain came down as if the deluge had returned. In the middle of the night, the progress of the train was obstructed by a river from which the bridge had been swept away. The- stream was out of its banks and spread far and wide among the grass on both sides of its nat- urd channel. Skiffs were procured, and the passengers transport- ed over the wide sheet of water by lamp-light, through the tall sedge and across the swift current. The river, though greatly swollen by the heavy rain, was so little muddied or discolored, that, as the lamps gleamed on it, it was difficult- to realize that it had recently received so vast a flood. A train whose passage east- ward had been cut off by the break in the road received the pas- sengersj and by sunrise they were again on the way. Thus Auswurf kept on- after that, in rapid flight, past infant villages fast becoming cities, through skirts of timber, over sedgy *streams and interminable miles of prairie, until he reached the ultima thule of railway travel. But the point to which he pro- posed going still lay far in advance. Taking the stage-coach and booking himself for the terminus of stage-coach travel, he again set forward. o His fellow travellers were a pursy, consequen- tial physician, of more eminence as a politician than in his profes- sion, a languishing young lady and her dapper little beau, and two or three other plain, unprofessional, unprotecting gentlemen. Scarcely had the coach got fairly under way, when the doctor squared himself back in his seat, and said pompously: "My name is Snort--Hippocrates Snort, M. D., at your service-for- mally of Y-, but more recently of Fatfeeapolis, where I have been State Auditor. I am now going to Council Bluffs, where my son Lowndes is register in the land office. Begging your pardon, sir," to the gentleman who sat next to him, "what might your RETURNING INTO EXILE. 2" name be, sir?"And so he went the round of the coach searching into the biographical viscera of each of his fellow-passengers- there never yet was a physician who was not a gossip at heart;- but instinct caused him to leave Auswurf, as the most difficult ease, for the 1ast. After getting through with the rest, he paused to blow. He then branched out into politics, the American conver- sational common, addressing himself all the time to Auswurf, and he snorted away as if he meant to blow up the coach. Stop- ping abruptly after a while, he asked: "But tell me now, don't you think Lincoln and. Hamlin, Bell and Everett, Douglas and Johnson, and in short all of them but my men-are dead cocks in the pit?" "Well, sir, I'm not prepared to say they are exactly dead, but if they heard you, I guess they are fluttering in the chips and trying to die. But do you think they could hear you, sir, at such a distance?" "No, no, of course not; but what might your name be, and how far do you go?" "My name might be Horseradish, sir, and like other vegetables, the more you let me alone the farther I go." Too jovial to take offence, Dr. Snort had laughed at his defeat, and renewed his inquiries several times afterwards with more tact but no better success. The region they were now traversing is the most beautiful that the sun beholds in all his course. It is, indeed, as it is called, "a country of unrivalled beauty." The prairies were -smaller and more undulating than those they had hitherto seen, the groves more frequent, picturesque and park-like, the streams more nu- merous, rapid and gravelly, and clear as the- cloudless sky which Narcissus-like smiled at its own image in their depths. It did not seem credible that they were travelling in a comparatively unin- habited country, and that the few mean cabins which they passed were the only houses it contained. The prairies looked like im- mense meadows just ready for the scythe; the grass was not coarse and wild like that of the larger and more southern prairies, but it was such in appearance that it was difficult to believe a farmer had not sown it there for his domestic animals; the forests, clean of undergrowth, except here and there a tuft of graceful hazel, resembled in openness and beauty the unrivalled blue-grass woods of Kentucky; the hard black road was as solid and dry as the most carefully kept avenue; occasional deer like those in a park, stuck their antlers out of the edge of the wood to look at the rattling coach, and now and then a wolf, looking for all the world page: 278-279[View Page 278-279] 278 THE STORY Or AN OUTCAST. like an ill-conditioned cur, slung himself across the road in a sloughing gallop ; thousands of prairie-chickens rose and whirred away before them, with a kind of rough-and-tumble, topsy-turvy start, ending in a long, smooth, skimming sail unequalled for grace and beauty; flocks of mild ducks and geese covered the sedgy sloughs along the river bottoms, or flew overhead in long y's and v's which took up half the sky, with the leader's shrill call ringing out like a gong. Such was the illusion which all these circumstances produced, that it seemed the next bend in the road, the next notch in the timber, must reveal the princely mansion of which this landscape constituted the domain. Nor was there aught of monotony in this matchless scenery; on the contrary it was characterized by the most pleasing variety. Now they ferried rivers in whose transpicuous -depths were visible the white pebbles lyingon the bottom ten feet below; now they wound along the devious track through forests of linn, 6ak and maple, over grace- ful hills and up beam-speckled valleys, till they again reached the open prairie; now they followed the course of some wooded stream, adhering to the sinuous boundary of timber and prairie, now dip- ping into the picturesque and glady copses, now economizing distance by plunging- boldly into the prairie andmaking some dis- tant point of timber by traversing a chord arced by the circling woods., At times, the road would run for half a day along the backbone of the "divide" which water-shedded a dozen town- ships, and impartially gave drop for drop to two streams twenty miles apart; and then Auswurf looking away to right or left, could see the long, dusky, flowing lines of two bodies of timber stretch- ing- on and on till lost in the blue distance. Often they would *come to a hilly lookout whence they could see below them a nat- ural basin many miles in circumference all set in meadows, with clumps of trees dotting the marshy spots, rimmed all around with bluish hills, and a soft thin haze, the albumen of the ether, slight- ly clouding the whole. Day after day, when they made the long halt for dinner, Auswurf would walk out into the prairie over the flowery mounds and knolls of velvet, in the elysian sunlight so like a dream of love; and then feeling aweary and all unstrung he would lie down upon the sod to rest. His eyes looked up into the-blue, untartished sky where the pure winds kissed each other --where not a mote corrupted the ether. He saw a stainless heaven bending down to clasp the beautiful and tranquil earth, jRETURNING INTO EXILE. 279 and the fair hills lifting themselves up like brides to meet its em- brace. He saw Love coming down out of the celestial Purity to dwell with Beauty and Peace, their first-born, on the earth. There all these had established their home and planted their household gods, and he seemed to be lying in their antechamber, waiting for them to come and heal his bruises and pour oil upon his wounds. When the sun was gone, the coldness of the atmos- phere would mottle the sky with clouds, and the moon would roll through the tangled masses like a luminous buoy pitching about in drifts of sea-weed. Through all the lonely hours of the night they rolled over the prairies beneath the dominecker sky, or crept along the skirts of the timber as if skulking from the sprites that seemed to be fitting everywhere. Towards the morning of the last night's travel, it turned quite cold, the clouds thickened and blackened, and before the middle of the forenoon it began to rain a chill, steady, noiseless rain, which continued, without either in- creasing or diminishing, all day. After nightfall they reached Fort Z--, Auswurf's destination. When it was announced that they were near it, he looked out curiously to the front, through rain and darkness, at the broken and irregular line of lights half a mile distant on the further shore of a swift and swollen river. The coach stopped upon the bank, and the driver sent across the river through gusts of wind and dashing rain the peculiar halloo which was used to summon the ferryman; but the ferryman was in his house, not caring to hear the call at all on such a night. But when he could no longer pretend not to hear, he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, took another glass of-grog, and brought his boat across for them, with a tallow candle glimmering in a lantern at the bow. It was a small, flat-bottomed affair, with open ends and low-railed sides, propelled by grasping a rope stretched from bank to bank. They chugged and bumped and screaked down the slippery bank into the little scow, and made the passage light- ed by the ferryman's dim lantern flickering on the dark tide, and with the creaking of rope and boat keeping time to the "Heave- o-a-s" of the ferryman-then drove forward and dismounted at the only hotel the little village boasted. Utterly broken and unstrung by the fatigue of the long journey and loss of sleep, Auswurf was shown to a room, and went to bed, but could not sleep. His chest was the seat of acute pain; his B brain felt numb, and his whole body seemed to be dead; only his page: 280-281[View Page 280-281] ZOSU THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST.^ staring eyes, which he could not close, seemed to-be alive. After tossing about for two or three hours, vainly courting sleep, he arose and dressed himself and went down to the public room. His fellow traveller, the pursy Galen, was there also, not having yet retired, having apparently no thought of retiring, sipping a glass of hot toddy, and toasting his feet at the stove, while he discoursed pompously to a crowd of admiring auditors--too hap- py, too great, too near a god, to feel the need of that sleep for which Auswurf was dying. As he saw the latter coming towards him, he took one look at his haggard face, and then springing up, overturning his toddy, laid his hand kindly on his shoulder, and said: "You are sick; let me prescribe for you." "No, thank you, doctor," returned Auswurf, gratefully; "I am greatly fatigued; that's all; I don't want to be prescribed for or otherwise disposed of." The doctor's quick eye-it was the only trait of the physi- cian that he possessed-read the boy's mental anguish, yet saw that it would be sacrilege to seem to see it. "Come to your room with me," he said. Auswurf went with him, or rather was al- most carried by him. "I will now proceed to make a diagnosis of your case," said the doctor, pompously. "Your general symptoms are cachexy, asphyxia, comatose inflammation of the pleura andt pulmonary aneurism of the gastro- meningitis." "Doctor," laughed Auswurf, "don't leave, out the modus oper- andi and post mortem examination." "Very well," returned the doctor, "we will try and omit nothing that is important; undress and get into bed." Auswurf did so. The doctor then laid his ear on his patient's chest and commenced pummelling and pound- ing him soundly on the breast, side and ribs with his fingers. "M3y young friend," he said gravely, " you are far more ill than you are aware; you have got oxalic acid diathesis."i "O dear doctor," cried Auswurf, "please don't fasten on me anything with such a terrible name as that. I'm sure I never could stand it." "And you ought to be put under the bromine treatment with- out delay." "What is that, doctor, if I may be so audacious?" "Why, it is a great discovery which would cure your great- grandmother of the disease she died with eighty years ago, if it * could only have a fair chance at her; But, my young friend," he added deprecatingly, "you think too much. The action of your RElTUENING INTO EXILE. Z!1 brain is shaking your heart to pieces, and your heart is pounding your lungs into crumbs, and so it goes. Give up thinking, my young friend, or you will never be well." "How easy it would be, doctor, " said Auswnurf with a sad smile, "for all the world to take your prescriptions." Then, as he re- membered not only how much truth, but also how much genuine goodness there was in the diagnosis, he added : "But, doctor, you are only recommending the dying hack to abandon -the tread- mill." On Auswurf's-breast there was a singular mnark. Immediately over his heart was the figure of a coffin formed by large, black moles. It was so large, so plain, so striking, that no one ever saw it without astonishment, wonder, and something of dismay. Per- haps, in his childhood, the mark and its peculiar position had in them something at which he shuddered; perhaps they aided his perception in convincing him that he was called to a destiny whose name was sacrifice; he remembered looking at it often in his ear- lier years and saying aloud: "It is a prophecy." This mark had at once arrested the doctor's attention, but for some time he avoided saying anything about it. It was in vain, however, that he felt Auswurf's pulse or poked his ribs; his eyes remained riveted upon the mark, from which he was unable to withdraw them. "You think it strange," said Auswurf with a smile. "It is extraordinary; I have not seen a match for it in nfy whole professional life. It is not pretty; perhaps, you allow it to affect your spirits." "Not a particle, unless my satisfaction at its being there maybe considered as doing so." "I should like to cut it out," said the doctor viciously. "Doctor, are you not afraid of ghosts? More dead lie buried there than in all the graveyards this side of the Mississippi." "Never mind about the dead, my young friend. The question now is how to put you to sleep. The process consists of two steps. I will give you a sedative-soporific draught; that is the first step. Then, do you lie down and go right to sleep; that will be the second step." He went down stairs antd mixed a draught and brought it to his patient with his own hands. He arranged Auswurf's pillows with artfully concealed concern, and with a cheerful but rather equivo- page: 282-283[View Page 282-283] 282 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. cal assurance that he certainly ought to be much better in the morning, bade him good-night. Aus-wurf soon slept, and awoke the next morning to dull and dreary pains, and the most dismal, dark and lowering sky he had ever beheld. He was too langtid, too wasted, to rise from the bed or to lift up his head. The kind physician called to inquire how he did ; Auswurf tried to assure him that he felt very well, but the cheerful words died on his lips half uttered, and his ashen hue proclaimed them false. The doctor wrote some prescriptions and gave him somr3 directions. Auswurf did not intend to take any of them, but he produced his slender purse and offered to remu- nerate the doctor for his services. "Not a cent, not a cent, my young friend," deprecated he. "I am simply performing an act of good-fellowship." "Indeed, sir, if thanks are the only compensation you will ac- cept, then I thank you most sincerely." "You owe me not even'thanks-you owe me nothing whatever. By the way, my young friend, it occurs to me you have been so extremely reserved that I have not yet learned your name. I sup- pose I never before travelled three rods with a man without find- ing out his name. My name -is Snort, Hippocrates Snort, M. D. I am on my way to Council Bluffs to see my"-- "Hold on, Doctor," interrupted Auswurf; "you have con- quered. My name is-well, Auswurf, to be frank-Selric Aus- wurf; and I am from Y ---." He winced a little as he pro- nounced the name. "From Y -? Well, that is strange. I hail from there my- self originally, and my family all live there now, but I have been roaming over the West for the last twenty years. I wonder now if you don't know some of my family; they are the first people of the place. There is Greed, an old college-mate of mine, a devilish shrewd fellow for a priest, and now a great politician ; he married into the same family with my brother Maxentius; you know him by reputation, at least, don't you?" "Very well." "And did you ever hear of my nephew, Sylvester Fitz-Herbert Snort, Esq.?" "Frequently." "They say he is about to marry a great heiress, Miss Moultrie, a ward of Greed's. Is it so, and did you ever see her? The greatest beauty of the age, they say." -REETURNING NTO EXIE. 283 "Yes-that is, no--I mean that I have seen her. There, don't ask me any more questions." With his physician's eye, the doctor saw that something was wrong, and immediately changed the subject. At that instant, to Auswurf's relief, the breakfast bellrang. The doctor immediately began to expatiate on the importance of Auswurf's eating a hearty breakfast, and inquired what he should order brought to him. "Nothing," replied Auswurf. "I had more appetite the mo- ment after I was born than I have now." The doctor ordered the breakfast, but it was taken away untasted. Raining as it was, the doctor set forward that day in a close carriage for the point to which he was travelling. As he' spoke his kind farewell and departed, Auswurf felt like one whose last earthly friend had just expired, and who no longer has a friend in heaven. His soul emulated the dismalness of the earth, the dark- ness of the sky. The beauty which had lately adorned the face of nature was fled. The wind had turned to an elegy, the sky to a sephulchral vault. Without was streaming desolation; within a thousand concentric domes of darkness built one above another, and on the last now rose the giant statue of Despair. It was im- possible to set foot out of doors; the face of the earth was one vast mire. Thus it continued for Auswurf knew not how many days ; for he was too ill and listless to count the weary revolutions of the extinguished sun; he only knew that it was a long, long time. All that time he was confined to his room, and the greater part of it to his bed. Even if the weather had not put it abso- lutely out of the question for him to stir abroad, his feebleness and prostration would have kept him close. He had nothing to do but to lie half-propped up by pillows, and brood over that evil fortune to which broken health was now adding the crown-stone. His little stock of money was fast melting away. When that was gone he would have to starve ; for beg he couldnot; and it seemed impossible that he could ever again be well enough to labor with either body or mind. His long and expensive journey had been in vain, and it seemed certain now that instead of the remote asy- lum he had sought he should find a pauper's grave, even if, haply, charity, unasked by him, should be moved to hide his bones. He had sadly overrated his failing strength; and from the lips of his strangled purpose now rose a wail which was curdling into lifeless whey all the blood that still remained in the cells of his heat, page: 284-285[View Page 284-285] and which must go on increasing till it- would become a Dacotah death-song for all of him that could die. At last, after many days, there came a change in the weather. It turned warm as suddenly as it had before turned cold. The gray, continuous blanket of clouds which had dripped despond- ency, thinned until the sun could be seen behind it and his light diffused through. In half a day more the clouds divided, as a soaked and rotten shoddy, blanket is pulled in two, and the sun came forth in diminished splendor; for Autumn's shears were fast clipping his locks of strength, and you saw no fiery tressesstream- ing towards you as you looked at him, but only his white, round disk, rapidly waning in power and wearing away to the south. Auswurf, too ill yet to leave his room, sat at the window and im- bibed at once new life and deeper despondency from nature's half- hearted retwn to cheerfulness. Till now Eld never fully known the precise emotion described by our tender leculiar word, sadness. He had known an- r guish, agony, desolation; he had known fierce, bitter and unutter- able sorrow; he had known wormwood, fever and convulsion; but the meek and melting emotion which diffuses a divine fragrance through the ruined heart, had not hitherto been common to him. But it now began to be all of his life. CHAPTER II. SKETCHNG A SCHOLAR. THE next morning he rose early, as of old, and crept feebly forth to learn something of the place by actual inspection.- The village was built on the site of an abandoned military post of the United States, and was located in one of the most picturesque spots on the globe. It stood in a small valley, which spread away around the point where two small, clear, rapid rivers forked off simultaneously east and west from a larger stream--as if Nature in welding the three streams had beaten the earth flat with her sledge-hammer all around the point of union. The valley, which was nearly circular, was, perhaps, two miles in diameter, and en- closed on all sides by hills of considerable height. The hills were * c I , BSKETCHNG A SCHOLAR. 285 covered with timber, but the valley was a prairie, with only a few trees on the marshy spots. The larger river burst through the hills a mile north of the village, and crossing the valley towards the south, divided it with remarkable precision into semicircles. The smaller rivers passed the eastern and western hills with equal abruptness, and flowing nearly perpendicular to the course of the first, separated the semicircles into quadrants. The point of triple confluence was not far from the mathematical centre of' the valley. On the northwestern tongue of land, cut out by the cleaving rivers, stood the village, and the crumbling and ruinous buildings of the old fort. These were nothing more than cabins built of round logs, and disposed in the form of a rectangle. The pioneer had trod close on the heels of the soldier, and a village had sprung up like a mushroom on the site of the old fort. When Auswurf returned to the public room at the hotel that. morning, he saw a figure which at once arrested his attention. A gentleman was, sitting at a window pretending to read-nav, man- ifestly doing his utmost to read-but Auswurf noticed that he held his newspaper, which was old and out of date, upside down. His crooked person was drawn as far down into his chair as possi- ble, as if he were trying to hide from everybody; his chair was tilted back on its hind legs, his legs were crossed, and his feet planted firmly against the wall considerably higher than his head; so that if any one had maliciously or accidentally given the chair a kick, the gentleman must have come tumbling down on the floor. His newspaper was partly thrown up over his head, as if to conceal his face, but Auswurf caught a glimpse of the long, thin features, and sparse, red whiskers, and an armless sleeve. With a cry of joy, and a quick throb of the heart, sick, desolate Auswurf rushed upon the gentleman, and had hold of his only hand before the latter was aware of his presence. The gentleman first uncrossed his legs, then let his chair down on all fours, then put one foot on the floor, then the other, then stood up, then disengaged his hand by straightening out the hard, bony fingers, and giving them a jerk, then picked up his newspaper which had fallen to the floor, folded it very carefully-which operation con- sumed some time, as he had but one hand to do it with; then adjusted his spectacles, and gave Auswurf a deliberate survey. "Sir!" said he, stiffly, and in great embarrassment. "I'm a problem, sir," said Auswurf, placing himself in front of page: 286-287[View Page 286-287] 286 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. the gentleman, with the first smile his face had worn for days, "Go on, sir, and study me out; and make haste, too, please, for I'm in a hurry to kiss you." "Excuse me. I have not the" "What, Professor! Failing in this style, and on review at that? Why, I am Auswurf, your old pupil, once the darling of your scholarly heart, now, only a wreck among the rocks of sci- ence. I guess I've got to Charybdis that we used to hear so much about at the University. "It is not possible that you are Selric Auswurf?" "Oh, yes, it is possible, for it is a fact," replied Auswarf, with another of his mournful, but pleasing smiles. "No idola specus, if you please, Professor. "When I was at West Point," cried the Professor, while the glasses of his spectacles became so misty as to blind him. He pulled them off, and whipped'out his handkerchief to wipe them dry, complaining meanwhile of the dampness of the climate, while Auswurf, smiling almost through tears, assured him grave- ly, as if discussing a point in physical geography, in the class- room, that the weather in that climate seemed to him to be a solution of mud and blue devils. But it was hardly the dampness of the climate that moistened the Professor's eyes, too, and com- pelled the carrying of the handkerchief to them more than once. Replacing the spectacles, and glancing up through them with his keen eyes at Auswurf's haggard face, he demanded sharply: "How comes it, Selric Auswurf, that I find you only the shadow of yourself?"This was said pretty much as he might have said to a numbskull in the class-room: "How dare you, sir, insult me with such a recitation?" -Auswurf assured him, with great humility, that he really meant no harm by it, and did'not know the cause of it, unless it was the fact of the Professor's having given him a zero once, because a thick-skulled fellow who sat next him happened to answer a question in optics. Thereupon, the Professor jerked up his crabbed- arm, and quick as lightning, locked it around Auswurf's neck, and placing the stump of his other arm around him also, brought him sprawling with his breast square against that part of the bony figure where the heart of Jacob Surd might be supposed to reside, and held him there full five minutes like a terrapin pinned to the earth by a spike through his back. The chances are ninety-nine out of a hun- gJUSKETCHNG A SCHOLAR 287 dred, that Jacob Surd never had had a human being in his arms before; he could embrace a problem, fondle a Greek root, cherish a saurian ; but human flesh and blood possessed for him a terror that he could not overcome. Auswurf, however, could have testified to receiving an unmistakable and particularly tre- mendous hug from him that day. Relaxing his terrible gripe at length, he put Auswurf back at arm's-length again, and then remembering what an indiscretion he had committed, blushed scarlet, and commenced repeating something about when he was at West Point. "You've already done it, sir," said Auswurf, s" and cannot get it undone. I even believe you would have kissed me, if the hug had not so occupied you that you forgot it. " The Professor again removed his spectacles and wiped them, complaining, this time in a subdued and unsteady voice, of the -dampness of the climate. Jacob Surd, a man of large attainments, after filling successively the chair of mathematics and that of an- cient languages, was professor of the natural sciences while Auswurf was a student at the university. So complete a scholar, so successful a teacher was he, that it was the habit of the Trus- tees to transfer him from one chair to another as the interests of the institution required, and it was impossible to find an incum- bent to fill his place in any. But he loved the natural sciences best of all the fields of knowledge, and there his large and varied attainments were of most avail; consequently, he always left that chair with regret, was homesick all the time while out of it, and returned to it like a child to its mother's arms. In person he was above ordinary height, and much like the typographical character which he always assured his pupils was worth all the rest, to wit: an interrogation point. His head was large and high, and had a roached-up look, like a big wagon with side boards. His features were sharp as a hatchet, but not pinched; his nose went into a scientific tangle as a lancet goes into a tumor, and his chin held him there till there was tangle no longer. His eyes were small, black as jet, and deep-set under a strong forehead browed by a thin brown arch. He wore his hair always cropped close, and turned in half a dozen different directions by a series of intracta- ble cowlicks, and he kept a weak detachment of red whiskers on outpost duty in front of each ear. In his dress he was plain even to slovenliness, and he was so absent-minded that he would often page: 288-289[View Page 288-289] 288 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. miscall his own name. He was the ideal of a man of science- clear-headed, able, comprehensive, devoted, indefatigable. He had the happy faculty of clearing up a difficulty so completely that you could scarcely tell what it was that had puzzled you, and he never tired explaining anything. No interrogatory could take him at disadvantage, no curiosity ever found him at fault; his flights had far outstripped in every direction the keenest glimpses and boldest guesses of his'fledglings. He had been educated at the national military academy, and had lost an arm in the Mexican war; but had resigned out of the army to escape the ridicule of dapper martinets, and to indulge his penchzant for the sciences. He had a way, whenever he was perplexed, of saying, "When I was ,at West Point," just as a profane man would swear. The better class of his pupils all loved him deVotedly and seemed to think that he loved them too; but he never told them so; for he was so shy and reserved that he never spoke half a dozen words to any of them outside of the recitation. A child not six years old could embarrass him painfully, even ridiculously, by endeavoring to start a friendly conversation with him. - Auswurf, while a student under him, had been the pride of his heart and the very light of his eyes-the realization of all his dreams of genius and grandeur. His heart thrilled with delight as he guided this bold young spirit in the path they both loved so well; he" felt the 'keen but Silent satisfaction of a secret believer in Auswurf's wonderful forays against orthodoxy and commonplace legitimacy; he upheld and befriended the uncomprehended and persecuted boy with the Faculty and Trustees, and it was beyond a doubt owing to his counsels and influence that Auswurf was permitted to finish his course. He had looked forward with deep secret yearning to his favorite's future, and built the highest hopes on him. Auswurf, who had a deep respect, admiration and affection for him, had known well enough the state of the Professor's feelings towards himself. Inquiring about him often since he had parted from him, he had learned that the Professor had resigned his chair at the University and gone south to take charge of a half-military, half-scientific school. Making Auswurf sit down near him, while he -would stand up- his idea seemed tobe that by this means his patient would secure a double share of rest-he began to inquire with the utmost solici- tude, yet with -feminine delicacy, about Auswurf's plans and cir- SKETCHNG A SCHOLAR. 289 cumstances; but he shirked and slied like a fox from every similar question put to himself. When he found that Auswurf had come to that part of the country with the expectation of remaining for some time, he turned very red, coughed, looked down and imme- diately began to talkabout West Point. The expression of shame, embarrassment and perplexity which came over his face was so exact a reproduction of that which had rested on it while he was trying to read the newspaper upside down, that Auswurf knew at once his thoughts were running on the same subject as then ; and he felt sure, too, that the tale which hung thereby was at once the most comical and the most amiable that humor ever laughed and cried at. "You will want a boarding-house, of course," began the Pro- fessor, very guardedly, as if he were moving a skirmish line upon a masked battery. -"I think," he continued, absently, "I know of a place that would have suited you, when I was at West Point." Auswurf asked him whether, at the boarding-house he ,.poke of, they ever made hash of the tenses. "That is to say- in short--you are the very person I have been hunting for." Auswurf begged him to explain; at length, by a sort of mental Csesarean operation it came out. "Three unprotected ladies, sisters of a dear friend of mine, recently deceased, reside two miles above here. You shall go up and board with them, and be society for them, and thus relieve me of that duty." And then if the red glare of a dozen guns had swept the Professor's skirmish line out of existence, his face could not have looked more ghastly. , "Relieve you of that duty, Professor? Why, I thought you were residing in the extreme South a thousand miles from here!" "Your board, as I before remarked"-- "Please to let the board alone, Professor, till you have told me about yourself." "Your board at West Point"- "There, Professor, oughtn't you to have a zero, now? But please tell me did you not go south to take charge of a school?" "When I was at West Point," cried the Professor, desperately, determined to die rather than begin a confidence. He religiously believed that to tell Auswurf the least thing about himself would be equivalent to letting out the. whole dreadful story. Auswurf gave up the effort, seeing that it was hopeless, and let the Pro- 1 3 page: 290-291[View Page 290-291] 290 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. fessor have his own way. "Your board, as I was saying, will be but a small compensation for your society. It is my place to provide the ladies with a companion, and, consequently, it is my place to settle your board, if you will stay." It was Auswurf's turn now to be confused, and to find his utter- ance thick, as he protested firmly against the Professor's plan. "How long will you stay?" inquired the Professor, determined to look upon the matter' as settled in his way, and not open tc discussion. "Not five minutes, unless I can pay my own board," said Auswurf. "Auswurf, you deserve a zero for obstinacy," said the Professor, severely. "Professor, when Fate has already given me so many zeroes, will you give me another for being saucy to her?" "I will order a horse and buggy, and we will drive up directly after breakfast," surrendered the Professor, in an altered tone, turning away his face. And then Auswurf put his arms around him, and kissed him. At that moment the dampness of the cli mate brought a drop of water out of the Professor's glasses, anc it trickled off the end of his incisive nose. After breakfast, the Professor drove up to the door with i "spanking team," to use a Northwestern expression. His arml life had made him a superior horseman, notwithstanding his loss of an arm, and he rode or drove like a Centaur. He preferred driving to riding, because it was more difficult for him, anc required more skilful employment of his stump; indeed, with t fractions pair, he would put this to unheard-of uses, perform ing as many evolutions with it as a drum-major with his baton Auswurf tumbled his bundle of clothing under the seat of the yellow-striped, open-topped wagon, and mounted to the Profes sor's side. They were ferried over the river to the northeastern quadrant, crossed the valley to the encircling hills, and then fac ing due north, proceeded two miles along a heavily timbered ridge. The Professor, with the uneasy precipitancy of a man no satisfied with his position, started theme after theme, and hastil; abandoned each; and presently, seeing that Auswurf was to( busy with the scenery to need this blind of sham small-tallk, he relapsed into solemn silence. Patches of corn were strung along the edge of the timber like green beads on the border of a dar] SKETCHNG A SCHOLAR. 291 cape. The first hoarfrost of the season had fallen in the night, and still lay thick and grisly everywhere. The prairie was an undulating sea of down and carmine; the sun sparkled with inde- scribable vivacity and joyousness; the bracing wind expanded the nostrils and exhilarated the heart like a gale of the very breath of life. The leaves at the top of the trees, and along the outer edge of the forest, stricken by the frost before they had begun to fade, looked blistered and scalded, and were curling up and with- ering in the sun, while those in the depths of the wood, where they had been less exposed, were still as green and vigorous as ever. The whole air was full of the peculiar and powerful odor which the green blades of Indian corn emit when frost-bitten. Presently they came to a place where the outer edge of the tim- ber, and the road with it, deflected straight westward, and swept off down a long, even slope to the very verge of the river, when the road again turned due north through a densely-wooded valley. The effect was to make here a stair-step, neat, accurate, straight and novel, in the line of the timber.' In the angle thus formed, on the swelling, high ground of the prairie, and within. a few paces of the river bank, stood the house of the AMisses Howell, surrounded by cultivated fields. A more simple, picturesque, and attractive spot for a home can scarcely be imagihed. Nature seemed to have prattled it out in the freshness and innocence - of her childhood, before her utterances became coarse and gut- teral. She had sung it forth in clear soprano. River, forest, and prairie combined their graces and their comforts, and pro- duced a landscape of rare beauty and wooing promise. It was like a lullaby with which an infant sings himself to sleep at his mother's dripping breast. The dwelling was a double log house, a story and a half high, with a wide, open passage between the tenements. - Its clean, white pointing of lime, and white scoured, unpainted doors and window-frames, were positively pretty. At either end rose a chimney built- of bluest limestone, with all the- seams scrupulously pointed with whitest lime; a light smoke, curl- ing up out of the one nearest the fort, and whiffed off the top-stone by the keen wind, as a vinegarish critic snaps at the curling sim- iles of a poetaster, told that there was the family room. North of the house, and on a line with it, stood an aldermanic barn, from whose stuffed mows rolls and convolutions of new hay pro- truded. Between the slats of a pair of lattice-work cribs, united page: 292-293[View Page 292-293] 292 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. by a wagon-shed, glistened stout ears of Indian corn, last year' superabundant crop not having yet been consumed. In a natura pond in one corner of the barn-yard-the whole country was ful of such lakelets-a swarm of ducks were diving and splashing while a flock of geese stood on the bank, viewing with amaze ment, the giddy behavior of their cousins, and testifying their disapprobation by mingled screams and hisses. A feathered me. lange, consisting of chickens, turkeys, peacocks, guineas, anc every species of domestic fowl, roamed about the premises. Be. yond the barn-yard, along the protecting edge of the timber, was a young orchard of appletrees of the hardier varieties. "Here, at least," thought Auswurf, as he dismounted from the wagon, "is the abode of Plenty. Is Peace her companion?" For, apart from his present weariness, the first breath of au- tumn always brought him peculiar sensibility to home-impres- sions. He never felt winter's first cold breath shrivelling his skin and deepening its pores, never noticed the change by which the thin, soft winds of September deepened to a hoarser tone, never looked, on fading leaves, or dying grass, or glittering frost, or listened to the peculiar autumnal rustle of crumbling corn-blades, that he did not yearn, as at no other season of the year, for the repose of home.. CHAPTER III. BATHER EMBARAISSED. THEY hitched their horses to a new oak rack, and passed through a little gate made of oak slats, and hung with wooden hinges. A brindle cur mousing in the yard began to snarl at them lazily; but the Professor quickly appeased him with a ridiculous " doggy, doggy, poor doggy," and a piece of -meat, which he had brought along for the purpose; so carefully had he laid his plans for cap- turing the enemy's pickets. As they went up the tan-bark walk- the little village at the fort already boasted .a beef-packing estab- lishment and a tannery-the Professor skulked behind Auswurf, keeping him constantly between himself and the house. When they reached the door-step, Auswurf would have advanced straight I RATHER EMBARRASSED. 293 into the passage, but the Professor laid his hand upon his shoul- der to restrain him, and whispered, in a shaky voice,- like that of a boy who is afraid of ghosts: I( Let me take the advance now." He then slipped along the passage, close to the wall, and beckoned Auswurf to follow. The door of the south room reached, he opened it without knocking, and softly entered. VA tall, thin lady in a black calico dress sat by the fire, knitting vigorously; no one else was in the room. Hearing Auswurf and the Professor enter, she looked around sharply, and seeing them, rose smartly and came limping towards them-for she was a cripple, but a very ac- tive one-swinging her knitting in her left hand. The counte- nance denoted suffering, but of the past rather than of the pres- ent. Her face was seamed with jagged, deep-cut lines, resembling knife tracks, not the graceful, curvilinear marks of age. Her thin hair, with here and there a silver thread, was put up over her ears, exposing her withered temples and a depth and breadth of brain- room rarely seen in a woman, and was gathered into a tight little knot at the back of her head. In a front view, her forehead was light, airy, shrewd and ready-quite different from the profile view-as if she went at the World and practical life generally in a different character from that which she displayed, to those who knew her well. Her eyes were gray, penetrating, wide-awake, genial, full of good-will-not simply of goodness, reader, but of active, entirely conscious and discriminating good-will. Her nose was straight as- an arrow, her chin sharp, incisive, direct, reaching straight forward. Her entire expression was vinegarish and se- vere, yet strangely benign. She was the last person in the world with whom a child or servant would have attempted prevarication, and as for equivocation, it could not live a moment before her keen, knife-like eyes. "Well, Jacob," said she, critically, advancing on him, as if she were chargingo at the double-quick with her knitting-needles, "always in character. You come slipping in as if you feared some- body would know you were in the house." "Miss Howell-Mr. Selric," ejaculated the Professor. With an excess of courtesy, he at the same time bowed almost to the floor -charging the obeisance probably to Auswurf's account--and con- tinued kicking around the loose chairs long after salutations had passed between Auswurf and Miss Howell. "I am glad to see you, Mr. Selric," said Miss Howell, simply, page: 294-295[View Page 294-295] 294 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. extending her thin hand and giving his a firm gripe. "Come to the fire and take chairs," she continued, hobbling back to her seat. "It is a real cold morning, although the sun shines so bright. 1Mr. Harvey says there was a nipping frost last night. But maybe you all are not so cold-blooded as I am," she added, drawing back the two chairs which she had seized and thrust al- most into the fire. "Since I met with my accident, I have been nothing but a poor hoppy-kicky hovering on the hearth." They took seats at the broad, clean hearth, formed of just two thin slices of blue limestone. A glowing fire of oak and hickory snapped and crackled around the heads of the great, high, brass andirons, and then went off singing up the chimney, leaving its genial warmth in the room. Miss Howell at once began discours- ing volubly and rapidly, as if she dearly loved to talk-and she did-about the weather, the frost, the crops, etc. It was amazing how many words her keen tongue could clip out of a given quan- tity of breath, and how clear-cut and square-edged they all were. Auswurf looked about the room with curious and strangely de- lighted eyes. A rag carpet covered the floor, and in one corner stood a heavy, high-posted, walnut bedstead, with a tremendous feather bed, bouncing pillows, and a showy blue-checkered, home woven counterpane. Overhead, depending from nailsin the joists, and swinging almost low enough to touch one's head, were bunches of herbs, -and a number of monstrous ears of Indian corn tied together and hung up for show. On two wooden prongs over the door lay a rifle, with powder-horn and bear-skin pouch, while near it was suspended in the same manner a double-barrelled shot gun. A pair of pistols were hung by the guard on nails in the wall. But the huntsman's trophies were lacking; there were no antlers, no wolf's teeth, or other spoils on the wall. Just as- Auswurf had completed his survey of the room, the back door opened, and a plump, blue-eyed, fair-haired lady came in. She was dressed precisely like Miss Howell, but was many years younger, and far more handsome; and if she did not seem to pos- sess Miss Howell's keenness, there was a sweetness in her health- ful bloom, and a softness in her stirring, energetic manner, which indicated that industry and good house-keeping did not sum up all her perfections. "Ah, the Professor!" exclaimed the second lady, with some- thing of a blush, and a decided start. "How do you do to-day, sir?" RATHEB EMBARRASSED. 295 A thunder-bolt discharged at him could not have brought the Professor to his feet more suddenly than these harmless words. He bowed very low, and said, in an indistinct tone: "Miss Tem- perance Howell--Mr. Auswurf." "You told me his name was Mr. Selric, " cried Miss Howell, with visible impatience. "How do you do, Mr. Surd?" was the Professor's rather odd rejoinder, as he still kept bowing. "What in the name of common-sense, if there is any of it left in the world;, does he mean?" demanded BMiss Howell. "I beg your pardon," apologized the Professor, in a pitiable tone; "I thought you were introducing me to somebody," Auswurf then explained that his name was Selric Auswurf, and that the Professor had happened to mister him by his given name, as he often did his pupils in the class-room. Reassured by an al- lusion to the class-room, the Professor took courage to say that names were the most difficult thing in the world for him to re' member, and that he sometimes even forgot his own, so that if he was asked abruptly while greatly preoccupied, what it was, he was as apt to answer Smith or Jones as Surd. 'II should think you'd want to forget it altogether,'; said Miss Howell sharply. After this there was an awkward pause for a moment, which Miss Temperance, with innocent tact which was not so unapparent as it might have been, improved to make an indirect expla- nation in regard to a matter which evidently weighed on her mind unpleasantly. "What a surprise you all have given us," she began. Auswurf knew very well he was no part of that " you all;" he knew that when a lady says " you all" with, particular emphasis, she never means more than one. "I had no idea ' you all' were here. I merely came into the room to get some spices, and, behold, I found 'you all."' Her extreme anxiety that no one should think she had the least idea any visitors were in the room seemed to Auswurf rather a telltale affair, especially when taken' with other circumstances. That is to say, the Pro- fessor kept changing about in his chair in mortal agony all the time Miss Temperance Nwas speaking, and as soon as she had done, he sighed: "When I was at West Point!" "When you were at West Fudge!" cried Miss Howell, in a high key. page: 296-297[View Page 296-297] 296 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. The Professor caught his breath as if in a shower bath.!"Where is Miss Mercy?" he inquired. He knew the peculiarity of the sisters, never to decide any question unless all three were present, although Miss Mercy's presence, for a reason which we shall see, was nothing more than a form. "I have brought up a perma- nent garrison for the defence of the fortress, and I want you to -hold a council of war and decide as to its sufficiency." "There he goes again with,his-soldier talk," cried Miss Howell, angrily. "Who can tell what the man means?" As Auswurf was in reality the subject of the observation, he began to feel decidedly uncomfortable, and looked the Professor a request to explain matters. The Professor had his eye cocked in Auswurf's direction, but his sole object was to see whether the latter was laughing at the pickle he was in. He did not seem to think there could possibly be anything amiss with any other human being but himself; everybody else felt, or surely ought to feel very comfortable; therefore, he did not understand- Aus- wurf's eye-talk, an:t the latter had to say for himself: "The Pro- fessor means, Miss Howell, that he has brought me to see whether you wiv;ll take me as a boarder for a while." Miss Howell laid down her knitting and gave Auswurf a remarkably deliberate survey; her decision, influenced largely by considerations which we shall- explain presently, was emphati- cally in his favor, though ten minutes before she did not even lmow he was in existence. Miss Temperance walked to the back door of the room and opened it. The Professor looked inexpress- ibly relieved; the enemy was retreating; he had achieved a glorious victory. Miss Temperance halted in the door; the ghastly remains of his exultation could be seen lying dead and already gangrened on the Professor's face; the enemy was not going. "Mercy! Mercy!" called Miss Temperance. The Pro- fessor's inmost soul cried "Mercy," too. Miss Temperance's voice had an intonation of consciousness, a peculiar " now-I--know- you-are-listening-to-me," ring, which spoke volumes in re- gard to a certain little secret hid away among the rosiest and sweetest petals of her heart. The summons had the effect of bringing Miss Mercy pitching violently into the room. She was a fleshy lady of medium height, with black hair, dark eyes, and a vacant, impaired expression. She was considerably older than Miss Temperance and considerably younger than Miss Howell; she suffered constantly from phthisic. lE- nRATHE1 EMBARRASSED. 29 "What do you think, Mercy?" began Miss Temperance. "Lord, Temperance, I thought the house was on fire," wheezed Miss Mercy. E "The Professor has brought this gentleman up to be society for us, if we can make his stay comfortable and agreeable to him." Miss Temperance's return into the middle of the room and her allusion to him, were having a visibly disastrous effect on the Professor. He kept hitching his chair about uneasily, trying to get the fore legs and the hind legs to rest exactly in two bright yellow stripes in the carpet, while West Point got to running at large in his head again. He still went on perseveringly with the dlificult experiment of reducing chair-legs to yellow stripes, or something of the sort, as he said: "I met the young gen- tleman at Fort Z--, formerly a military post of the United States. I have subjected him to a rigid examination in conic sections and Sturm's theorem, and can assure you he is a most respectable young chair-leg of the yellow stripe." The Professor was somewhat misstating the facts, as very bash- ful persons, whether Professors or not, will sometimes do; -but his fauxpas escaped observation. The three sisters, engrossed with the question of receiving Auswurf, were looking at each other and pondering as if a matter of the utmost importance was to be decided. Not hearing distinctly what the Professor was saying, they understood him to be recommending Auswurf in the highest terms, and he had no suspicion himself that he had done anything else. "What does Patience say?" asked Miss Temperance. "You are the oldest, and the only head we have now. " "I leave it all to you, children," replied Miss Howell, speaking precisely as she might have done twenty years before, when she was first a woman, and they were yet little girls. "I have met with my accident, you know-I am crippled up and good for nothing now--I am of no account now--you two girls have to manage things now.; what I might say is neither here nor there-it wouldn't be right for me to meddle about things now. But if you want to know, I would say," she continued, taking up her knit- ting again and plying the needles vigorously, "if I had not met with my accident, I would say this : We know what Phil would say about it; we need more society, more protection; Mr. Har- vey is deaf, and Tom is but a child; we ought to have some per- page: 298-299[View Page 298-299] 298 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. son just like Mr. Selric, to stay with us, and that's certain." Her tongue, with all its smartness, was not equal to the task of letting out her ideas fast enough. She made free use of gesticulation for this purpose, and whenever her hands were busy, she had a way of emphasizing her words by elevating and depressing her head. So when she enunciated the word "certain," her lean, skinny pate bobbed like a fishing cork. "Bat you girls must decide it," she continued, knitting on more slowly, "I am of no account now-it is none of my business now; I've met with my accident now." "Oh, let's receive him, by all means," said Miss Temperance, quickly. "Yes," grunted Miss 5Mercy. It was characteristic of Miss Mercy that she did most of her talking by means of the two simple monosyllables, Yes and No. It had to be an extraordinary occa- sion indeed-like the burning of the house, or something of the kind-that could canry her beyond them. She made them express all sorts of emotions, according to the tone and the inflection with which she spoke them. Sometimes she would go for a whole month without uttering another syllable but her brief Yes and No when addressed, commenting thereby on the most various remarks, and conveying thereby innumerable shades of ideas. For though a kind of torpor had crept over her, as we shall see, it was rather the faculties of manifestation, than deeper and more essential ones, that had suffered real damage. "Well, just as you children say," assented Miss Howell, so very innocently as to render it certain that she was quite unconscious it was herself who had really decided the whole matter. "You girls must do the managing now. If I had not met with my accident, I should have been greatly in favor of receiving him, too. I think you have decided wisely; I will go so far as to say that; but now that I am a burden, I felt that I ought not to meddle one way or another. And now, 5Mr. Selric," she continued, quite as uncon- sciously, " you must just consider yourself a member of the family, and make yourself quite at home. You will occupy the north room, the one we call the parlor-that is, I think the girls will con- clude you had better occupy that. There are no fireplaces up stairs, and you are not robust, I see, and must have fire in your sleeping-room." The girls at once thought it highly important that Auswurf should occupy the north room, so that he could sleep by a fire. i: RATHER EZBARRASSED. 299 The Professor now commenced a-hemming and stroking his hair, as if he wished to say something, but was painfully at a loss how to begin. Everybody waited on him patiently, and finally, after expectorating a prodigious quantity of phlegm, which seemed to have rested on top of what he wished to get at, he faltered out: "Mr. Auswurf is a gentleman of literary tastes. He thinks of try- ing an experiment at authorlship during his stay with you, and as the effort is novel in its kind and the result in a pecuniary point of view doubtful, it will be more convenient to him to pay his board at the expiration of his stay than from week to week; and I know this will make no difference at all to you." "Not the least in the world, " replied Miss Patience, with an un- usually energetic bob of the head, and setting her needles a-fly- ing. "We board Mr. Selric because we are prepossessed in his favor by his face, and are pleased with the thought of having him make his home with us. Tom shall start for your trunk, Mr. Sel- ric, as soon as -he comes from the field ; it is down at the Fort, I suppose; you will, of course, stay to dinner to-day." Affairs were progressing most too rapidly to suit Auswurf's views in all respects. Miss Patience, whose energy and prompt decision, notwithstanding her modest disclaimer, accounted for the thrift and comfort everywhere visible about the premises, had actually talked him into the family and into his room before he had time to insist on certain stipulations which he deemed important. He saw that the Professor, foiled that morning in his attempt to get to pay his board for him, was trying to prevent its ever being paid at all; this was the point aimed at by the indefinite postponement of a debt whose amount had not yet been settled; and in the scheme, Miss Patience, whose quick sagacity seemed to compre- hend it at a flash, was his prompt and ready confederate. Hle was grateful to them both, with a full heart, for the delay they pro- posed ; the ruinous state of his finances rendered it important to him ; but he did not want the uncertainty of the amount of the debt made a pretext after a while for refusing payment altogether. Accordingly, he suggested that the price of his board had not yet been agreed upon, and he preferred that it at least should be de- finitely settled in advance. Miss Patience understood him at once, and though she rarely forgave any one who declined a favor at her hands, he at once rose still higher in her esteem. Certainly, certainly," she clacked. page: 300-301[View Page 300-301] 300 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Jacob, you must forgive any harshness you may have noticed in my conduct to-day ; my temper is not smooth since I met with my accident." . That would have sounded like a very abrupt transition to any one who did not understand her; nevertheless, it was not at all so. Her heart in melting towards Auswurf, warmed towards the Professor who had brought him there. "You are perfectly right, Mr. Selric, in desiring a definite agreement; it did not oc- cur to me ; you are perfectly right; Jacob and I concur entirely ; there is nothing like management--nothing whatever. I leave the price to be settled by the girls. If I had not met with my accident I should say-abut then I have met with my accident, and so it is out ,of place for me to say anything;" and sure enough she stopped short right there, and her knitting-needles stopped at the same time. !"What were you going to say, Patience?" asked Miss Temper- ance, with the utmost deference. "I was merely going to say," resumed Miss Patience, knitting away again very smoothly and serenely, as if the matter were al- ready quite settled, " that, if I had not met with my accident, I should consider a dollar a week right for Mr. Selric's board and washing. But you girls must decide all these matters now; come, children, how much do you intend to charge Mr. Selric?" Miss Temperance, without a moment's hesitation, innocently suggested a dollar a week, just as though Miss Patience had not said a -word on the subject; Miss Mercy signified her acquiescence by ar hearty "Yes." Auswurf certainly had no cause to complain of the extravagance of the charge; he was very grateful that the price was so low; so the matter was settled. He then informed Miss Patience, who plainly constituted the legislative department of the government, that at the Professor's suggestion he had brought his baggage along that morning. "(Bring it in, bring it in at once," was her ready "be-it-enacted." "Jacob will help you carry it"-this setting him to work showed the completeness of her reconciliation with the Professor. "I But stop just a moment. Girls, don't you think that perhaps, as the room has not been used for some time, you had better put it in perfect order, and spread another comforter on the bed before Mr. Seric brings in his baggage?" Miss Mercy embodied her convictions this time in an interroga- RATHER EMBARRASSED. 301 tive "Yes?" by which she meant that the room was already irre- proachable, and besides was regularly set to rights afresh every morning, and that there was plenty of cover on the bed for an arctic winter; but M;ss Temperance remembered that there was a softer pair of blankets in the house than those on the bed, and hurried away with a quick, graceful. bustling semi-glide,out of the room and up stairs to get them. The rapid pat-pat of her feet, as she tripped up the steps, told how she always did things and almost seemed to sing: "Did you ever, ever, ever see Dispatch in Balmorals?" "Mr. Selric," clacked Miss Patience, all in a glow, " you must excuse the peculiar way I address you. I cannot bear to call home folks by their surnames. The habit of callingintimate friends M/r. So-and-so by the given name, is one I formed in the neigh- borhood at home, where it was the universal practice. But, per- haps, you would rather I would address you by your surname?" "No, Miss Howell, never call me Auswurf here; I feel as if I had now dropped that word out of my name forever." "Now, there is Mr. Harvey, who will never let us call him Mr. Bly, his surname. One naturally feels like being a little ceremo- nious with a hired man; it isn't like addressing a dear friend, you know; but as Mr. Harvey is such an excellent man, we have all fallen by degrees-into the old-neighborhood fashion, and call him 5Mr. Harvey just to gratify him. But you know there are per- sons that we don't like to mister either with surname or given name, any more than we would treat a brother so distantly." "Call me simply Selric then, dear Miss Howell," said Auswurf with a bright smile, at last perceiving her drift. "Oh, no," she replied quickly,!" that would be too blunt and familiar; it would not express the courtesy and perfect respect the girls have for you. So you will-have to let me call you friend Selric, or Cousin Selric, or something of the kind; what shall it be?" "Cousin Selric, by all means," answered Auswurf. At that instant, Miss Temperance came bustling into the room again, her comely face all radiant with the good feeling which led her to do an unnecessary kind office with such alacrity, and glowing too from the rapid energy of her movements in perform- ing the task. Her one sweet and amiable weakness was a love of praise when she had done well, and a looking conscious as if she page: 302-303[View Page 302-303] were waiting for affectionate commendation, whenever she knew that she deserved it. t ier dear, noble brother, now dead, had in- creased this disposition in her by his flattering notice of her in- dustrious habits from infancy; and she never saw an hour from her first consciousness to the day of his death, that she would not have worked her hands off to win a word of praise from him. She seemed now to be on the very point of saying; "You'll find I've made a neat job of -tlhat, I fancy, and the Professor would be of the same opinion." However, she in reality said no such thing; her words were, with a smile: ("Your room is now quite ready, Mr. Auswurf." "Lord, Temperance," cried Miss Mercy, with her eyes wide open, " didn't you know we were to call him Cousin Selric?"This long speech showed so plainly the poor girl's deep interest in the subject and her horror at Miss Temperance's innocent blunder, that Auswurf longed to kiss her. "Are we, indeed, to call you by so near a name?" asked Miss Temperance, with a smile which the most amiable of the angels might have envied. "Of course, we are," cried Miss Patience, with an energetic bob of the head. "I decided that myself." And then at the oddity of her action and the energy of her speech, they all, Miss Patience included, burst into a hearty laugh. The Professor alone sat stiff and silent; he saw no fun in that joke; the radiance which had flashed out of Miss Temperance's face on learning that Auswurf -was to be her cousin, had been a flash of black darkness to him, and he sat moody and smileless, demonstrating mentally the method of calculating eclipses. "Cousin Auswurf! How delightful!" exclaimed Miss Temper- ance. "It reminds one-of the dear old days, when all was so pleasant, and when all the world seemed kin to us, so thick were our relations around us. Don't you remember, Professor, you used to say, when you came home with Phil, that we called al the world ' cousin' but you?" The Professor promptly about-faced in his chair, bringing his feet around against one of the hind legs with a thwack, while his round shoulders swelled up like a mountain; and .there he sat, looking directly away from Miss Temperance, and utterly unable to think of anything beneath the sun to say in reply to her re- mark to him ; but he still kept his eye cocked interrogatively and BRATHER EMBARRASSED. out imploringly at Auswurf. Bliss Patience darted a look at him ; it was fortunate for him that it fell on his rounded and unsentient back; it would probably have knocked his few remaining wits out of him, if it had hit him in the face. It showed that her brief truce with him was at an end, that he was again in disgrace, and that her vengeance would pursue him relentlessly as an In- dian's. "Jacob, Jacob," she cried, " even if you have no polite- ness, you need not twist our chairs to pieces in your contortions. What's the reason, man, you can't answer the question Temper- ance asked you?" The Professor remembered that Miss Temperance had said something involving reminiscences of the past; so he gasped : "I remember when I was at West Point." "And it's a pity but you'd staid there," cried Miss Patience. "But I am sure, Professor, you at least remember Cousin Aggy Foggle," said Miss Temperance, almost as much chagrined as the Professor, and wishing to help him out of the slough she had shoved him into. The Professor did not intend to admit anything whatever ; there was no telling what even the slightest admission might involve him in ; but, at the same time, if there was any person in the world he did remember with a most particular and undying recol- lection, it was that same Aggy Foggle. He could not, therefore, make a positive denial, and so he saved both prudence and verac- ity by repeating that he was a very poor hand to remember names and often forgot his own. Miss Patience at once detected the equivocation, and rejoined with something of contempt in her tone: "You know very well, Jacob, that it isn't a name, but a person, that Temperance- asked you about." E The Professor rejoined, with increased nervouneess, that he often had infinite difficulty in remembering precisely what he did remember, but that he did not at that moment remember remem- 1 bering any one by the name she had mentioned-that is to say, Aggie Foggle. "What! Jacob Surd, not remember Agamemnon Foggle?" cried Miss Patience. "Not remember the boy you trounced so unmer- cifully at the academy, when you were teaching there, for bring- ing Temperance apples? Everybody knew that was what you whipped him for, though, of course, you said it was for some- thing else--like a great sheep!" page: 304-305[View Page 304-305] 304 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Agamemnon Foggle-Agamemnon Foggle," repeated the Pro- fessor, looking like a convict, "ah-oh-certainly-to be sure. Of course, I remember him, if he's whom you mean. But as Miss Temperance spoke of Aggie Foggle, it was natural that I should suppose she alluded to some one named Agnes Foggle." "Fudge!" commented Miss Patience, bluntly; c" it was ' natural you should suppose ;' but did you suppose any such thing, Ja- cob?" "You observed that I pronounced the name over again after Miss Temperance," said the Professor, in extenuation of the sub- terfuge to which, in his despair, he had resorted, and in which he had been brought up standing by the sharp Miss Patience, He now faced resolutely to the front again, and was evidently medita- ting something desperate. His opinions underwent an instanta- neous modification, by which, while their painfulness remained, their ludicrousness- became more fantastic. Miss Temperance's radiant smiles at Auswurf- had meant really no partiality for him; if they had done so, the Professor felt down in his heart that, as Auswurf's preceptor, friend, almost father, he should, of course, be very glad, for Auswurf's sake; but the Professor saw now very clearly by the light of the allusion to that detestable Foggle-the only pupil he ever had that he absolutely hated-that Miss Temper- ance was a heartless coquette-that she was engaged, at that very moment, in -making open fun of him, experimenting with him, playing upon him, flirting with him, jilting him, sacking him, and what not, all for her own amusement; while Miss Patience, partly from vanity at the charms and power of her sister-her one weak- ness-partly from the satisfaction of seeing him squirm, was aiding her without shame or disguise. He saw very clearly that he was the victim of a conspiracy, Miss Patience heading him off on every side, while Miss Temperance' approached boldly by the front. Miss Patience mined him, while Miss Temperance stormed him; Miss Patience cut off his communications, while Miss Tem- perance assaulted him-and he, too, their deceased brother's most cherished friend, and all this there in the very house where that brother had so recently died. He might have been blind once, but he saw clearly enough now; he might have been weak enough once to let them lead him quietly by the nose, and run him through with bodkins, but he was too strong, oh, much too strong, for such folly now. His face suddenly lost the pitiable,- spy- about expression, which had been imploring everybody not to laugh at him ; he no longer kept his eye cocked at Auswurf. He had retired within himself for the purpose of holding a council of war, and devising ways and means to extricate himself from his perilous situation. He passed in review all the expedients by which great captains have evaded impending ruin, but the one on which his mind rested most was Hannibal's ruse of tying torches to the horns of his oxen, and escaping from the closing sack during the confusion they created. "But I don't see, Temperance," said Miss Patience, while the keener click of her knitting-needles showed the pleasure she felt in recounting her sister's conquests, "why you should think of Agamemnon Foggle; for you rejected him often enough, Gracious knows, and dozens more, better than him." "I don't know why I thought of him," said Miss Temperance, , artlessly, and a little sadly-for to her woman's heart-memory that word Foggle, not beautiful, nor the name of one attractive or pleasing to her, meant an early and sincere love which had been offered to her, 'and which, though she promptly rejected it, she remembered with thankfulness-" unless seeing the Professor brought him to my mind." The Professor looked up with panic in his face; the council of war had well nigh been a fatal affair to him; the enemy was coming on in columns of brigades forty lines deep, while the outposts were unguarded; he looked out the window, hastily, as if he were searching for a friendly hill or a compassionate mountain, that he might ask it to fall on him. The council of war was broken up in confusion, and no plan of escape settled; only Hannibal's expedient remained as a suggestion. "Well," cried Miss Patience, " if you think of him only when you see the Professor, he is not likely to bother your brains much. The Professor never comes here when he can possibly avoid it, and when he does come, he never lets anybody see him if he can help it." And so she kept on for several minutes be- laboring him most unmercifully. Alas, for that ill-starred council of war which had left the approaches unwatched! For a few moments, in the finst rush of the overwhelming deluge, the Professor drooped, sank like an expanded belle caught in a shower of rain. He had Hannibal in his mind, but what could he do with Hannibal? No more than page: 306-307[View Page 306-307] 806 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. with his illustrious namesake, the elephant. As he felt particu- larly doleful, he thought what a humorous fellow Hannibal must have been, and how he must have laughed over the trick he played on the Romans. Yes, the leading idea about Hannibal was fun. The Professor's clouded mind could get that far; but what could he make of that alone?- How would Hannibal's fun help him out of this scrape? 'He might get off a joke, make every- body laugh, become the soul of the party. Lucky thought-lhe would then feel very comfortable; all this wretchedness would be gone. But what should he tell a joke about? Suddenly he thought. of a little girl, a sweet, bright child, who had once asked him, very gravely, whether Hannibal was an Irishman or a-nig- ger, for she had heard that he was one or the other, but could not remember which. An Irishman!-lucky again; the Irish are so full of fun. The Professor's idea of Hannibal, then, ended in an Irishman; the Professor's fixed idea was West Point; the two clashed; it was like steel against flint. The Professor had got it. Suddenly perking up, he wheeled towards Auswurf, as a skittish horse darts from one side of the road to the other, and said, in a confident voice: "Your remark "-Auswurf had not uttered a syllable--"your remark recalls to my mind an amusing cir- cumstance which happened while I was at West Point." Judging from the Professor's appearance the circumstance must have been very amusing indeed. "We had an uncooked Irishman to wait on us at the table. Just to have a little Irishman at the raw fun's expense, we would sometimes pass around the word, as we entered the mess-room, 'Run him on beans,' ' Run him on krout,' etc., according to the formula in Bourdon. One day the word came around, ' Run him on potatoes ;' so we run him on potatoes. In a flash, as we fell -into line, every potato was gone, and we ordered the caissons to the rear for more. The Irishman worked manfully, but every time the dish would be emptied before he could get it out of his hand. We kept him flying back and forth for a while, until he finally came rushing in, bellowing: 'They're all done, your honors, the praties is all done!' 'AR done?' said we; 'that's the way we want 'em, you booby; you didn't think we wanted them raw, did you?' 'No, your honors,' he replied; 'I mean the praties is all done.'" This laughable story was related with as much display of humor as you would evince in describing your father's funeral. Miss I Patience, who had never once slackened fire for the Professor'S ri anecdote, reached her peroration at the same time that the Pro- ; fessor got to the place where he meant that everybody should laugh. Just as he looked up for the burst of merriment which was to make him feel very gay indeed-nay, just as he forced to his lips a feeble snicker, marvellously like a whine, in order that the rest, who seemed a little backward, as he thought, might be encouraged to laugh-Miss Patience's concluding broadside came thundering into him, "Jacob, you have deeply wounded us by your incomprehensible conduct. You have worried us, disap- pointed us, distressed us. We have thought that our life-long friendship and darling Phil's love for you deserved at least candor and fair dealing." It was evident that she was deeply hurt, as well as angry with him. "But," she added, as a smile passed over her withered features, " you have at least brought us our cousin Selric ; we must not be harsh towards your failings. " The allusion to his having brought Auswurf there was to the Professor's befogged faculties like a light out of darkness; the suggestion of Hannibal's expedient bore its mature fruit at last; the previous plan had been somewhat crude, but there could be no doubt about this one. Springing to his feet he muttered first "Silence,"' and then "Halt." He seemed to doubt whether he was in the class-room or at the head of a squadron of cavalry. Before any one could comprehend his drift, he was already at the door. Darting out his arm and beckoning Auswurf to follow, he said: "The bag- gage! The baggage!"This was pronounced just as you may have heard the startling announcement made in the midst of a battle: "The enemy's cavalry are dashing at our train." Had the lank little carpet-bag grown to be a baggage-train in the Pro- fessor's misty and horror-worked imagination, and were the boughs of the trees dark riders with sabre and lance? Or was the danger at the other end of the line, and this simply an imitation of Han- nibal's exploit, whereby he came off with slight damage to his rear? The question is a nice one; moss-grown -doctors with bushy grey eyebrows have disputed for years over finer and less knotty points. Luckily, we are able to prevent such discussion in this instance. The question is settled forever in favor of the latter hypothesis by the fact that, as the Professor darted through the door, he clapped his hand on his coat-tails. page: 308-309[View Page 308-309] WUO THE STORY OF AN OUTU'AS'. "My friend, my boy, Auswurf," he sighed, with an exhausted and heart-broken air, leaning heavily on Atiswurf's shoulder, as soon as they got into the yard, "ah, my dear boy '"-but his emotions would not suffer him to proceed. Auswurf supported him, and they walked on in silence to the gate. There is some- where in the precious sole of every man's vanity a thorn which the jade has got there in her pranks, and to be seen writhing in tor- ture from it completely unnerves and cows even the stiffest and most bloodless professor. It is wonderful how tractable and spirit- less even the proudest, coldest and strongest man, whose pricked and bleeding foot you have seen, will become. You can take him by the nose and lead him where you will. If Auswurf had at that moment commnanded the Professor, "Go to Hong Kong, sir," or "Give me a deed to half you are worth, sir," the probabilities are that he would have obeyed at once without a murmur, and have felt that in the act he was recovering in some way his lost self-re- spect. "Ah, my dear young friend, this is a world of delusions. I would advise you to make mathematics your favorite study. Never teach an academy, and remember that an apple caused the fall of our first parents. Her brother was an early friend and school-mate of mine, a brother cadet, then a brother officer. We resigned and engaged in civil pursuits about the same time. His nobleness and goodness filled the treacherous imagination with thoughts of what those who were kin to him must be. Make mathematics your life- long study. It was a fatal mistake to leave the chair of Mathe- matics for that of Natural Science; botany brought back the recol- lection of Foggle and the apple. I came to his death-bed. I awoke from my grief at his death to find myself balanced on the tip of an endless tangent, at an infinite. distance from the circle of my proper being. Farewell, my dear boy. May you speedily be restored to health. Write to me at V---." "You are not going away to the far South without bidding the ladies good-by?" asked Auswurf, with some astonishment. "I cannot stand it, my dear boy, indeed I cannot stand it. I mean no unkindness." He unhitched his horses and climbed into the buggy, and sat drooping and dispirited on the seat. "Am I not justifiable, my dear boy, in leaving so unceremoniously?" Auswurf looked at his doleful visage, and thought of his utter wretchedness, and answered: "Yes, it is better for you to go un- SAINTED PHL HOWELL. 309 ceremoniously. You will come back some day and make it all right. " The Professor had forgotten all about the baggage, and would have driven off with it, but Auswurf extricated it. He shook Aus- wurf's hand timidly, as if he had no right to such an honor; he did not turn his head to look back as he drove away; he proceeded very slowly and languidly for a few rods; then the energizing thought, "Thank heaven, there is one kind of flesh and blood in the world that I know how to deal with," occurred to him, and, touching up his horses vigorously with his whip, while he man- aged the reinsw ith his teeth and stump, he went dashing away through the woods and up the hill in a really frightful manner. In less than half an hour he had left the Fort for the far south, CHAPTER IV. SAINTED PHL HOWELL, A uswu fw put away the baggage, and then returnedto the family room. Miss Patience, who had probably seen the Professor drive away, said sharply : "Jacob Surd is gone?" "Yes," answered Auswurf, " he is gone." "Gone entirely away-gone south no doubt-and without bid- ding us good-by?" Auswurf knew better than to attempt any apology for the Pro- fessor; so he answered Miss Patience's question with a simple affirmative. "Well, of all the men I ever saw!" cried Miss Patience in per- fect amazement. For a moment she was silent, struck dumb, it seemed; by the contemplation of the Professor's stupidity. Then quickly recovering her speech, she exclaimed, you might think ir- relevantly: "That man is blind, sir, blind, blind as a bat. He has puzzled his brains over books until his mind has lost its eye- sight for common-sense matters. Vesuvius might come and sputter away right under his very nose, and he would never see it unless it let fly a stone at him and knocked his precious nose off. 'Professor' Surd! Professor Absurd, say I." She jerked the yarn off the ball, till it lay in a great heap of white coils on her lap, and then dashed away at her knitting with amazing rapidity. page: 310-311[View Page 310-311] 310 THE STONY OF AN OUTCAST. The needles clicked and clattered against each other, and round after round flew off with astonishing quickness, while the vertical motion- of her head was something to behold. "He is an ass, sir, quite an ass. I think I never heard of just such a blockhead. He is as unmanageable as a pair of crazy pothooks, Heart?-if he ever had one, he long ago laid it away to dry between the leaves of an algebra, as Temperance presses roses." Miss Temperance was standing in the middle of the room, look- ing down at the carpet, and rubbing one of its bright stripes with the tip of her neat and pretty shoe. "Patience," she said in a low tone, " ought you to speak so harshy of poolrPhil's friend'?" A change passed over Miss Patience's tart face in a moment, Her head stopped bobbing, the needles went on slowly, the sharp, quick tongue lost much of its whip-like smack and all of its acidity. A cloud of deep anxiety rested on her sharp, skinny features, as she looked where Miss Temperance still stood slowly rubbing the bright stripe in the carpet. It was plain that the grolund of her hostility to the Professor was a dread lest his incorrigible bashful- ness and stupidity should inflict a life-long sorrow on her darling, the pride of her heart. "Yes, heaven knows," she said feelingly, " he was a trule friend to our brother, and Phil loved him well." A pearly drop fell from Miss Temperance's mild blue eye and dashed itself into silver spray against the polished tip of her shoe ; but whether it started in consequence of the mention of her brother's name or from another cause, who can tell? "Will you not tell me," asked Auswurf, from mixed motives- one of which was to save the Professor from further castigation- "about your noble brother, that I may know him well? He must indeed have been the purest and most amiable of men to possess such sisters." "Ah," said Miss Patience, "we are but feeble copies of that pattern of excellence. Would that you had come a little earlier that you might have seen him and known him as he was." "Is the wound so recent?" asked Auswurf remorsefully, re- membering his mixed motives. "Then, how ruthless in me to tear it agape." "Oh, no, " answered Miss Temperance, "you have doneno harm. It is not pain, but pleasure to us to talk of him, and we will gladly tell you of him until you shall learn to love him as we do." How calm their grief was, how true, how tender, yet how free from violence. They regarded their dear brother as separated from them for but a little while, as gone before them but a little way and hid from them only by a bend in the road, beyond which they should presently rejoin him. They knew that his peaceful and welcomed death had been but the gathering of his robes around him and lying down to pleasant dreams, after a life in which pitying love would have altered many things, but in which remorse had nothing to. alter. They knew that it was well with him now, and presently would be well with them all when they should join him. "We might have known," said Miss Patience, as she had often remarked before, " that he would not live long. How blind we were, dear Temperance. I can recall now a thousand circum- stances which showed that he knew he would soon die." For a moment, the knitting lay unvexed upon -her lap ; then resuming it, she worked on quietly and in very different style from that which she had displayed when she shot from her sphere and colli- ded with the damaged Professor. !"Yes, it seems strange enough now," said Miss Temperance, "that we did foresee our loss, when he showed by so many actions that he had a presentiment of death. But, perhaps, you will think us silly, Cousin Serinc, if we talk of his presentiments." "No man is so silly," replied Auswurf, "as he who derides such impressions altogether. Our unconsciousness is often wiser than our consciousness, because it is free from the petty meddling of the will." "He often spoke, Cousin Selric," said Miss Temperance, "of what we girls would do in case of his death, and seemed to dread the idea of our breaking down. And we have often said since his death that heaven could send us no boon for which we would feel so grateful as for some friend whose presence with us and protec- tion to us would satisfy Phil's spirit, if he can look down -on us now." "I remembered that well, the moment I saw Cousin Selric," re- plied Miss Patience; "and when I looked at him again more closely, I could not help thinking that, if Phil could speak to us, he would tell us to receive the sick stranger as the friend we needed. That subject seemed never to quit Phil's mind, nor has it ever quit mine." page: 312-313[View Page 312-313] 312 THE STORk OF AN OUTCAST. "One evening last fall," continued Miss Temperance, "he came in from his work looking greatly dejected. He sat there at the window in the dusk a long time without speaking. I offered to light a candle, but he told me not to do so. After awhile, -he asked, 'Girls, if I were to die, would you all sell the land and re. turn to Virginia, or would you continue to live together here? I said, ' Why, Phil darling, you know we would live right here until we should all be called away from earth. Even if one of us should be left all alone for many years, she would prefer to live here by the graves of the rest rather than any place else.' He kissed me then and said, ' But our relations at home would have no enmity against you girls after I am gone, and they would gladly welcome you back to the old circle.' I said, ' That circle lost all charm for us, Phil, when it turned against our brother, and we never could return to it, under any circumstances.' ' How much have you sacrificed for me, my sisters,' he said. 'Yet, girls, when I die, I want you to do as Temperance has said you would. Don't sell the land; it would be terrible to miss the end after so much sacrifice and suffering. Live here and carry on the farm and take care of the wild land. Patience can manage it; for Patience is a Brigadier General.' He had a great opinion of Patience's management. When we first began to live together he used to call her Corporal Patience, but he kept promoting her ' for gallant and distinguished conduct,' as he termed it, until she got to be a Brigadier." "God rest his noble soul!" cried Miss Patience, fervently. "He never tired praising his sisters and gratifying their innocent foi- bles. He often used to say I ought to command the army. He always took especial care to keep me thoroughly informed as to the state of our business affairs, and often even made a pretence of asking my advice." "He used to tell us," resumed Miss Temperance, " that Patience could manage after he was- gone, and that when she felt her time approaching she must teach me her art. I remember one night, after he had said this over several times, Patience said, ' Phil, you must not talk so anymore; I don't like to hear it.' He looked in- to the fire and smiled sadly,- but said nothing." "He would repeatedly explain to me," said Miss Patience, "the condition of the land. He would say, 'The title to all the land is in us four, jointly; when I am gone, the title will be in you three; when one of you dies, the title will be in the other two; and when SAINTED PHL HOWELL 313 but one remains, the law will give her all the land, and that's just the way I want it; but I will have to find some trustworthy man to aid the last survivor in carrying out my wishes, for unless I am mistaken the time will come before you all see death.' He had some strong reason for impressing these things on our minds, but what it was he never told us. " "One night last winter," resumed Miss Temperance,!" we girls were sitting here around the fire, piecing quilts. It was a rule en- joined on us by our mother that, whenever we pieced one quilt, we should piece three others at the same time-one for each of us girls and one for Phil. He watched us moodily that night, and at last said, ' Girls, you need not piece any quilt for me this time.' Patience said tartly, ' Phil, you must be crazy; do you think we are going to brejak mother's rule?' ' It was a good rule,' said he; ' by giving it our mother proved herself to be the true woman each of her daughters has proved herself in keeping it; but it is useless to observe it any longer now.' At that time he was apparently in as good health as ever he was." "Yes," said Miss Patience, " but I can see now that he began to decline very soon after that, although he did not take to his bed until spring. He then wrote at once for Jacob Surd to come to see him; for he said that, of all the men he had-ever known, he had most confidence in Jacob. He was haunted by the dread that he could not hold out until Jacob'could get here ; but Jacob made great haste and arrived two days before Phil went to sleep. Jacob tried to cheer him and build him up and persuade him to try to-- get well; but Phil said, no, his work was done and he wanted to go to rest, and so, poor boy, sweet darling, he died at last as calm- ly as an infant falls asleep." And then they wept in each other's arms.. The pathos and beauty of this recital and this scene endeared both Phil Howell and his noble sisters to Auswurf's heart forever, and left him speechless with emotion. What sweet beauty and truth within the human soul were here displayed!--and this world were an Eden if all men and all women were such as these. Yet the very beauty and pathos of the story rendered it almost insup- portable ; and when at length the calm, yet tearful sisters un- locked their embrace, he felt that it would be both sacrilege and anguish to prolong that topic, and cast about for some remark which, while it should furnish a descent from that height, should " page: 314-315[View Page 314-315] 314 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. not grate on their feelings by displaying indifference or being -widely disconnected from the subject. So, at length, he said: "I think you said, Miss Howell, you were from Virginia." "Call me Cousin Patience," returned Miss Howell, briskly. "Yes, Cousin SelIic, we were raised in Virginia. " "Is it not unusual for Virginians to emigrate so far to the north? I thought their tastes and education led them to prefer Texas to the Northwest in seeking new homes." What he wanted to get at, was the attitude of these persons in regard to the great social crime of that age. He longed to hear that it was hostility to it which had driven them to these free plains, and almost dreaded to hear the answer, lest it should bring him the pang of knowing that they were the blighted slaves of the demon, in the shadow of whose temple they had been raised. "I believe it is not very common for Virginians to settle in this country," replied Miss Patience. "But so far as we girls are con- cerned, it was for poor Phil's sake that we came here. It was his noble heart, poor boy, that produced all of his eccentricities and all his troubles. The rest of the children, for reasons of their own, affected to look on him as disgraced, and did all they could to spread his shame ; but Temperance, 'Mercy and I never could see the matter in that light. We did not stop to decide whether Phil's actions in all respects were perfectly right ; we only traced them to their source in his generous nature, and loved him all the better for them. Neither Phil's sentiments nor his shame came out pub- liely till after our parents' death, when differences arose about the property, and especially about the servants, and I am afraid an evil motive was at the bottom of it. Miother was a Quaker, and persuaded father to free all his slaves-he had inherited a .large number-as soon as they were married. Mother said she would not hold a fortune in human souls, but would and could go to work and make a far larger fortune of a different kind; and she kept her word. Father, owing to the way he had been raised, was a poor manager, but mother never had an equal; she fairly piled up the dollars year after year. Col. Swivel said at our house the day of the sale : 'What a princely estate Charles Howell left even after freeing his slaves. ' No,' said Judge Cokesboy, ' but what a princely estate Hannah Howell left, because she freed her hus- band's slaves.' I suppose the proper legal forms were not ob- served in the manumission. It was a long time ago, when there was no excitement about slavery, and people were careless about such, things. Well, after our parents were both gone, the elder children, and especially some of the sons-in-law, wanted to take up the old matter of the servants, and drag the poor old things who still survived and the children of those who had escaped by God's underground railroad, back into slavery. Phil had too much principle to listen to the proposal, and Temperance, Mercy and I took the same side he did. A deplorable and most bitter feud ensued. All at once, while the matter was pending, a Delilah, I mlwho had shorn poor Phil of his strength, appeared in the neigh- borhood. We had a great time of it then. I thought poor Phil would die. The negroes were re-enslaved; and Phil was notified by a mob that he was an Abolitionist, and very dangerous, and must leave the country. One day Phil came in, looking grieved and broken-hearted. and said, 'Girls, if I should ever be selfish enough to ask you to give up your old home, and your parents' graves, and all your friends, and go to a new country with me, what would you say? Mind, I am not asking you to do so now, but am only supposing the case.' I said to Temperance, ' Tell, him what our answer would be;' for Temperance always was much cleverer at saying affectionate things than I, was, and I wanted that well said. Temperance said, 'Phil, if you ever were to ask us that question, we would say : 'You are our own dear brother, loved by us more than language can express; we were raised with you; all the rest were married and had families of their own before we were of any size; it seems to us that our pa- rents had but four children, you and us three; we are determined that nothing shall ever separate us from you; yes, Phil, darling, we will go with you even to the ends of Athe world.' That would be our answer, Phil.' He passed his hand over his eyes, then said : 'Well, girls, I am afraid I shall have to ask that sacrifice at your hands now; for I am going, and I cannot live apart from you. I know it's weakness, but I must live with you, while I live at all.' Temperance said, G-'od bless you, Phil, for that weakness.' He could not speak for a minute. Then he said, ' What says Mercy? She has not spoken yet.' It was shortly after Mercy had metwith her disappointment; she has never talked much since then, though she was lively enough before. So she only said, 'I want you to take me along, too.' The very next day he started to hunt us a new home. He was gone from spring till winter. He then page: 316-317[View Page 316-317] 316 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. returned and described to us our new home. I remember now how his face glowed as he spoke. He said he had found the most beau- tiful country the sun ever shone on-a land so serene and peaceful that it seemed to have been created out of a smile of God ; that he had sat down beneath its skies, and in its pure winds, and felt a perfect peace ; that it was a long way off over flood and mountain, but that he did not feel as though he could stop anywhere near the old country. "We moved the next summer. We four made a joint fund of our money and bought a large body of land. Phil seemed to feel the greatest anxiety that .we should hold the land until;the country filled up. He would often say: 'There is certain to be a railhoad to the Fort before many years, and then this land will be an immense fortune, and that is what I want it to be. I want to pay back a small portion of what our ancestors filched away. I don't know exactly what he meant, but I think I could guess, and I have no doubt Jacob Surd knows all about it. Phil seemed to think there was something in his plan which we girls could not carry out, and so he would not burden us with it. Perhaps he thought Jacob's being a mili- tary man was an advantage. For he seemed to know that he would not live to attend to the business himself. As soon as he got this home quarter comfortably improved and fitted up for a home for us girls, he seemed to feel that his work was done, and began to droop and perish away. But we enjoyed five happy years together before God took him away, and I rejoice to think that, though his heart had long been broken, his last days were the ones he loved best, and even before he left this world his storm put on the eternal calm." The conversation then turned on household matters, and many little details of domestic economy were, discussed. Auswurf, who had never known what the word home meant, and all sore in every spot of his spirit, sat still and listened with all of a child's delight at something new. "Patience," inquired BMiss Temperance, "did I tell you what word the grocer's boy left this morning?" "No; what is it?" "That Scales wants all the butter we can make this fall, and will pay ten cents a pound for it." "Ten cents a pound for my butter! The fellow has lost his wits. Does he think that in a country where it costs as much as a cow SAINTED PHL HOWELL. 317 is worth to winter her properly, anybody can sell butter at ten cents. Now, if the cows could live in the stalk-fields half the winter, as they do in Virginia, it would be different. Let me see the boy the next time he passes. I will say to him, 'Do you tell Scales for me that he has always professed great partiality for our butter; now, he has got to show his faith, if he has got any, by his works ; for unless he gives twice ten cents, every ounce of my butter goes to pot.' Of course, you don't know what that means, Cousin Selric. Well, I will explain it to you. But I forget that these thing are more likely to disgust than to interest you." "Nevertheless, they do interest me intensely, Cousin Patience -nay, they possess a stronger charm for me just now than anything else in this world can ever have again. All my life hitherto, Cousin Patience, has been spent at a wide distance from the hearth-stone, and not one ray from it has ever fallen on my path; but here at last I feel that I am within the vail--in the very bosom of a home." "Thank you, Cousin Selric," said she, smilingly; "and we will try to make it a right pleasant home to you. We will make you one of us. Butter-making, bread-making, gardening and knitting are my departments. I shall take you on my staff, as Phil would say, and appoint you my Adjutant-General or some- thing of the kind. You know I'm a Brigadier General. How do you like the idea?" "Admirably," replied Auswurf. "iMy military education, however, is so defective, that I d0n't know whether I could tell whey from skim-mills; but I am sure I can pull dry beans, and you can soon make me efficient at anything." "Very well, I will teach you. And now to begin mith, I must let you into two or three important secrets." Auswurf inclimed his ear attentively. "The first secret is this: You can never manage a dairy pro- perly without the right kind of a skimmer. Some persons use tin skimmers, some cocoanut ones, and, would you believe it, I have even know some low people to make a practice of skimming with teacups. Now, there is, and in all time will be, but one proper skimmer, and that is made of the original Howell skim- ming-gourd. Mpthier used to raise the gourds, and would give away the skimmers occasionally to the better class of house- keepers among the neighbors, but she never would part' with any page: 318-319[View Page 318-319] 318 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. of the seed for love nor money. However, I'll give you some, Cousin Selric." Auswurf thanked her heartily for the valuable gift. "Another point," she continued, "is that a great deal de. pends on your milk-lids. The only proper mill-lid is a round one-not square, nor oblong, nor of any other shape but round -sawed out of poplar plank just an inch thick. Some persons use tin-plates, tiles, earthen-ware, etc., to cover milk with, but they cannot, strictly speaking, be called civilized. Others, with more Christian light, think that oak lids will do, but that is a delusion. Poplar makes the only orthodox milk-lid. When I first came here I could get no poplar lids, because they have only oak, pine and linn lumber here. I was afraid for a while that I should have to depart from mother's teachings on the sub- ject of milk-lids, and I never could have had an easy conscience again on earth; but Phil, seeing what distress I was in, sent all the way to Saint Louis and got me a supply of poplar lids. "The thirdpoint relates to the butter-print. Unprinted butter is not fit to be brought on a respectable table, and you cannot keep a strictly respectable dairy without the right kind of a butter-print. The only truly genteel butter-print is made of white oak, is shaped a good deal like the lid of a teapot, and has the figure of a cow carved on its face. No other figure is fit to be seen on a print of butter but a cow. Some people print with roses, some with stars, some with half-moons, etc., but they have no taste whatever. They entirely lack cultivation, and if it were not too severe, I might justly say reason. The idea of a half- moon on a piece of butter is absurd; you, who are so well educat- ed, know very well that there is no logic in that. However, such people are more to be pitied than blamed, and I do pity them, sincerely, as I do all the heathen, everywhere. I always used to give twice as much for domestic missions as for foreign missions, because I think we ought to look after our own country first. But you can scarcely form a correct idea of what skimmers, and milk-lids, and butter-prints should be from a description; your imagination is almost sure to lead you into error. You shall go down to the dairy with me in- the morning and see for yourself; you will be too tired'this evening to receive the proper impres- sion ; your faculties should all be alert, and your sensibility lively. But if you have a' turn for books, you no doubt .sleep SArNTED PHL HOWELL. 319 very late of a morning; I believe literary people always do. I never let the sun shine on my milk." Auswurf assured her there was no doubt as to his being up in plenty time, to go to the dairy with- her, as the sun never caught him in bed when-he was well. "Well, I am glad of that-exceedingly glad, C0ousin Selric," she replied, heartily. '"For, next to a good manager, I love an early riser. Indeed, we may say that every early riser is a good manager in the bud." Auswurf assented at once to this encouraging view of the matter. "But I have not explained to you yet how to pot butter. What I have said to you is merely preliminary; every beginner must be taught the elements first, you know. Now, the'skimmer, the milk-lid, and the butter-print are the axioms of, the science of butter-making ; so I thought you had better understand them first. Well, after the butter is made you must first work out every drop of brine and buttermilk. Then pack the butter ini a clean, sweet stone jar. Let the jar lack half an inch of being full, and then fil it up with fine white salt, and cover it with a broad, thin, clean, close-fitting stone. You could not hire me to cover pot-butter with anything but a stone, though some vuse wooden covers, and some none at all." Auswurf expressed horror at the idea. "But then you know, Coulsin Selric, there are people in the world who wtill do almost anything." Auswurf said he had no doubt of it. "And now I must tell you of a little circumstance for the pur- pose of illustrating this principle. The first summer after we moved here, I slipped off down to the nearest stone-quarry between here and the Fort, and came back with a basketfill of broad, thin stones. Phil asked, 'Why, Patience, what in the world are you going to do with those stones?' ' I am just going to lay them away for the present,' said I. 'Don't you know what mother used to say? Lay a thing away, and if you don't find use for it in seven years, turn it over and let it lie for seven years longel' and you then will be sure to find it useful.' The second winter after that, we had a large quantity of butter, and they were paying just nothing at all for it at the Fort; so I says, 'Butter, you go to pot.' When I had it all potted, I said to Phil, 'Phil, you must get me some stones to cover my jars.' It was page: 320-321[View Page 320-321] 320 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. the dead of winter, but he started off, and went to every quarry around the Fort, but he found them all snowed in, so that he could not get any stones. lWhen he came back without any, I said, 'Phil, I only did it to try you, and didn't know you were going to have such a siege of it. Don't you remember the stones I laid away last summer was a year?' 'I declare it's a fact,' said he, ' that if you lay away almost anything, you'll find use for it after a while. Our mother was not only the best, but the smart- est woman that ever lived.' I simply tell you this, Cousin Sehc, to teach you this valuable lesson : 'Lay a thing away,' etc.,-you remember how the aphorism runs. I've not got time to repeat it now ; for I must pass on to more important matters." CHAPTER V. SWEEiT HOME, WIT1H VARIATIONS. AT this moment Miss Temperance, who had been in the kitchen during nearly all of this conversation, came hurryinginto the room again. "Are you ready to set- the table?" asked Miss Patience quickly, just as if she had been waiting for her all the time. Di- vining her purpose, Auswurf anticipated her in the task, and helped BMiss Temperance lift the table into the middle of the floor. She had the table set and the dinner on it in a twinkling, and Miss Msercy blew a horn to summon Mrit. Harvey and Tom from - the field. Presently a wiry, shock-headed man of forty, and a chuffy, pouch-cheeked lad of ten, came in, with water dripping from their hands and faces. They had washed in a tin basin outside, and came to wipe on a roller just inside the door. To say that the gentleman was freckled would be a ridiculous euphemism; his face was so mottled'that you could not imagine what color it was trying to be; where it was not blood-red it was dapple-gray or strawherry-roan. To say his form was crooked would be as mild. as teakettle tea. A line drawn from his crown to his heels would have cut him into forty pieces. tHis foot was the largest piece of flesh and bone you ever saw in that position. His nose, having been broken by a fall in early life, was now a magnificent nasal ruin, ranging over the region between his eyes and his lips. Finally, he was quite deaf, and Tom's real business was to hear for him; but so proud and sensitive was he in regard to his infirmity, that he resorted to innumerable ruses to hide it from strangers, and always made a point of putting on a particularly confident manner with them. While wiping his face and hands the gentle- man looked seriatim at every object in the room except Auswurf, at every spot save where he sat. Finally, selecting a string of particularly red peppers as the m3st eligible object -of contempla- tion-as the most to be depended on, probably on account of its fiery redness, to keep his eyes from looking at Auswurf--he gazed at it fixecdly during the remainder of the long and tedious opera- tion. You could have wiped a hundred pairs of ordinary hands while he was drying his left, and as to his right it of course de- served far more consideration. He was determined not to see Auswurf at all till he could go at him and!" do " him in dashing style. Meanwhile, Tom stood impatiently balancing himself first on one leg and then on the other, awaiting his ttun at the towel, and slinging smart showers of dirty water once in a while-when Miss Patience was not watching-firom his trickling, uncomfortable paws to the floor. It is disagreeable to have water dry on so muchl surface as covers an ordinary hand; then, Tom's impatient dis- charges are not to be wondered at, seeing that the amount of epi- dermis consumed in wrapping up his "prehensile apparatus" was enormous. The protracted and difficult operation of wiping being at length happily concluded, %the gentleman faced squarely towards Aus- wurf, somewhat abruptly, and commenced rubbing his chin ener- getically with his left hand, as if a bee had stung him. 5Miss Pa- tience, apt to be a little careless about matters of ceremony, did not introduce the two. "Come to dinner," she said, instead. Thereupon, ir. Harvey made a dash at Auswurf with his hand extended. Auswurf, neither expecting nor observing this, moved off to his place at the table. 'Mr. Harvey, in full career, seeing this action, knew he had mande a mess of it, but was too proud to ac- knowledge it; so he drew up abruptly iii the middle of the floor and got off a bow directed at vacancy. If the flexure was defi- cient, the accompanying grimace was perfection. Miss Patience sat at the head of the table, Miss Temperance at the foot; Miss Mercy and Auswurf on one side, Mr. Harvey and page: 322-323[View Page 322-323] 322 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. Tom on the other. As soon as they were all seated, Miss Patience brought down her sharp elbow on the table with a smart crack and dropped her bony forehead on her withered palm, to ask a blessing. Her grace was brief, but to the point, as might have been expected. About two dozen terse and sharply spoken words energetically cracked off, as you may have heard a teamster play av tune with his whip, constituted the whole matter. The moment the plates were turned, the ladies became absorbed in the occupation of helping everybody to everything, passing each plate from one to another and loading it with beef, potatoes, cabbage, -carrots, parsnips, squash, etc. Mri. Harvey, to be pre- pared for emergencies, commenced watching the movements of Auswurf's mouth pretty much as a chicken watches the sailing of a hawk by which it expects every moment to be snapped up. Auswurf, seeing Mr. Harvey's uneasiness, thought it grew out of mortification at the omission of a formal introduction, and at once determined to begin a conversation with him. "I suppose I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Harvey." "Very heavy, sir, very heavy, in fact a killin rouser. The per- mattus vines is as dead as twine strings, and the backward corn is ketched bad." Auswurf, somewhat confused: "Do stock thrive as well on this prairie hay, sir, as on timothy?" "Oh, no, sir, never could raise tobacky here; for if tobacky once gits nipped, its done fur." Since Mr. Harvey was determinedto talk about the frost, Auswurf could only humor him. Suspecting the natare of the difficulty- remembering, in fact, that something had been said about Mr. Harvey's being deaf-he bawled at the pitch of his voice : "Your first frost falls very early in this latitude." Alas! the labial motions used in uttering the word "latitude " were entirely unfamiliar to Mr. Harvey. He could make heavy out of. Harvey, and " tobacky" out of timothy, but could form no idea what Auswurf had just said, and could not think what he should say back. Therefore, the more general his reply should be the more apt it would be to cover Auswurf's remark. Now, the -most general subject that Mr. Harvey's thoughts were ever con- cerned with was the farm Qf the Misses Howell. Usually, indeed, he thought of this or that particular object--of this horse, or that cow,- or that field-but it did sometimes happen that his refiections, SWEET HOME, WITH VARIATIONS. 323 by a bold push, broadened out so as to include the whole farm,. So he answered: "Splendid, sir, splendid-the best farm in a hundred mile." Just here Tom, who was still waiting for the ladies to finish filling his plate, gave Mr. Harvey a tremendous punch in the side with his elbow. Mr. Hervey glanced quickly at Tom, then looked at Auswurf with unacknowledged mortification mottling his face afresh, and commenced rubbing his chin with his left hand again. "I am afraid," said Auswurf, "you did not perfectly under- stand my meaning." "That's it, sir," cried Mr. Harvey; " it's management that does it, sir, anrd nothing else will." Answurf was quite ready to agree that it is management that does it, but the difficulty was how to inform Mr. Harvey of his assent. After a moment's pause he concluded that the best way to end the embarrassing duplicity of the conversation would be to confine himself strictly to nods and winks, and let Mr. Hervey have the oral discourse all his own way. Mr. Harvey, not having received any more punches from Tom-who had now received his plate-was certain that his last effort had been a brilliant success, and in his complacency had gathered up his knife and fork, and gone to eating. Auswurf, therefore, merely bobbed his head in token of his hearty concurrence in the principle that it is man- agement that does it, and then gave attention to what the ladies had set before him. It was unfortunate that Auswurf signified his concurrence in that important principle just at that moment. Mr. Harvey himself regarded the principle as so clear that all men must at once agree to it, and, therefore, considered all form- al assent as quite unnecessary. Accordingly, he was unprepared for Auswurf's bob. Moreover, seeing Auswurf's jaws moving at the same time he bobbed, he concluded that the latter was mak- ing a lengthy remark which he was losing. He therefore dropped his knife and fork on each side of his plate, leaned forward across the table, placed his left handbehind his ear for a sound-scoop, and said: "Please speak a leetle louder, sir; at times I am a leetle hard of hearing." Auswurf, already convinced of the utter futility of words, merely nodded his head again. "You are right, sir," cried Mr. Harvey; "it is a pleasure. I come from Ole Virginny with him and page: 324-325[View Page 324-325] 324 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. worked for him five year afore he died, and I'd rather work here for half-price than get double wages summers else; for they are the through-goinist women you ever see." Here Tom gave M r. Harvey a more tremendous thump than before--eating away all the time. Mr. Harvey received the polt without moving a mus- cle, but Auswurf, who heard the sound of it, felt concern for Hr. Harvey's ribs. On the receipt of Tom's telegram, Mr. Har- vey relapsed into silence for -the rest of the day, feeling thlat, after all his efforts, and after having done so well, he had dis- graced himself at last by some awful blunder, he knew not what; for these laconic dispatches never gave any details. The ladies, having satisfied their hospitable hearts by over- helping everybody to everything on the table, were now ready to converse. Miss Patience led off in the continuation of her dis- course on domestic economy, with practical illustrations drawn from the dishes before them-that being a kind of object-teach- ing which she especially delighted in. As the great, brown- crusted loaf, half cut into snowy slices, was a magnificent success, Miss Temperance wished to call particular attention to the fact that Miss Patience had made it. But being much more scru- 'pulous in regard to points of etiquette than her curt and outright sister, she carefully confined herself to general principles. "Pa- tience," she said, "makes all our bread. Patience is so skilful that Mercy and I are not willing to stand on the shady side of the comparison, and, therefore, to save our own credit, never touch the bread " C"I must explain that little matter, Cousin Selic," said Miss Patience, while her stern face relaxed into softness. "I must explain how my marvellous skill in bread-making grew out of my accident. It is true, I always used to make the bread from the time I was large enough, because our mother thought iA was best, while teaching us all kinds of work, to divide out household duties permanently, and this fell to my lot somehow; but no-. body suspected that I could make better bread than Temperance. When I met with my accident I lay in bed four months with a broken limb. When I began to improve, and got so I could limp around with a crutch and a cane, I was in a low, nervous, and melancholy state, and was tormented with the idea that I was crippled for life, and should always be a burden. I never saw nicer bread and pastry than Temperance baked while I was sick; but as soon as I could crawl around right peatly, her skill all at once, and in the most unaccountable manner, forsook her, and every loaf or pie she baked was a shameful failure. Tem- perance worried like a play-actor, and offered any number of excuses. Sometimes it was the yeast that was not good; some- times the flour was at fault; sometimes the stove was to blame; sometimes it wras one thing, sometimes another. Phil would come to me after each failure with a doleful face, and say Temperance was a good girl, and could do some things well enough he sup- posed, but as to bread-making, the plain truth Was it was too high for her and she could not reach it. He said it was dread- ful to think of having to eat such bread as that the rest of his days. Finally, one day after I had got ight strong, Phil,' Tem- perance and Mercy all came to me and begged me to make some bread that we all could eat once more. That was before MAfercy met with her disappointment, and she went into the plot as lively as any of them. I saw how it was, but I thought if they wanted to increase their interest in heaven by flattering the innocent van- ity and appeasing the morbid terrors of their poor, afflicted sister I would not say them nay. So I humored the joke. They insis- ted that I should make fresh yeast, and take a fair start from the very beginning. Phil bought a fresh b'arrel of flour, and even a new tray, and I made a great parade of making fresh yeast; but, mind you, when it came to making the bread, I used the same yeast that Temperance had made, and some of the old flour. When the bread came on the table, it seemed that the roof of the house would come off. Oh, dear, such hurrahing and taking on you never did hear. But it was a long time, Cousin Selric, before I told them about using Temperance's yeast and the old flour; for I felt as though I had practised a fraud on their dear, true hearts. Only I did not like to be beat, you see." "B But you must admit, nevertheless," said Auswurf, with pro- found gravity, " that there was nothing illogical or contrary to reason in their premise that one person may possess more skill in bread-making than another, even a sister." "Speaking generally, and --without regard to this particular instance," rejoined Miss Patience, "we may truly say that a great deal depends on natural genits, but a great more depends on proper education. Good bread and sound morals invariably go together, while the fast manners of the times came in witli page: 326-327[View Page 326-327] saleratus. Show me a woman who bakes tough, heavy, sour bread, and I'll show you a reprobate. Sometime, before you go away, I'll teach you the secret of making good bread. Half the battle is in the preparation of the yeast. Some people complain that their yeast won't keep. That is because they don't put in hops enough. After long observation, I am satisfied that a man's success in life depends in a great measure on his being a judge of good bread, and that no man can be till he lmows all about how good bread is made." Auswurf replied with a smile, that he was afraid even knowing how to make good bread would scarcely save him. "Don't be discouraged, Cousin Selric," continued Miss Pa- tience, cheerfully. "Your fortunes will rise with the first loaf you help me bake. Curb your imagination, or it may even lead you into the saleratus heresy. There is no kind of investigation where it is so necessary to hold the imagination rigidly in check as in judging of bread or learning to make it. You ought to approach the subject with no more imagination than a coroner's inquest." She looked a little anxious as she said this, and imme- diately afterwards became silent--an event that rarely befel her. She suspected that Aus-wurf's ill health and his sufferings originated in his high ideal temperament, and she would fain have given a far broader application to her counsel to him in regard to bread-making. After dinner, Miss Patience, studying his humor, took him into the garden-her real object was to cheer and refresh him- and showed him, With excusable pride, many homely improve- ments which her own active and ingenious brain had contrived. All of them were as simple and as much to the point as her gra ce had been, but some of them were truly surprising in point- of ingenuity and utility. Among the rest was one for raising and maturing classes of vegetables to which the weakness of the sun in that high latitude was unfavorable. She had mounds of earth thrown up and paved with bricks, and set the plants between the bricks; which acted as a heater to them. He would go with Miss Patience to milk that evening, and when she refused himn leave to go to the dairy before morning, he explored the corpu- lent barn, climbed, like a boy just let loose from school, through its -capacious and crowded lofts, patted the big horses on their fat, swelling necks, and even made a ceremonious call on the SWYEET HOME, WITH VARIATIONS. { obese porkers who were crunching their food in a pen near by. That evening they all sat by the bright fire and had the most delightful of talks, so droll, so good, so funny. Tom insisted on sitting close against Answurf, and as the evening wore on and his liking for him, grew stronger, he could not keep his hands off him, but kept patting him and rubbing him down- as he would have done a favorite horse. At last his admiration grew enthu- siastic, and he felt he must talk to Auswurf, open his heart to him, in short, in all the fulness of its love for dogs, colts, calves, ground-squirrels, and four-footed things in general. Tom had not much opinion of . vo-legged creatures, and classed women very low indeed, in the animal kingdom. So he broke forth : "Hain't you got a dog of your own to home where you live at? Oh, I know you've got a dog of yours own. Bob-tailed, and crop-eared, ain't he?-and the fightenest dog- Jerusalem!" "Tom!" said Miss Patience, sharply. 'Yes'm," chimed Tom. "No, Tom," answered Auswurf. I have not got any dog of my own." "Nor any speckled pup, nmither?" "No, nor any speckled pup, either." :"Gosh! but that's bad," cried Tom, in great disappointment. "Tom," said Bliss Patience, "if you don't be quiet, I'll send you to bed." "Yes'm," said Tom. "But I'll tell you what I'll do--" enthusi- astically, to Auswurf. "I'll give you my Tige, if you'll let him still be mine. Great Creath, but he's the coon-huntinest dog! You'd jest ort to see him ketch a coon' wanst-expecially in the river when I fling him in. Splash! goes the coon, thinkin he's a gittin' away. Gosh! of all the fools in the world coons is the biggest ex- cept women, expecially about dogs and boys. Slo-o-osh! goes Tige arter him, and then he fetches him, don't he? But there's one thing'll make you feel dreadful sorry for Tige-shamed too, I'll bet. There was one of your always-a-movin' Hoosier women -Gosh!-come along here and stopped a while ; and the darned old rip had sixteen gals-Goshee-ee!-and a very drinkin husband! and everybody felt sorry for him I tell you, on account of all them gals. And he had had a tolerable fightin dog, but the low-flun- gest dog, pshaw; but no dog couldn't have have helped it-raised page: 328-329[View Page 328-329] 328 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. among all them gals!--Gosh! it was a pity. But, Lord, Tige chawed him up and he died. Them gals was so sorry that they took to dyih' off with the measles, and the darned fool woman she got hold of Tige one day" "Go to bed, you rude boy," cried Miss Patience, " go to bed, this minute." "Yes'm," responded Tom, very sheepishy, and he slipped off to go up stairs. But quite unable to leave the field without finishing his tragic story, he bawled back at Auswurf from the door': "And lTige's tail haint growed outyit. Poor Tige!" As soon as Tom was gone, Miss Temperance, inexpressily shocked, began to criticise him very severely. Miss Patience, however, while as much or more provoked, kept suggesting merci- fully, "Remember, Temperance dear, Tom is a boy," as if that was a sufficient reason why he should be a very benighted savage indeed. Auswurf defended Tom warmly, shrewdly taking Miss Pa- tience's view of the matter and urging many weighty general prin- ciples in connection with it, as that all boys are particularly sensi- - tive in regard to the length of their dogs' tails, and all unauthor- ized interference therewith ; that the boyish mind forms for itself an ideal of perfection in this important department of taste, and cannot tolerate the slightest solecism; that the further abridgment of the "fightin dog's," caudal appendage, after it has once re- ceived the exact combative "bob," presents itself to the boyish mind downright barbarism, involving the disgrace of the anii- mal and of his' owner as well; that induction tends to support the boyish view of the case, for it is found that a " fightin'dog" fights with his tail, just as a political general does with his whiskers, and that the removal of either is fatal not only to the martial aspect but to the spirits of the victim, etc., etc. Miss Pa- tience, finding Tom entirely out of danger, now cut loose at him herself for a few moments, but soon desisted and declared she had been thinkipg for some time of giving that boy a new coat, and would do so the very next day. When the little bright brass clock on the mantel-piece-how bright it looked that niglt and how cheerily it toldl the hours- struck nine, Miss Temperance brought out a family Bible care- fiflly covered with reddish oil-cloth, and amid profound silence read a chapter from the first epistle of John. It was always made Miss Temperance's duty to read the chapter at family worship, SWEET HOME, WITEH VARIATIONS. 329 because her voice was so sweet and gentle. When Miss Tempe- rance closed the book, they all knelt down and Miss Patience prayed. How the all-loving Father-'tis not profanity that writes it-must have smiled half in humor, yet all in tenderest love, as that prayer ascended. When the Amen had been whirled briskly forth with a kind of sharp clang, Miss Temperance gave Auswurf a candle and he retired. He found a fire already burning in his room, which Miss Patience had lhad Tom to kindle early in the evening. This room, dignified by the name of parlor, was the counterpart of the one already described, except that it was better furnished and more carefully kept. "Heavy crimson curtains with blue paper blinds under them shaded the windows; a showy and really handsome rag carpet covered the floor; the bed would have made two as large as any Auswurf had ever seen before, and was covered with a white, long-fringed counterpane; a dozen windsor- chairs were ranged withl prim particularity around the room.; be- fore the fire, ready for Auswurf to recline upon if he felt disposed, stood a wooden settee with a quilted, worsted cushion; the centre table contained gift books, ambrotypes and curiosities; the mantel-piece was ornamented with gypsum statuary and ,a pair of lamps of curious workmanship; on the walls hung engraved like- nesses of Washington, Lafayette and other worthies, and several other common prints. But what attracted Auswurf's attention most was a large walnut bookcase which occupied one corner of the room. Opening it, he found on the first shelf a large family Bible, fac-simile of the one from which Miss Temperance had read, with this inscription : "Your parents present you, dear Philemon, this Holy Book of God. as the strongest evidence they can give you of their affection. CHARLES HOWELL. HANNAH HOWETL." ---COUNTY, VA., May, 1t---. Auswurf afterwards learned that each of the ladies possessed a precisely similar Bible, inscribed in like manner, the -gift of their parents shortly before their death. That library was a nobler eu- logy on Phil Howell than any pen could write. There were not very many volumes-though the number was, respectable--but their selection bespoke a cultivated love of truth anda heart keenly sensitive to every touch of beauty. All the great histories from page: 330-331[View Page 330-331] Herodotus to Macaulay, an extensive collection of philosophy, a remarkably full course of mathematics, every nobler strain of poesy the human soul ever sung, Jomini's Artt of War, a copy of tactics for each arm of the service, an old copy of Army Regula- tions, and some French books on military subjects, were there. On one of the shelves lay a staff-officer's sword, and in paper box by it were a sash, a pair of buff guauntlets, half a dozen buttons of the Engineer Corps, and a Lieutenant's straps of dark blue cloth. But tucked away on the top shelf and almost hidden by the roughly carved front was the token-a lot of books-which threw most light on Phil Howell's life and character. In their very titles was recorded the mental struggle through which he had passed and the victory in which it had ended. Auswurf no longer won- dered at the singular purity and beauty of his character; for lihe had passed through the trial and come out on the side of peace. The book which seemed to have been most read was Coleridge's Aids to Reflection; a few dim and worn pencil marks here and there on the margin told in words what Auswurf had already read in other signs, the story of Phil Howell's conflict and its blissful termination. 'et he had not, with the, fatal weakness of the great Coleridge, thrown away-all the processes of his manhood and their fruits, and attempted the melancholy r6le of grown up suckling. It was evident he had concealed from his sisters both his darkness and his light, lest their simple faith should be unsettled and they never again find perfect rest. -And Auswurf felt that in this, un- derstanding clearly the meaning and purpose of his life and decid- ing wisely what his duty was, Phil Howell had done well. And thus ended Auswurf's first day in the home of the Howells. CHAPTER VI. THE SLOUGH ON THE MOUNTAIN'S SIDE. HE tried very hard to beat Miss Patience up the next morning, but she was too fast for him, as she generally was for everybody else, and-was nearly done milking when he rose. He accompan- ied her to the dairy, however, and inspected, with all the enthu- siasm of a tyro, the genuine Howell skimmer, the round poplar THE SLOUGH ON THE MOUN'TAIN 'S LUD. ooi' milk-lids just an inch thick, and a marvellously proper butter- print carved with the figure of a cow. I That day he began the work he had come there to do. He took from his carpet-sack the mass of tangled notes and blotted manuscript whichl he had already jotted down in his garret at Y--, and in previous years. These were his material, and it was - abundant; the thought and the burning soul were there; com- plete expression and final shape alone remained to be imparted. And then day after day, and night after night, gathering up all his strength for one last mighty effort, while the sand still ran, and the taper still held out, he worked on indefatigably, scarcely taking time to eat or sleep. The autumn-almost conscious, it seemed, of an allegorical life, and pointing a dark continuous metaphor at him-paled away and died as his work went on. It costs little struggle for the seasons to die in that high latitude. There is no agony, no fearful convulsion, no racling asunder. The leaves do not first turn all yellow and death-struck, and moan and shudder before they fall; but there. comes a c1illing three- days rain, followed by heavy frosts, and then they drop silently, quite dead at a single blow--the grass dies-the summer yields up her meek and blameless life, and submissive Nature awaits the approach of the cold, rude tyrant who has olaimedher. Next come a few days of mild, clear sunlight, a lucid interval after the first attack, and this continues, generally, up to the moment of dissolution. Another chill rain, and a skim or two of snow ensue; the black mire in the roads stiffens and freezes, the steady noith- wind becomes a gale, and then Winter's grisly host comes march- ing on solidly in the track where her Cossacks have robbed and skirmished. So Auswurf found in that September and October, and so, in more senses- than one, they passed for him. At first, the bracing climate did him much good; elsewhere he would probably have sunk almost at once under his terrible, unintermit- ted,- sleepless labor ; but soon it became evident, that, in spite of this natural tonic, he was rapidly wearing out. blMiss Patience ex- postulated, and Miss Temperance entreated, but both in vain; he could not listen to them, and he did not. They saw with anguish that day after day he was wasting more and more away, until at last he was a mere skeleton; and he saw it too, and because he saw it, and the cause so much more clearly than they, and that idleness would not arrest that atrophy, he shut, the gates that held [ page: 332-333[View Page 332-333] 332 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. his purpose firmly against them. But he could not close his heart, too, against them ;-no, no, they were already enthroned there forever;-and their appeals did not make his task easier, It was a hard and killing task; those who have never attempted such a labor, cannot conceive what a hard and killing task it was. Besides the dragons of disease, he had to wrestle at once with the restlessness of his own imprisoned and repining spirit, recollec- tions that mined the citadel of his pride, and a personal future, where shone no star of hope. He must ignore the mighty strug- gle of his own spirit; for if he should listen to it, one note from that conflict would disqualify his hand for its present work for- ever. He must not heed the unselfish repinings of a great heart, must no more take on his lips, mute questionings of-obdurate Fate, "What hast thou in store for me?"And as he must not feel, so must he neither remember nor project--maust neither look back nor forward ; one flicker of the candle was all he had; while a grain of sand could fall, he must forge and hurl a thunder-bolt on the effect of which the holiest interests of his fellows depended. Pretermitting memory, crushing out the very consciousness of it, he refused to believe that the past pursued him, while-it was eat- ing-through his heart like lye, and attacked him in every nerve. In a thousand unsuspected shapes of pain, it agonized him. Like a neuralgic patient, he laid his finger on the twinging surface and said, "The pain is here;" but in reality it wrung him from an unsuspected spot in the centre of his being. He stood between the past and the future, like a traveller hunted by wolves, halting at the mouth of the gorge through which he had fled, at the edge of the woods he is about to enter, with darkness around him, not Kmowing whether the sounds that tear the creeping flesh from his bones and leave the quivering nerves all bare, are echoes of the pack in the abyss behind, or cries of savage beasts and screeching birds in the morass before him. It was ,nothing that he expected of his labor no fruit but contumely; he had re- solved to give this much to his misguided brethren and the future, and he would do it calmly, bravely, and well. But if his health continued to grow worse, as it almost certainly would do, in must soon give way altogether, and he either die at once, or- freezing and appalling thought-be wholly incapacitated. With a constitution not only wrecked, but completely broken up, with the spirit of the lamp departed forever from his withered and THE SLOUGH ON THE MOUNTAIN S SIDE. 333 mourning arm, with all his purest soul and noblest thought, yet a seething sheet of unorganized flame within him, with no fruit of his life, no crown, no recompense, how could he live?-alas, how could he die? But considerations which might well have overwhelmed a legion of Titans, if distributed among them, only calmed and steadied this slender, fading boy. For without the utmost firmness and dispatch, he must sink even before his pres- ent task could be done. Thus, in a time wonderfully short, the last line was written; the thought was organized and embodied, and lay in words before him. He raised the manuscript, and with a swelling heart glanced at its contents. It was not what he could and would have made it, if he had had health, and wealth, and privilege. It was the product of his weakness, not of his strength-of his decay, not of his vigor-of his incompleteness, not of his com- pletion;-but it held the fruitage of all his thought; and all the power and fulness of his tnfinished life were in it. Presently, he laid the manuscript down on the table, took his hat, and with a throbbing and tumultuous heart walked out on the prairie. The sky was fadedly clear, like a spent sinner's piety; and the pale sun was shning powerless and melancholy like the cheerfulness in Auswurf's heaxt-a gleam upon the tomb. . Aslight-skim of snow covered the earth, except where {travel had trodden up the black mire, and where the wind had cut down to patches of the ghastly glass sticking out like the hair of the killed in battle, pro- trxding out of the shallow trenches. He had always loved the sound of wintry grass beneath the feet-the rustle and the moan, the lament, and the tender admonition, the analogy which con- verts sensibility into something deeper and more solid than aesthe- tic feeling. So he walked forth that day into the prairie, far from the black lines of the road, and the cattle-paths, and listened to that sound, lwhile the sunbeams on the snow kindled a pale halo around him. That halo would quickly die away, the shroud of snow grow thick and be eternal, the sun be blotted out for him forever; but never from him who had loved truth and proven his devotion-who, through difficulties piled mountain high, had toiled for his fellows with broken health, and breaking heart,- could Fate or Change take away the estate of spiritual grandeur which he felt then. Then why should he be sad?--he would cheer up; he would page: 334-335[View Page 334-335] 334. THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. drive despondency out of his heart; he even thought how he would gayly salute'his more than sisters on his return to the house, and tell Brigadier General Patience that he was reporting for orders for the rest of his life. This sad, exquisite thrill departed, and with his heart beating slowly and feebly, and feeling greatly exhausted and all unstrung, he walked home again over the prairie. As he went along he longed more and more for rest, for quiet and repose, and thought of the delicious inaction in which he should indulge till the humor should be fully sated. He entered his room and drew the settee before the fire and reclined on it; then his eyes wandered to the table %where he had left his manuscript. It was gone I Feeling strangely confident already that it was gone from him forever, he arose and began looking for it. He searched every nook and corner of the room, the book-case, the bed, the mantel-piece, the centre-table, and even the most improbable places again and again, in an unconscious, almost stupid manner, but quite in vain ; he could find it nowhere. Stunned and dizzy, he went for the answer he dreaded to receive, crossed the passage and asked the ladies whether any of them had put aside his manuscript. None of them had seen it, andwith swift questions they drew from him the story of its loss. lMr. Harvey was at work in the fields ; but Miss Patience, though unwilling to admit that the manuscript had been stolen, told Auswurf quickly that Tom was at the barn shelling corn, and must have seen any one who had approached the house; for the ladies, busily engaged as usual-in household duties, had neither seen nor heard any one about the place. Tom, on being questioned; said that an hour before, as he sat in the lattice-work crib at work, he had seen a man come out of the timber, cross the road, climb nimbly over the fence instead of passing through the creaking gate, rapidly approach the house and enter. Presently he had come out again and hurried away in the direction of the Fort. Auswurf asked, with a sick heart, how long after he had gone out to walk on the prairie it was until the man appeared, and was told that the stranger came just as he passed out of sight over a knoll on the prairie. This looked fearfully like a deliberate and intelligent lying in wait. When asked why he had not given the alarm on seeing a stranger approach the house in so suspicious a manner, Tom pleaded that he thought the man was a newly arrived settler, who had come in great haste to "borrow some ffie." THE SLOUGH ON THE MOUNTAIN'S SIDE. 335 When interrogated as to the personal appearance of the man, Tom said, " he was smallish and spindlin' like ;" and though the ques- tion was repeated many times in different shapes, the invariable answer was that " the feller was smallish and spindlin' like. "Tom had not noticed how the man was dressed; he could not so much as recollect the color of his clothes or the kind of hat he wore; but when closely pressed, he finally stated that " he sorter believed the feller had a coat of dark stuff, and some sort of colored truck for trowsers." Concluding that a further cross-examination of Tom would not be profitable, Auswurf next went to examine the ground to see ihether he could find the thief's track and follow him. But the shrewd robber, both in approaching the house and in retiring from it, had carefully avoided every spot where a footprint would be left. He had apparently come out of the depths of the air and vanished into them again. Auswurf walked on down to the Fort, inquiring at all the cabins along the way whether any one corres- ponding with Tom's loose description had been seen to pass; but no one could give him the least information. On arriving at the Fort, he inquired at the hotel and throughout the village, but could not obtain a shred of evidence on which to base even a con- jecture. If the earth had opened and swallowed -up his manu- script, it could hot have more completely disappeared. The whole day and evening had been consumed in this fruitless inquiry and search. Dinnerless, supperless, fatigued to the verge of death, the unhappy boy dragged himself away out of the village where he had now no reason, no right to stay, and walked down to the old crumbling buildings of the Fort. Unable to walk longer, he paused there and leaned against one of the old huts for support. He did not sit down to rest, because, like a strong man wrestling with despair, he felt that he could struggle better standing. How strange the order of his thoughts, as he stoodwith his back against the wall and fought, as it were, for life. His first sensation was one of wonder that the thief should have stolen that manuscript, and, as we often do in such cases, he seized on this detail, puzzled over it, held fast to it, and finally followed it on into the larger matter. "Why should he have stolen that," repeated the boy, again and again, "which did not and never could possess the slightest pecuniary value-which every human being would shrink from using as from handling a viper-but which, being the em- page: 336-337[View Page 336-337] "Q THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. bodiment of my last attainable hope, the highest product of my consciousness which Fate permitted, has left me poor indeed? Or, if he must take it, why did he not come before I had fagged through these last awful hours of labor, when every stroke of the pen, every movement of the arm, racked open a new leak in the shattered tank of life? Why did he come just when, with a mighty effort of my exhausted energies, with my last sinews snap- ping, my lungs in tatters, my strained nerves wildly throbbing, and the last drops of my pale blood gushing from my mouth, I had heaved the great stone to the top of the mountain,-why did he come then, and hurl it back to the bottom again?"Then, as he still stood there motionless, weak, dying, a conflict went on mrithin him which no language could describe, and which you would not thank us to reveal, until, at last, lifting up hIis convulsed and frozen face, he saw glimmering dimly yet calmly above the snow- clad hills the celestial symbol of his own life, the witness of his consecration. Looking again and again at the mute symbol, he strove to endow it with a kind of personality, and to imagine that he ought to comfort himself because in his exile and rejection it did not avoid him. "Radiant minister of light and pain," he cried, "behold thy work! Accursed, beloved star, damned, blessed beam, pregnant with glory ahd with heart-break, thou hast blighted me forever. Better that I had been born a slave in some deep abyss where thy infecting beam had never found me. But no, no, pale star ;" he continued, -looking at it again, " let me hot reproach thee; thou art not mocking me now with the bright- ness of thy beams ; thou art all pale and faded like me. Hast thou come to soothe and lull me by the exhibition of thy paleness? Before, thou hast always spoken to me of sacrifice and toil and pain, but thou canst not indicate sacrifice now, for all is already rendered-nor toil, for the spirit of the lamp is gone-nor pain, for I have already bankrupted Pain. Ah, thy dimness and thy pallid resignation touch and reproach me like an angel's words of solace and gentle reprimand. Sweet star, patient and meek, thou art-bright above the winter of this earth, serene beyond this mixed gloom and snow; and, oh, thou art still my star, thou type of ex- cellence. Rekindle with thy light the life-long, ineradicable sense that has linked me to thee. Even now it flickers again, a weak and slender flame in the cavern of despair, gleaming up its dank, mould-eaten sides. Thy pale dim beam is no longer full of pas- THE SLOUGH ON THE MOUNTAIN'S SIDE. 337 sion and promise; but it is full of the first beginning of lowly con- tent. Whisper again to me : 'Child of passion, impetuosity has hurled you madly through the world; henceforth, you must yield to the guidance of a serener influence.' What is thy command, Sdvereign Mother? Repeat it to thy child again. It is that if friendly Death approach I must tear myself from his embrace, create respite by my own will, feed the waning lamp of life with resolution, and still drag on this wearing, clanking chain. Hard fiat, thou art right. Mother, I hasten to obey thee fast as my broken limbs can totter. I hasten to justify thee fast as the gush- ing blood will let my lips speak. Only let me know that I am obeying thee; that is the only solace that remains to me now. Hear the words, eroding vermin of Disease, and break, your nib- bling teeth, lest you kill me before I sedffer all that she commands. Gnaw not in two the last. worn heart-string till she has carved the full motto on tthe seal with which she means to stamp my dead brow. I am the richer for this ruin-a gainer by this loss-the more triumphant for this disaster. In defeat, the fact that I have struggled still makes me victorious. If my life has failed of all external fruit, it will bear only the more of that internal ripeness compared with which the sovereignty of the universe were only a politician's mean office. If my destiny has mocked mewith gleams of Eden and led me to Erebus, it has clothed me with one robe of grandeur which the skeleton hand of Disappointment can never clutch away as I walk onward there. The ends my lowliness has aimed at have been the noblest that ever engaged a mortal mind; if I have not reached them, I have done what is next best and grandest-I have perished in trying to reach them. Star that heard my eager vow, shall I let thee look on weakness? Star that, when my mother foretold this agony, heard me say: ' I can endure all things-poverty, desolation, contumely, failure, despair itself, every pang intolerable to other men, all of misery that Fate can send-and I will endure them, I eagerly choose them, since they are the price which I must pay'-shall I let thee look on this momentary uncertainty? The road in climbing the mountain has doubled on itself, so that I could not see the sumnmit as I did from" the plain below; and fool that I am, I thought it had led me to the foot again. Stay! what revelation is this? Shall I let, my thought now penetrate into the depths of this consciousness at which for so many weeks I have refused to look-at which through page: 338-339[View Page 338-339] 3838 THE STORY OF' AN OUTCAST. all my life I have looked only with shaded eyes? I know that this is travail, the crushing of the last shell, the end of all the past, the beginning of the future; and I am crushed in order that when I reach what still awaits me, I may be rich with it alone, having nothing else in all the universe. The swingling-knife is flying over me with rapid stroke, and it tears and crushes terribly, but it will leave me clean flax in the loom of Death-; and then the fibres of my being, when swingled free from every obstruction, will be woven into a heavenly texture for me to wrap about me and die, and my shroud will be the mantle of the future prophets of the world." But within the little sphere of his own activity, where his re- sponsibility lay, what remained for him? He felt, indeed, that he could never face Fate and the world again, and fight them as he had done; they had conquered, and he was crushed forever. But what should he do-in what new path of duty should he still drag on his broken frame? Should he attempt to restore any part of the lost manuscript in any modified form? No, that was impossible. -Before the first month of such labor could be completed he would sink like a vessel shaken to pieces by too powerful engines. He had calculated howl much time he could devote to that task, and the last atom of sand had now dropped. It now behooved him to consider questions which in his former strength had never caused him an anxious thought. He must think only of earning his bread. But next came a very serious question. In his state of health how could he do this, and how long could lhe continue to earn it? He could write no more in any field. He could not think of remaining where he was, to be a burden on these kind and noble friends. They would not let him really work, and if he should become wholly incapaci- tated, their care would still keep breath in his body, instead of letting him die at once. What he must do was to go south and teach' insome planter's family Iwlhere the labor would be light, and the compensation abundant. Taking out his purse, he told its contents by the sense of touch; it was a slender sum ; he must have more forthwith. He drew a package from the inside pocket of his vest. It contained the medals which had been awarded to him at the university. He had always carried them there next his heart, that it might have something prized, some token of appreciation to beat against. THE SLOUGH ON THE MOUNTAIN'S SIDE. 339 He unfolded the wrappings and took out the memorials, precious now in a double sense. So familiar had they grown to his touch, that there in the darkness he could distinguish their view- less forms, and read their inscriptions. All unstrung and inca- pacitated, he could not think of parting with these trophies of his early power and pride without fresh pain. He cared noth- ing for them as testimonials of his attainments, but as memen- toes they spoke a language to his heart which it cost a pang to dumb forever. But it had to be done at once, and the more quickly the less painfully. He therefore walked very rapidly to one of those vampire-holes which are the bane of every petty village in that country. The sign read, "Moses Zu Lugen, Ban- ker." The "bank" was now closed, but as the "banker' slept, cooked, ate, and washed his own clothes within, a rap on the door brought him tumbling away from his unfinished supper, to the key-hole, with a blunderbuss in one hand and a cutlass in the other. It was difficult to convince him that Auswurf was not a gang of robbers come for his gold. Presently, however, con- vinced that the late comer wanted to trade, and would prove an easy victim, he opened the door a very little way, and let him enter. Auswurf's first act on getting in was to take a wondering survey of the banker. He was a German and a Jew, without either the honesty of the one, or the shrewdness of the other. He was tall and weaselly in form, with a prominent nose, pale, soft cheeks, and long, stringy black hair, worn in a demure, sanctified sort of fashion, which showed at the first glance that he was a weak scoundrel. He had been sutler of the Fort while the troops were there, and also had a contract for furnishing vegetables. Having made thus all that he was worth, he had signified his grat- itude to those who had given him the situation by just the sort of baseness you might expect from such a source. Since the troops had been removed, he had set up a "bank " with the pro- ceeds of his perfidy. Auswurf looked at him a moment, and then said of him: "He is both a thief and a fool, and he wants to cheat me." Laying the medals on the counter, he asked the "banker ' what he would give for them. They were very heavy, and at once charmed the Jew's green eyes. He rubbed them between his thumb and finger, balanced them on his knuckles, tried them with his teeth, and finally tossed them into the scales that stood on the page: 340-341[View Page 340-341] 340 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. counter, and weighed them. He then gave Auswurf a look which he intended for the quintessence of shrewdness, and said he did not want- to buy; such property was of no account whatever to him; he would not give a picayuneofor the lot. "Then all you have to do is to give them back to me," said Auswurf. "Gkeshus seek, Kaep,"--he called every stranger Kaep, with a simper, meaning Captain--" don't be impatient; it dakes dime to drade, you know. I'll loan you moneys at dree per shent a month, and dake these in bawn." Auswurf moved towards the scales to recover his medals; the "banker " caught hold of his arm and arrested it. "Greehus seek," he cried, " you no wants to drade'!" "Yes, I want to trade; I came here for that express purpose." "Veree goot, verge goot. Greshus seek, I loan you dwenty dollar-at dree per shent a month. But, hight, Kaep, don't look so vite by your face; you know I said I could not puy." "But it is plain enough, you poor, dishonest simpleton, that you intend to buy these medals at whatever price I see fit to de- mand, or else you would not have left them lying there in the scales all this while." "Yi-yi, but he's sharp. Greshus seek, I ought not to have leave dem there. You have deach me something; how much you sharge.?"And then he laughed, as a discomfited thief always laughs in bargaining. "Vael, Kaep, I'll puy; Greshus seck, I gives you dwenty-vive tollar." "I cannot higgle with you at all," said Auswurf. "I am wil- ling to allow you a liberal stealage, since it would be cruel to you not to let you cheat me. I want a hundred and fifty dollars; you would give twice that if I were to manipulate. you for five min- utes; count out the money, and give it here." Auswurf laid his hand on the counter with the open palm up to receive the money. The astonished "banker" whistled, and said: "Well, stranger, you do beat all." "I see," saidAus- wurf, "that the sight of an honest man makes you talk good English. If you would not look in a mirror for six months, you could teach a grammar-school." The "banker" laid the money in Auswurf's hand, and the latter strode out the door with a very quick step, as if from something very disagreeable. He then paid the ferryman a double fee to set him across the river, T HREE OBSCURE WOMEN. 341 and walked home through the sullen woods, with a soul- darker and more chill than they. The spirit of the age, long bound to him by only one remaining link, the desire to alleviate what he could not prevent, had now wrought its last work of desolation and departed; and it seemed that only dust and ashes, mourning and infinite sorrow remained to him forever. CHAPTER VII. THRY. OBSCURE WOMEN. As he entered the yard, a ruddy light was streaming from the family room. The curtain was put aside-a thing entirely unu- sual there after night-and the red beams of the roaring fire, and the white beams of the candle streamed through the panes in a flood upon the snow, and swept away like a great expanded fan to the forest. This was a way those true hearts had of making a beacon for him, and letting him know that they were waiting and watching for him. He went up close to the window and looked in. The ladies were sitting around the fire at work; Miss Temperance stitching by the candle, Miss Patience knitting near the hearth, and Miss Mercy sewing carpet-rags. Mr. Harvey was present also, sitting in the corner opposite Miss Patience, unoccupied, but with deep concern depicted on his features. Tom, too, was there, looking very demure, as bad boys always do at a funeral, or in church. No one was talking; even Miss Pa- tience was perfectly silent, and they all looked preoccupied and dejected. Auswurf knew that their sadness was on his account, and his heart melted at the sight. Should he go in and tell them he had come to say farewell; for that to-morrow he must leave them? He shrank from the trial as he had never before shrunk from anything in all his life. He who could have faced any different pain without the movement of a muscle, and who had already endured all loss and every sacrifice, now dreaded to say one word, Farewell, to three obscure, weak women. He even thought for a moment of slipping softly into his room, gather- ing up his clothes, and going away in the night, only leaving be- hind a note of explanation and the sum of money he owed them. page: 342-343[View Page 342-343] 342 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. But, no, no, he could not thus steal like a thief from the sympa- thy and. confidence of the only ones on earth, perhaps, who loved&him, and, to- spare himself pain, wound and cheat those who would watch through all the night with sleepless anxiety for his return. With an unsteady step he approached the door, and opened it. Before he had crossed the threshold, Miss Patience and Miss Tem- perance cried in one breath, "Have you found it?" and Miss Mercy cried "Yes?" interrogatively in a very shrill key. Mr. Har- vey sprang up excitedly, and ran to Auswurf, and shaking him vio- lently by the arm, called out "Ha?"- Auswrurf found it easiest to-answer Mr. Harvey; so he shook his head without speaking. Mr. Harvey let his arm drop, and returned sorrowfully to his seat opposite Miss Patience. Then he looked up confidently at her, as if waiting for something, and taking refuge in one of his gen- eral principles, said to himself: "It is management that does it; she will fix it." "Not found it?" said Miss Patience in a cheerful tone. "Well, that is rather disagreeable, to be sure, but no great disaster at last. The sorry thief could not steal your ideas or your brains, and so you can soon repair your loss. We feared you might not find your manuscript, and, consequently, since you have been gone, we have fixed up a plan. We don't intend to let you per- form a particle of the labor of rewriting it; but you are to dictate and Temperance do the writing, and, Cousin Selric, Temperance is a splendid scribe." "Ha!" cried Mr. Hawey, to attract Auswurf's attention. Aus- wurf looked at him; he was malking zigzag lines across the palm of his hand with a charred stick. "I can write," cried he; "I went to school nine days and wrote pothooks every day; I can help you." "No, my friends," said Auswurf, at first very slowly, "I shall not attempt to replace the manuscript. I must turn my attention to other things; and-and"-he hurried through it in an under- tone--"I leave you in the morning." "In the morning!" cried the sisters, in a chorus. "Yes," said Auswurf, in the morning." "Are you serious, Cousin Selric?" asked Miss Patience, very slowly indeed for her to talk. "Is your mind fully made up? Must you go?" THREE OBSCURE WOMEN. LfOo "Duty calls me," saidAuswurf, "' and though I am loathto leave you, I must go." "If we thought you were resolved," she returned, " we should know from past experience that it would be useless to oppose you; but we beg you, Cousin Selric, to be perfectly sure that duty calls you. We were in hopes"----but there she broke down, "Tell him, AMiss Temperance, what our hope was." "We hoped," said Miss Temperance, manfully, "that as your taste seemed to be for study, our humble home might afford you a congenial retreat, and that you would stay with us, Cousin Sel- ric, as long as we all might be permitted to live." "And I could be very happy here with you, my more than sis- ters," replied Auswurf; "for here I should have peace, and. -what a blessed thing is peace! I could ask of Fate no sweeter relenting now, than to spend the remnant of my days with you, to rest my weary head here till it should rest beneath the sod." "Then listen to me," cried Miss Patience, with energy. "Since you have spoken your own feelings, I may offer a word without indelicacy. I claim a sister's privilege, Cousin-no, Brother Sel- ric. Stay here with us; do not go away and leave us; Temperance shall write for you as much or little as you may wish written, and we will all love you, and nurse you, and do all in human power to promote "--- "Forbear, dear sister," interrupted Auswurf, calmly, yet paler than snow; " lay not another stroke on that picture of peace, I beseech you. You cannot shake my purpose, but you can wring my heart." "But you are ill, very ill, dear brother," pleaded Miss Temper- ance. How can we let you go away in this condition? Stay, stay, and if there be a healing power in tenderness, you shall soon be well : and then if you will leave us, we can more easily give you up. "No, my sisters," replied Auswurf, " even your vitalizing love could not heal me now; it is too late. You could not now rehoop with that missing band the crazy and dehiscent cask of my life. Yet you could--ah, yes-you could balsam the fatal scythe in your love, and clip its murderous edge in sweetest perfume, so that I should bless it when it struck me. And then you could hear in tender sorrow my last sigh, and lay your gentle fingers on my sightless eyes to close them; and my rest in the grave would be page: 344-345[View Page 344-345] 344 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. sweet as the wayworn traveller's sleep, if I knew that your tears were falling over me." "Draw not so dark a picture," said Miss Patience, with an effort. "If you were to leave us now and go to harassing toil, the prospect would be dark indeed, and your days would soon be numbered; and we should soon have to mourn for you as we are now mourning for dear Phil. But stay and see the wonders our vigilant care will work, Stay and restore your book little by little as you are able. For though we are not critics, Brother Selric, we have feeling, a woman's reason-the best of all, for our hearts -for believing that the world would thank us for persuading you to do so. And then, whenever God should call you home, be it soon or late, you would at least die in our arms." "And oh, may God, our Father, bless you for your love of me! Oh, I am sure no man can know, until he begins to slowly die, how the parting soul yearns for tenderness and affection. The grossest bonds break first, and love is the last cord thatremnains unsevered. The Infinite has little need to break it, and welds it first in heaven. If I had met you sooner, you could have supplied the lacking hoop, and my destiny had been different; but not now-no, not now, dear angels. The lesion is too frightful for any styptic but the grave; it has already let my life -out, and why should I wish breath to remain when life is gone? I thank you, bless you, but I cannot stay with you. It would be insanity to dream that I could achieve anything respectable in any calling in my present prostration. Fate has hurled me from the highway in scorn and contempt, and I only bow my head and go to seek out some little path by the bitter river where the crossed and fated swalk, having no higher purpose than to keep meekly on in it until my unhappy star shall set and my servitude be ended." "We implore you," cried Miss Patience, breaking into grief more passionate than any which Miss Temperance displayed, "we implore you not to go away from us and seek the mire of drudging toil to die." "But I feel to-night as if the pang, since it must come in lone- liness and defeat, will be easier to bear on a laborer's hard pallet than it would be on a silken couch. I am like a disappointed girl who soothes her sore heart with thoughts of an. humbler love. O my sisters, I am weak and all unstrung. I am infirm of soul to- night. I cannot hold my unstable mind at the height where just THREE OBSCURE WOMEN. 345 now I placed it. My own strength mocked when it said, This is well enough; be content.' My heart pleads with me, 'Tyrant, let me be weak without restraint.' Why should I not long to die, my sisters, since all of life except bare breath is gone from me forever? I -am persuaded that there is nothing in this world worth living for. How different is this from the fiery despair that has rolled its waves over me heretofore ; in it were heat and energy; in it was a dark-browed splrit that smiled on me pioudly as he drove over me on the wing of the storm. I have loved too well, my sisters, the wild sail that clasped the tempest like a bride, and the prow that grappled with the waves to wring the fallen thunder- bolts out of their hands. I have loved my spirit's food hot enough to burn. I once had a will that was like a god, and seemed born to rule the world, and I nursed hopes that outsoared and outshone the stars'; but a new-born rabbit at its dam's teat, and whose ten- der flesh the soft lick of her tongue almost tears as she caresses it, would be as able to combat a tiger as I am now to struggle further against the .world. This is a rayless grief, my sisters. For me the world has sloughed its brightness; and all the stars are Magdalens, soiled, sunk andc false; my staunch staff is become a twining snake; anild Hope's flukeless anchor takes no hold in this black and tideless sea. They call the pillow of death thorny, but with a nail already through our temples shall we feel the thorns? But look not on me, dear ones, with your eyes so full of pity. Look away, sweet sisters, until this feeling pass from me; for your eyes are daggers." He turned away to avoid their eyes, and walked to the back of the room, and in his weakness half knelt, half fell down on the floor, and to hide from himself the sight of their pity and love covered his face with his hands. In an instant Miss Temperance was kneeling at his side, and lifting up his head, kissed him- repeatedly, while her tears fell on his hair. "Leave me, sweet Temperance," said Auswurf, lifting his marble face, from which he had already driven all trace of emotion. "Leave me for a moment, and I will come to you in the calmrness I am conquering." She obeyed him. Presently, he rose with a smile on his face like the one it wore at last in death, came forward and said: "Cousin Patience, we forgot, didn't we, that we had an impor- tant matter of business to transact? Brighten your shrewd eyes and quicken your keen wits with an extra rub or two, or I shall overreach you." page: 346-347[View Page 346-347] 16 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Come on, come on," said Miss Patience, with a great show of cheerfulness, and taking up her knitting, which had been sadly ne- glected for the last half hour. "I am always ready for business; we'll see whether you can swindle me." Auswurf drew out his purse and turned towards her. The light of the candle glittered on the traces of tears on her cheeks, but no one could have told from any unsteadiness in her voice just then that she had just been weeping so stormily; yet it had an unwon- ted softness. Miss Temperance, who had resumed her seat and sewing, gathered up her work in her lap and looked on as if some- thing vastly interesting and amusing were going on. Miss Mercy put on the brightest look she had worn since that memorable dis- appointment; she seemed to think, poor girl, that it was incum- bent on her to look very gay just then. Mr. Harvey commenced rubbing his chin with his right hand, the left one having been ut- terly exhausted in the violent work put upon it in the course of the evening. 'Now, Cousin Patience," said Auswurf, briskly, "now for busi- ness. - I have been here-let me see-exactly eight round weeks, and that brings me in your debt just eight round dollars." "That is your business, is it ?" asked Miss Patience, in a tone of disappointment. " Now, I'm real sorry, Cousin Selric, that I can't have anything to do with that. I never have anything to do with such matters, now that I have met with my accident. Such affairs are entirely with the children. Since I met with my acci- dent I have given up such things completely into their hands." Sure enough, she had adhered to it. The smile which had overspread Auswurf's features a moment before had been produced by the query whether she would even now and in such a matter still observe the fiction under-which she vailed her supremacy, or whether she might not for once forget it, but she had stood the test. "Character, ilike blood, will tell," thought Auswurf, as he smiled again from pleasure of the kind he loved best. "But, Cousin Selric," continued Miss Patience, quickly, taking the initiative, and determined to settle the matter her own way, and in her own peculiar style-that is, saving her crotchet-before any one else could say a word likely to interfere with her plans- " but, Cousin Selric, there is one thing I will say, even if I have met with my accident. I don't believe the girls ever intended to charge you any board. It was all well enough to have a little fic- THREE OBSCURE WOMEN. 4iY tion of that sort at the start; it did no harm and looked like busi- ness, you know ; but I thought all the time the children were only playing make-believe. For you will remember, or at least I do, that nothing was said about any charge until you pressed the point. I have hinted at the girls several times, and they have as good as told me that they could not think of receiving a cent from you on any consideration. True, I never asked them plainly about it, because I felt that it was none of my business now since I have met with my accident." "I am sure," said Miss Temperance, " that when Cousin Selric insisted on fixing the terms so accurately, we accepted his propo- sal merely as the best way of adjourning the question. You have cheered our loneliness, Cousin Selric, and have been a dear, affec- tionate cousin to us in every respect ; you have made the loss of dear Phil lighter for us; and we can no more think of charging you board than we would serve Phil so if he were living. It is we who are the debtors, and that to an extent far greater than we can ever repay, and we pray heaven to compensate you in our stead." "Temperance," said liss Mercy impulsively, "you can tell people what they think better than they know themselves." And that was the longest sentence she had spoken since her disappointment. Hearing a number of snorts and sneezes, Auswurf looked in the direction whence they came and discovered that -these demonstra- tions proceeded from iMr. Harvey., Tom was telegraphing to him with the rapidity of lightning ; had the President's message or the news of Lee's surrender been in process of transmission, the wires could not have worked with greater celerity. The telegrams were successive reports of Miss Mercy's extraordinary speech; the operator giving with the scrupulous fidelity of the craft all possible or imaginable versions of it, each last dispatch being followed by a later which entirely contradicted it. On the receipt of each, Mr. Harvey testified his gratification by a demonstration more decided than the last, and when the towering climax was reached Mr. Hu- vey looked, in respect to redness and delight, a good deal: like Cincinnati did on the night of the memorable tenth of Ap1l, 1865. Miss Patience, meanwhile, acted out her fiction admirably, knitting away quietly, never once opening her mouth, as if it would * be extremely impertinent in her even to breathe loudly while business was being transacted, now that she had met with her accident;. page: 348-349[View Page 348-349] 348 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "My sisters," said Auswurf, as soon -as he could conquer the choking in his throat, "your conduct is noble and generous ; but it is unkind to me because it assigns me a pusillanimous part. I am not willing that your conduct shall be all magnanimity, and mine all the reverse. In simple justice, I must pay this debt." "Justice is a cold word," rejoined Miss Temperance, " and is not always the name of that which is most right." Miss Temperance's remark made Miss Patience fidgety and uneasy. She saw that the former was making a wrong move, and she was impatient to correct it. Once, while Miss Temperance was speaking, she said admonishingly, "; Temperance, dear," but her sister did not hear her. But as soon as Miss Temperance paused, Brigadier General Patience countermarched the column right and left at the double-quick thus : "In simple justice, then, there is no debt. In simple justice you owe us nothing. You have already more than paid us. Do not insist on our taking what is not our due. We base our refusal on no other ground than simple justice." "But my obligation to pay is perfect, and your generosity cannot absolve-it. The smallness of the amount only makes the principle more conspicuous. I cannot take something for nothing, nor can I pay a debt with moonshine. Justice says Pay the ladies just such a number of round dollars, many or few, no more, no less; for so much is their clear, unquestionable clue. To-night especially, I would pay everything I owe, to the last farthing, even if it were six ounces of this broken heart. " Miss Temperance again made a reply which was not to Miss Patience's mind, and besides it was clear to be seen that Auswurf was fast carrying his point both in respect to argument and will. So Miss Patience resolved to flank him. "Let me settle :the matter," she cried. "I am a third party anid entirely disinter- ested; the matter -in controversy is indifferent to me; conse- quently, I am competent to propose a compromise." It was just the kind of character-show that the boy's broken heart still loved to laugh at; so he looked very grave, and said like a lawyer objecting to a juror: "But you are one of the three persons to whom this money is clue." " Cousin Selric, -Cousin Selric, I'm astonished at you!" cried Miss Patience, as greatly shocked as if he had called her a croco- dile. , "You forget that I have met with my accident." THREE OBSCURE W OMEN. 849 ,No, Cousin Patience," laughed Auswurf in delight, "I should forget my own name as soon as that." "Well, then," said Miss Patience, decidedly, "I am perfectly disinterested by virtue of my accident-quite a third party-a particeps crimzinis, or something of the sort, as the lawyers say. Besides, what bmakes your objection more incomprehensible to me, is the fact that I was going to take your side of the question." "Oh," said Auswurf, as if a great light were dawning upon him, "I see, I see ; I am in favor of the compromise." "You shall pay your board, every cent of it," continued the gratified umpire. "( Then wherenois the compromise?" asked Miss Temperance. ;' Like political compromises, it is all on one side, and the amiable party is selected to be cheated." "Wait a moment, my dear----just wait a moment," said Miss Patience, with even more than judicial calmness. "Cousin Selric shall pay every dime of his board, since nothing short of that will satisfy him; but he shall not pay any of it just now. When he comes back to see us he may pay it. I am sorry to see so promising a young man so captious." The most laughable$ part of this was the reprimand at the close. "That compromise," laughed Auswurf, ." is just like a seesaw, and is now all on the other-side; for you know as well as I do, that I shall never get back. But come, you dear, good old Gen- eral," he continued, laying his hands one on one side of Miss Patience's head, and one on the other, and kissing her first on one cheek and then on the other, "wwon't you take back that stinging reprimand you just now administered? Remember the campaign is nearly at an end, and if you disband me in disgrace, I shall never have an opportunity to recover my lost honor. Con- sider, too, my faithful service-how closely I have studied the Howell skimmer, what profound respect I have for the milk-lids, how I once gallantly fished the butter-print out of the milk- trough, and above all, what progress I have made in learning how to make bread. Won't you restore me to favor, General?" "You dear, dear, dear rogue!" cried Miss Patience, laying hold of him and kissing him vigorously. The light began to glitter suspiciously on her cheeks again, and Auswurf, who knew it would be unpardonable. in him to seem to see her weep just then, when it was understood to be a point of honor for all to page: 350-351[View Page 350-351] clear the weather-glass, turned away his head, and went to dis- cussing the wonderful compromise afresh with Miss Temperance. "It is a splendid compromise," said Miss Patience, pertly, in a moment, " one of the very best ever made in this country, and we know something of compromises here, I fancy. It combines all the elements of a good compromise in an extraordinary degree. It gives both parties all they want, and more than either of them had any right to. To make the thing thorough, Cousin Selric shall give his note for the amount, and as I am banker, I will take care of it. Temperance, do you get pen, ink and paper immediately. And mind, Cousin Selric, that in drawing the note you state that it is to bear interest from date," Writing materials were brought, and Auswurf sat down to write his note for eight dollars, with interest from date. All hands, Mr. Harvey and Tom included, quit everything else, and gath- ered round the table in a ring, to see that he executed it in legal form. lMany nice legal points were raised and discussed-e. g., whether the note should not be dated at the Fort, whether Aus- wurf's being a minor, did not make it void, and whether he would not have to give a new one on becoming of age, whether it would be legal if written on the unruled side of the sheet, whether the word "bearer" should be inserted, and its effect when inserted, what the interest would amount to in such different times, and finally whether the law would entitle him to the three days of grace. Miss Patience told how her brother Phil used to say that she knew more law than half the attorneys, -and that he was often in doubt whether he ought not to call her Chief Justice Patience, instead\ of Brigadier General Patience. Miss Temper- ance said that Phil and-and-and--that Phil had long hesitated between a legal and a military education, but they both finally got appointments and went to West Point. Miss Mercy said 'Yes," an unusual number of times, Tom telegraphed furiously whenever he could take his eyes off the hatching chose-in- action, and Mr. Harvey rubbed his chin withqut a -moment's intermission. By the joint labors of all present the valuable instrument was at last, achieved and handed to Miss Patience. She folded it three double and held it up by one corner between her thumb and forefinger, and looked at it as if it were a check for a thousand dollars; then taking a little red morocco house- wife -out of her pocket she quickly thrust the note into one of its THREE OBSCURE WOMEN. 351 pouches with the same executive air that she might have said, "Butter, you go to pot." After that was done, they all took their seats around the fire. Everybody noticed that it was getting very late, but nobody felt disposed-nay, able-to say the word for retiring. Everybody un- derstood that no more melancholy reflections or conversation was to be indulged in, and so everybody was desperately cheerful. But, reader, they were a sad, sad party, the sadder far from, their effort to disguise their sadness. As for Auswurf, he could scarce- ly listen to aught but the knell tolling in his heart: "Wander forth, predestined child of sorrow, and wander on to find a grave." And to those noble women it was a heart-rending sight to see him, a pale shadow chased by disease and;despair, start away to totter but but a few paces from their door-just far enough to be beyond the reach of their love and care--and then fall down dead. Miss Patience resumed her knitting, but her needles no doubt wondered why it was- that they were riot set to snapping and clattering that night as usual; ^ Thl stitcihes were not jerked from one steel point to another too rapidly for the eye to count them, and with an audible screech, as if she were dis- patching them with her usual in-tierce-and-carte-point, but they crept slowly, noiselessly on and off as if they were tiptoeing from one needle to another. Moreover, incredible to relate, Miss Patience that night actually dropped-we regret to record it, but it is a fact that she actually did drop-three several and distinct stitches, a most unaccountable circumstance, the like whereof, we are morally certain, had not happened before since she met with her accident. Miss Temperance's skilful and ever-ready hand too had lost its cunning. The first sewed two widths of a dress together right and wrong instead of right and right, ripped them apart, and sewed them up again precisely the same way. She then put by her work and began helping Miss Mercy sew carpet-rags, declaring that her eyes were getting too old for sewing dark goods by candle-light. But, ah, noble Temperance, the suffusion which dimmed your eyes that night was not the film of age. 'Miss Patience at once set Auswurf to work winding balls while "the children " sewed. The way those carpet-rags were dis- patched that night was something wonderful in the history of car- pet-rags. Sometimes Miss Temperance would consume a whole needleful of thread in fastening two strips; at other times, she page: 352-353[View Page 352-353] tacked the shreds so slightly that they dropped apart the moment Auswurf attempted to wind them. Miss Mercy, who was quite an artist in carpet-rags, got on much better, but still in balky and botchy style, and got her "Yes " and ' No " so confused once or twice that she could not tell them apart for some time. An4 the- balls that Auswurf wound were the most comical balls that ever were seen. Some were oblong, some oval, some triangular, while one or two dimly suggested the idea of sphericity. And the strips would break in winding, without any imaginable cause, and Miss Temperance would stitch them together again, till she declared his awkwardness in pulling them apart made her second labor harder than her first, which, by the way, was not far from being literal truth. At last she vowed flatly that she would mend after his awk- wardness no longer, and made a great pretence of giving him a needle to- repair the damage his clumsiness made. And then how they all laughed at the out he made of threading the needle. Miss Patience asserted that he made a fist of it; Miss Temperance, whose remarks were often but a variorum edition of Miss Pa- tience's, said his fingers were all thumbs; Miss Mercy said both Yes and No ; Tom telegraphed to Mr. Harvey, and Mr. Harvey rubbed his chin. So they went on laughing at the absurdities of Auswurf's sewing, and finally when he pricked his hand severely they had a very gay time indeed-desperately merry, in short. At last the bright brass clock on the mantel-it was the only bright thing there that night, except the knobs of the andirons,-struckl twelve. "Bless me!" cried ,Miss Patience, as if mightily surprised, "twelve o'clock!--and nine our regular bed time. I have not been awake at this hour of the night before since I met with my accident. Temperance, dear, bring the Bible." Of course, everybody was greatly surprised at its being so late, and the veracity of the clock was freely questioned; but their work was laid aside with a promptness scarcely consistent with the calumnies boldly spoken against the brave little clock. The sad play was ended, and the actors, with a sigh at once of relief and regret from every heart, laid down their parts. One of the big Bibles covered with reddish oil-cloth--Miss Patience's coy--was brought forward, and Miss Temperance read the sweetest offKing David's psalms; then they all knelt down, and Miss Patience, in a voice shaken by unwonted tremors, implored the Loving Father to take charge pf him who was bowed there in pilgrim's garb, to preserve him from danger, from sickness and all evil, and, if it were His holy will, to send him back again to the hearts that loved him; but, as the chiefest good, to grantthem all a happy meeting in that land where parting is unknown. And then they retired. The next morning at breakfast, Miss Temperance was very pale; Miss Patience every few moments fetched a sharp, quick sigh, almost a moan, which, she explained over and over again, as often as it occurred, proceeded from a dreadful cold which she had caught in the night. Miss Mercy never had been so silent since her disappointment; the telegraph was in a state of quiescence, the wires all being down and sadly tangled at Mr. Harvey's end of the line. Tom had all the breakfast to himself that morning, and it was a marvel how the boy did eat. His appetite rose. with the occasion. Tom was a boy of tender conscience in regard to eating, and felt it to be his duty to demolish all that breakfast, and after a stubborn struggle he succeeded. Auswurf had artfully planned to rise hastily from the table, speak a general good-by, and be gone before any one else had time to rise ; but that turned out to be impracticable, for Tom was to go to the Fort with him, and Tom was lost for an hour or more in the gaudia certaminis -of his victory over breakfast for six. So all the rest left Tom at the table and drew around the fire. Mr. Harvey, instead of running off to his work before he was done masticating his last mouthful, as he mwas in the habit of doing, came up to the fire too, apologising for the unprecedented act by squeezing his fingers and saying, "A little frosted, I think; nippin' cold mornin'." Now, Mr. Harvey was in the habit of boasting that cold had no more effect on his hands than on so much whalebone. But as he sat there passing his crooked and horny hands through the blaze, they spoke to Auswurf's heart a nobler and more tender language than the smallest and most patrician member could have done. "We wish to bid you good-by, dear boy," said Mr. Harvey's hands, " but we are too considerate to begin the farewelling till you are ready to go right through with it all at once and start right off." At length the breakfast had disappeared. Mr. Harvey had been on the lookout for this event, and at once put up the lines and telegraphed to the crammed Tom. Tom took up his hat and started for the barn with the solemnity of a heavy-laden broad- tread. Mr. Harvey, who had been to school nine days and made pothooks every day, had devoted his maturer years to original page: 354-355[View Page 354-355] 354: THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. researches into the science of mathematics with some really sur- prising results. He had thought out all sorts of odd rules and made all sorts of droll applications of them. He now sat absorbed in a neat calculation of the exact time it woul4 take Tom, with five breakfasts in him besides his own, to accomplish the distance to. the barn--the retarding force of the intervening fence being. considered-to harness a horse, hitch him to a spring wagon and arrive at the front gate. The event proved that Mr. Harvey had computed the time correctly to the fraction of a second, making exactly enough allowance for the five extra breakfasts and the fence. Suddenly springing up and thrusting out one of the hard hands which had spoken so touchingly to Auswurf, he said: "Good-by, sir, good-by; and may the Good Lord up in heaven bless you." Auswurf grasped the hard hand and held it tight as if he could never let it go again, and could only say, "Good-by, Mr. Harvey." "Come back again, sir," said irt -Harvey; "come back, dead or alive. Because," pointing to the ladies, " they love you; Tom loves you, too; I know Tom does; I expect everybody here loves you." "But it is neither Tom nor the ladies, but you, lMr. Harvey, that have just prayed that the Good Lord in heaven would bless me," said Auswurf, still holding fast Mr. Harvey's hand. "He'll be here now by the time you get through," replied Mr. Harvey evasively,- jerking away his hand and vanishing from the room. Auswurf would not have understood what he meant, if lhe had not at that moment heard the barn-door screak, as Tom led out the horse. Mr. Harvey could not hear that, of course. "Farewell," said Auswurf quickly and almost breathlessly, ex- tending his hand to Miss Patience. "Come here, Brother Sehc," said Miss Patience, drawing him closer to her by the hand. "Come and kneel down by my side." Auswurf obeyed and looked up wonderingly into her face. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him fervently, and then quickly turned away her head. "Farewell, farewell," cried Auswurf, springing up and giving his hand in rapid succession to Miss Temperance and Miss Mercy ; and in a moment more he had crossed the threshold. Farewell!-oh dying sound whllich in-this world shall never die, tomb of al the brief THREE OBSCURE WOMEN. 355 sad loves of this unhappy eartlh, sole sepulchre for which no resur- rection is appointed, a requiem that follows us with annual incre- ment of tone from the cradle down into the grave, this is Fare- well! Tom was waiting at the front gate. Auswurf threw his sack of clothing into the vehicle, and taking the reins from Tom drove rapidly to the Fort. He dismissed Tom at the near side of the ferry with the present of a silver dollar. / page: 356-357[View Page 356-357] BOOK IV. CHAPTER I. -TmROUGE AUTUMN. A LraIpE steamboat, a mere mimic affair, was lying at the forks, of the river tolling her bell, and making a great noise with hissing steam, screaking machinery, and screaming whistle, as if she knew she had found a river at last of which she could be queen, and was determined to make the most of her prerogatives. She had taken advantage of a heavy rise to ascend to the Fort with a cargo of merchandise, and was now about to return. Joyfully availing himself of this lucky chance, Auswurf hastened to take passage on her, and in five minutes more was flying like an arrow down the rapid stream. The extraordinary swiftness of the current and her own fawn-like fleetness, sent the little boat darting down that most crystal of all the veins in Nature's bosom, with the speed of the wind. The day was such as only that climate in the few cloudless days of early winter ever sees, the sun smiling in benign decrepitude on the bare trees and half-white slopes which he could no longer clothe with summer verdure. Waves broke from the keel of the little boat and rolled away like billows of clean glass to the gravelly shore, reflecting the hills and woods in all imaginable shapes of grotesque exaggeration and contortion. Now drunken Himalayas butted their tall peaks together, while heavy black clouds, reflections of the steamer's smoke, crawled in and out among them, or curled up above their heads ; and now the ant-hills of Liliput were seen waltzing and wantoning in a dwarf-world. It was like the jumble of great and small images thrown off by a mirror full of strice; and presently, when you looked away from , . THROUGH AUTUMN. 357 the glittering waves, the strice seemed to be transferred to the lenses of your eyes, and the ragamuffin hills straggled along the banks likeo drunkards, or reeled away from them with their rags of forests wrapped around them. As the fawn-like steamer sped on hour after hour, she visibly outstripped the march of Winter, and closed upon the heels of re- treating Autumn. It is remarkable what a difference in the aspect of nature and the seasons comparatively short distances present in that high latitude. The air lost its cutting keenness and re- covered autumnal mellowness. The snow disappeared from the hills, and patches of pale yellow and red-rusted leaves could be seen still lingering ion the poplars and oaks on the highest knolls where the frost had been lightest, and in the bough-roofed gorges where there had been most protection. Auswurf seemed to have trauck a wave of sunlight, and to be rolling southward, borne upon its edges ; and throughout the whole of his long journey, after the frontier of Winter was passed, he traversed the gorgeous realm of Autumn on that wave of light as it ebbed back into the tropics. But to him its mellow splendors were only the illumination of decay, a mote-strewn tide engulfing his wasted form, but casting no gleam-into his heart. About noon on the second day after leaving the Fort, the little boat shot like an arrow around a bend where the river swept through a low, dark, wet valley, covered with a heavy forest, and Auswurf, with a thrill, felt himself afloat on the Father of Waters, to roll on with the mighty flood past cities and villages, across the obliterated lines of empires, athwart a zone, from flank to flank of a continent, from heel to toe of the season, over almost a quad- rant of the earth, towards the far southern gulf. A spirit of reverie, ha proneness to aimless meanderings of the mind, had now begun to creep over him. He had :never known a mood of precisely this kind before. Oncej indeed, his soul had been like incandescent mist, with seas of fire rolling through it; but then, with vigorous arm and abundant vitality, he had struck out for the shore and clearer light. From boyhood his reflections had been terse, vivid and brawny beyond description. But now he felt the- sharp lines of his thought fading- away into the dreamy and melancholy dimness which in a strong mind is the sure pre- cursor of powerlessness and prostration. One curious consciousness which attended this process was a page: 358-359[View Page 358-359] 358 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. ' strange subjective multiplicity,' as if he stood lwhere many roads met, and looked in many different directions. His strained and weary spirit, released from the restraint which for eight terrible weeks had kept it from looking at its own consciousness, now felt itself bewildered by the changes it saw there. His mood was multifarious. He was like a man who walks along a thickly lamped street, and sees half a dozen different shadows of himself falling at once in different,directions. He did not yet suspect how terribly he had been shaken, to what an extent he had been sapped. He only believed that, in obedience to the command of Fate, he had torn' out every aspiration of his own and thrown it away, and his physical life with it. He did not know all that had come away with the core, nor how wrecked and shattered the shell ' had been left. As he passed that unsung, unequalled scene, the mouth of the dark Missouri, where Nature typifies the mingling of purity with pollution, beauty with deformity, right with wrong, 'Auswurf, looking up that wild, snaggy channel pouring its foul waves into the purer stream, thought that there a Greek would have located the gate of hell, whence abominations issue to stain and deso- late the earth. He heldin his hand printed copies of two or three of his own boyish orations which the discussions of the last year had called forth. Before his mind, as he held them there and i looked at that polluting stream slowly mottling and swallowing up S all the brightness and beauty of the other, passed the vision of a kindred tide of earthiness and foulness alligating and destroying the life of the world, and he said aloud: "The spirit's eye looks on that and the body's eye on this, and the two sights are one." He was in that mood in which our past plans and passionate hopes seem to us to have been but misty and half-comprehended dreams. -when the pensive and submissive spirit, taking up the aban-" doned chords in its own being, moulds their rejected music into mournful and undying memories, and gives the dreamer minute4 directions for the burial of his perished dream. So Auswurf loosed from his hand over the edge of the boat the sibylline leaves ^ which the world had rejected. The wind fluttered out the printed pages as if to tempt the world again by exhibiting them for the last time, and tossed them about and whirled them over and over, uplifting them long, as if loath to let them fall into the thick, de- filing flood; yet at last they fell. "And into a darker and more awful flood," s aid Auswurf, "is the hope of nations sinking."' THROUGH. AUTUMN. 359 Then he drew from his breast a miniature and a faded flower. The barrier of resolve which had of late excluded them from his thoughts was now not only, melted, but vaporized in reverie which stole away and spread itself around them; and he was glad that they had been left undisturbed till now, so that, in gentleness and sadness, he might bury them so fitly here. Gaz ing at them pensively as at a fragment of a world which had passed away, he said-: "Urania, thou too, and every memory and thought of thee, must sink in this thick feculence. Farewell, noble brow, and soul- lit eye, and face of seraph! I shall look on you, must think of yoli no more. Not even the evening dews of memory may fall on peaks that rise beyond the humid sphere of sympathy-beyond even the visits of its most- ethereal winds. Only nature's desola- tion and the earliest and latest light are for them. It was sweet to care for thee and guard thy beautiful spirit from harm, as it was sweet to love and serve my country; but was my favor wise? I now stand within a sphere where I ask myself with wonder, as I' look at my former life, Can it be that that thing of fire was I? I am like the loser of a battle and a kingdom, who says pensively, ' It is a small matter; yet it is a pity that it happened.' For a rwhile, after the first portents of a civilization's ruin rushed across the sky before me, the recollection of their horrid hair still burnt my eyes, and when, too soon thereafter, I met thee, I did not see thee, Urania, with the calm vision that befitted thee ; but in the mild medium which now surrounds me there is a balm for the crispred retina. Can it be possible, sweet spirit, that I ever stood on the low ground where I feared that thy beauty and grace might, for thy own sake, better not have been. But weakness has a holier insight than strength, and says: ' God bless thee ever- more, thou beautiful,' though ere the word be spoken the beauty vanish. I ought not to have met thee when I did, Urania, but at some yet future day, and then with a serene and religious appre- ciation like that with which we stand before the pictures of the saints, and which I alone of all the world understand thee well enough to offer." Then, suggested by the recollection of her nobleness in all respects, came the thought that possibly he had disturbed her peace. Hitherto, with almost savage generosity, he had been intent only on her preservation and earthly welfare ; but now a tenderer generosity made him think, for the first time, what a terrible thing it would be to inflict one moment's pain of a page: 360-361[View Page 360-361] 360 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. different kind on her heart. The thought, however, only remained long enough to kindle a wan smile, as he said-: "I feared that she remembered me until to-day, and she a woman! Her nobleness threatened to rob her of her happiness, but I would not let it. Even if it fell for a moment at her feet unprized, inconstancy has long since picked it up and given it back to her. She is probably a wife by this time, or soon will be; it is only a question of time. And it is better that she should marry. Single life only dwarfs men, but it destroys women. Yes, it is better for her to marry even her inferior-; for where is her equal? Yet, Urania, sweet immortal, I could weep tears of blood for thee. Thousands of thy sex, with not a tithe of thy moral and intellectual greatness, and because they have it not, will pass through the world under thy very eyes, loving and loved, blessing and blest, fulfilling woman's mission. And thy spirit must behold the beauty of their lives with the smile and the sigh with which spirits whose greatness has un- done them look on successful mediocrity, and remind thee, 'I was once a blazing star set in the firmament, and now the glowworms eclipse me.' Yet, alas, Urania, such a lot, though better for thee, and indispensable to thee, is worse at last than, my desolation, at which thy gentle tears have fallen and would fall afresh to-day if thou couldst see me. I, whom thou wouldst have saved, feel no pang that bites like that which must hereafter, in thy deterioration, assail thy breast. The destiny which breaks the heart is joy com- pared with that which blights it. But, oh, I know that the Infinite will pity thee, Urania, and wash away at last all thy earth-stains, and renew thy beautiful life under brighter auspices beyond the skies." "Yet," he continued, after a pause, " suppose that in my spirit resided the power under which alone her beauty and promise could expand into grandeur and completeness. Might I not have saved her from deterioration, and she me from desolation? Then, in- deed, I would have died rather than have abandoned her high-born spirit to mean companionship, and the canker of an ignoble life. Groundless compunction--that could not be. Rather behold what is-blight there, death here. I served her best by leaving her; and for myself, I am content with my destiny and its elections, with even its choice of to-day. The path was sublime, but it led to death; I trod it and I am here; that is enough. O Father all- seeing, art Thou not looking on my withered cheek and wasted frame to-day, and can I, not the maker but the prisoner of my des- THROUGH AUTUMN. 361 tiny, regret even failure in Thy service, when Thou dost pity me?" "6 But why," he continued,!" do I not cast these tokens into the waves? Why do my fingers still retain, still cling to them? I never knew the weakiness of childhood, till now. Long-starved heart, thou wouldst not have me brush away the airiest spider-web which thou thinkest would dull the keen edge of thy hunger. Poor miser, thy melancholy avarice is a sad sight to me, though the world, the happy and careless world, would only despise it. Pride lectures, Judgment rehearses to thee in vain; refusing to obey, refusing even to listen, thou wouldst still cling with a death- grasp to the faded shaldows of the past. The only argument for thee is this, and thus I use it." Enclosing the dead flower in the case with the portrait, he hurled them into the flood, and they sunk with a gurgle like a drowning man's. Bubbles rose out of the spot where they went down, and sparkled for a moment on the crests of the thick, dark waves ; the sunlight built within their filmy domes the arches of a million rain- bows; they danced an instant on contrasted pollution, like tiny buoys on fairy seas, then vanished forever. "( What men call love is like them," said Auswurf. ' In its origin, illusions, evanescence and pollution, what men call love is like them." He then wallied forward. Two or three family groups were seated there enjoying the mellow sunlight and the autumnal beauty of the shore. Their light-hearted conversation, contrasted with the deathkeness of his own breast, smote on his ear as those who have been spared such experiences could never understand. Sit- ting apart and listening to every happy intonation and merry laugh, the heart whose last relics he had just thrown away de- manded of him with reproach and bitter agony: "' Tyrant, is not such happiness as this worth more than desolate grandeur?"A sprightly and beautiful boy was frolicking there. The dark soul of Auswurf, spell-bound by the vision of his brightness, watched his sports and listened to the- music of his ringing laugh. Presently, as the boy came near him in his romp, Auswurf caught him in his arms, and held him for a moment a prisoner. On being released, the boy regarded him with an intent and mournful gaze, then pas- sionately kissed his wasted cheek and walked tearfully away. Soon flashing spires began to people the smoky distance like helmeted giants, and St. Louis, Empress of the Valley, arose on page: 362-363[View Page 362-363] 362 - THE STOEY OF AN OUTCAST. l the sight, stretching her liquid arms from the Rocky Mountains to the Alleghanies to gather to her bosom the wealth of a conti- nent. l- The journey of the little boat was now done, and. Auswurf went out along the swarming, high-piled levee, the marvel of the world, where -every product of every clime and every art lay, heaped and stacked like valueless rubbish, to find another. Lay- ers of steamers, three deep, were strung for milesalong the wharf, and thousands of black chimneys rose like a Hadean forest of smoking pitch, far as the eye could reach. "These," thought his defeated and almost pulseless heart, "these are triumphs of a civilization in which I have no part, however humble." He found presently a magnificent steam-palace about to depart down the river. As he crossed the wide deck and ascended the broad, ashen gangway, he hesitated and almost stopped, like one who has made a mistake; it seemed that broken, beggared, haggard Auswurf was strangely out of place there. He had never before felt weak in the presence of pretension, selfishness and crime, but now, with a new and mournful sensibility, he felt that their very scorn of him gave them the better of him. It mattered not 4 -that he had that which outweighed caste and fortune, and all the wealth of this world. With all the treasures of his soul, with riches for the want of which kings and polities would presently be driven from their thrones, he could not have bRight of the : swine who looked askant and insultingly at his mean apparel as much as one of the glass pendants that tinkled friom their chan- deliers, or a crumb of the bread that fell from their table. Presently he crept up-irresolutely-near to the office of the I? clerk, to engage passage, but could not muster audacity enough to present his face at the window. Flocks and companies of the beau nonde came crowding up the steps and along the hall to : take the places they had already engaged. The weak, sick boy, shrinking and all unstrung, was unceremoniously pushed into a corner of the cabin adjoining the office, and almost felt that he could never come out of it again. Presently, a more aristocratic group than any that had preceded it, came up the stairs and entered the cabin. As his eye fell on them, a thunder-bolt seemed to fall on his head and rend it. One face was averted, but that form and carriage could belong to no one in all the world but Urania. And Dr. Greed, Claiborne, Cheveril, Snort, l THROUGH AUTUMN. 363 Mrs. Greed -- there was no mistaking these and the half- score of purse-proud young aristocrats of both sexes from whose faces he had often seen. Before he had recovered from the stupor of his surprise, the party had passed on to the ladies' cabin, and the holy man, the ghoul and demon of Aus- wurf's past to a far greater extent'than he thenknew, had returned to the office for the keys of their rooms. It seemed to the sick and heart-wrung boy, at that moment, that the underworld was heaving up out of its shades every torment that could sting or gall him. The Doctor, pressing forward to the office, almost touched him, and once cast a hasty glance at the figure in the corner near him; but in the haggard face and wasted form he saw no trace of the boy-Apollo whom he had known. Crouching, almost cowering from contact with him, dreading lest he should recognize him, for the first time in his life shivering with terror such as his mother had displayed, the poor boy shrank back into the corner, and felt that he would give all the universe for power to compress himself into nonentity. But, poor, faded boy, ema- ciated shadow of thy former self, thy fear of recognition was la- mentably without foundation. Scarcely had the holy man turned on his heel to move away, when Auswurf's dying soul, with one mighty rebound, rose for an instant to its full stature and pristine strength. The agony, the consternation, the self-reproach which seized and wrung him then no language can describe. Oh! it was terrible, his proud spirit's first bitter, bitter and crushing experience of weakness. He was utterly astonished at himself; he questioned his own identity; he felt that all the world could not convince him that he had done that deed, if he did not know it; he utterly abhorred himself. The cup had received its last drop, the only one that could possibly have renained; the last remnants of his manhood were gone forever as his active power had gone before. Torment's glowing furnace never forged a bolt that did not rankle in his hea:t; Misery's quiver never held a poisoned dart that did not fester in his flesh. Then with a sudden change of direction in his emotions, such as his mother had displayed, a tide darker than despair broke over him: "But oh, let me not reproach, not scourge myself; let me rather weep beside my own bier, since there is none else to weep there. It was not I that did this; I did not will it nor consent to it; I had no warning, I did not even know of it till it page: 364-365[View Page 364-365] 364 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. was done. rMy spirit is no longer mistress of my deeds; but crushed to death, it bleeds only scalding lymph and blistering weakness. 1My life was all built on a single hope, and when that went, all of me that was myself went with it. To upbraid zmyself now is to beat the poor old hound from whose toothless jaws the stag has broken. This which yet remains is but my thin and powerless ghost, looking about to find the grave in which all my real self lies buried." Then, instantly, he thought they were to be his fellow-passen- gers on the long voyage; that he must meet them daily, and, even ghost as he was, could scarcely fail to be recognized sooner or later. Might he not fly from that trial? Might he not avoid the contact of the dead past which had come back to go along with him to his own grave? No, though it should tear out the tatters of his heart, and fling them in his face, he would now stay and face them with evenness of soul and a mien that told no tales. "Besides," he said, glancing up the long cabin, "in this as in the life-voyage, they are at one end and I at the other; only the most unseemly chance could ever bring us together here or there." "What do you want, boy?" demanded the clerk, who had ob- served the ill-dressed, trembling youth. "A berth. The name is Auswurf. Putl me well forward." "You'll go wherever Awhe choose to put you," returned the syco- phant, carelessly. And dashing down the name "Horsewirt," Land sprawling a hasty 85 after it in column headed, "No. Berthl," he added with the accomplished damn-a-poor-man air which was his principal qualification for his position, "Here's your key."' Then dazed, amazed, self-abhorring Auswurf went to his room to lie down and hide his shame from all the world. The ener- getic and passionate despair of his earlier years returned no more; that mood was now exhausted forever; and after one moment's wild tumult of amazement, and self-detestation, he sank into a nightmare, as if he were sleeping with a mountain on his breast. After its one mighty throb of horror, his heast stood still, as if unwilling to prolong such a life as his. But scarcely had he sunk down and hid his face in the quilt on -the bed, when he rose again. Oh, it was intolerable to be shut up there with his shame. The narrow room squeezed it close against him, pressed it- down on him, suffocated him with it. He must go out vlwhere the hor- izon would be the nearest bound, so that he could place far THROUGH AUTUMN. 365 off on it what nevermore would quit his sight. He did not wish for death; it seemed to make no difference whether such a wretch lived or died. His will was paralyzed, robbed of its power to control his limbs, or to accelerate or retard his pace as he went on in an automatic walk. It was not fatigue that niade it seem hard for the natural machinery of his body--not for his will, that had nothing to do with it-to keep up his slow loco- motion. So hard did it seem to be for nature to move his limbs, that presently, to relieve her of the task, he sat down on the guard, and watched the ;crew at their work, wondering how they could move about so nimbly, and why they cared for the mate's curses and blows, while his pulseless heart envied them, and said: "Here, too, were once muscles that might have la- bored--tlhen why did the greedy brain take all the vital force? Here, too, was once a nimble and vigorous body-then why could not the spirit let it live?"At length, the last sack of grain, the last barrel of whiskey, flour or bacon, the last drove of live stock was placed aboard; the last stroke of the bell died in the mel- low air; the steam hissed at the river which it had so often conquered, and was about to conquer again; the paddles, with a tumultuous rush, beat the muddy water into spray; and the palace of pine and glagss, fit symbol of the frail, pretentious aris- tocracy for whose convenience it was built, parted from the shore. Auswurf then ascended to the upper deck, and for hour after hour walked slowly back and forth there. It was easier to walk while the boat was in motion; the oscillation'of the engines seemed to help his heart along. And as he wallked, lie twalked through mists of reverie which were a vapor-bath of gall. "This is my end, and it is not honor, achievement, the undying-no, it is no manly part, however humble; blut it is degradation, abject- ness, and eternal shame!"Presently, he began to find a sort of balm for his despair as he looked at Nature in her autumnal robes, and recalled the sympathy that made his life a part of hers. "Had this befallen me at any other time," he would re- peat again and again, " it would be a different matter. The cer- tain ruin of my active hopes came to me in that night-storm. Then soon, not designing all the fitness of the act, I rushed to. meet the Northern Autumn, the quick and deadly stroke which broke my strength forever. And now I am floating onward with a continuous Autumn, a death-pang of the universe with which page: 366-367[View Page 366-367] "i THE STORY -OF AN OUTCAST. my own decay keeps step. Why need I care for weakness which nature feels? Why need I repine at what brings me consciously nearer and nearer to my final shape? I bore the principle of this ruin within me from my first breath-a. sacred something which could not but assert itself in an unsuited age, and kill me by its untimeliness. The consciousness which but for it had been a useful spur, it transformedj into a murderous lance; and I am perishing because there is that within me which in a happier age would have made me the Atlas and peace-maker of the world. " Then for four days they ploughed a prosperous furrow down the bosom of the Father of Waters. In that time, Auswurf did not meet again Dr. Greed, or any of his party. For reasons un- known to him they remained constantly in their cabin, while he was always on deck, looking with gloomy comfort at dying Na- ture, and the monotonous scenery of the great river, the great- est of all that are carrying the mountains to the sea. At long intervals they passed little, old, mouldy, drowned-out towns, looking like ghosts of Sodom on the banks of the Styx. Occa- sionally, the dreary sameness of the shore would be relieved by a plantation with its squatty mansion, and village of whitewashed cabins. But these were comparatively rare sights. Often, for interminable miles, nothing would be visible but the same low, half-dyked, autumnal world, with its blood-dipped forest massed and tangled up to the very verge of the wave-cut, crumbling banks, and ending in the invariable border of cotton-wood; and from the dying shore came no sound save the plash of the cav- ing banks, as they tumbled, sometimes carrying large trees with them, into the river. On the afternoon of the fourth day they were far down the 5Mississippi. The snn had acquired tropical splendor, and, it seemed to Auswurf, tropical power. The boat made a landing at a small village on the eastern bank, in a bend where hundreds of frightful snags -thrust up their ghastly arms as if to clutch her under, and there Claiborne, Cheveril, Dr. Greed, and all of their party but three went ashore. The exceptions were Urania, who was to remain on board until a carriage, which her colored maid luclily went with the rest to arrange for her comfort, could be sent down to the boat for her, and Mr. Snort, and a young lady from Y--, who staid with her. Of course, the master of the steamer would have delayed his boat for any number of hours THROUGH AUTUMN. 867 to accommodate so aristocratic a party. Claiborne's home Was not far from there. This village was not the landing at which he usually left the steamer; that was twenty miles below, around a huge bend; but the difference in distance from the two places to Greenwoocl was not great, and when Claiborne wrote in ad- vance directing carriages and horses to be sent to the upper village he had a powerful secret motive for doing so. He knew that all the politicians of that region were expecting him home, that they were waiting to give him a grand reception at the usual landing, and to call on him for a speech, in which, from his antecedents, he would be expected to favor instant State sui- cide. He was determined, therefore to avoid them, and he did. But suddenly, as the boat was lying there, and before the car- riage on which she was waiting arrived, a peculiar yellow haze over- spread the sky, and in the twinkling of an eye a terrific tor- nado was seen rushing on them with, the speed of lightning from the southwest. Every effort was made to get off from the dan- gerous shore, and away from among the snags. Husky and-ex- cited shouts of command, the tinlling of bells, the hot respira" tion of the engines, and the moans of the slowly-moving machin- ery mingled with the first rattle of the storm. The great wheels revolved very slowly, as if terrified and unwilling, and the stern of the boat swung round Up the stream until she lay broadside to the storm at the instant when it struck her. Then daylight glimmered for a moment and expired; the skirts of the clouds settled down close against the surface of the eartlh, and swept along it in a manner which Auswurf had never witnessed before; whirlwinds of black mist enveloped them; the storm seemed to have rebounded from some spot far off and dropped down again just there,' and to be tearing shore and river into fragments with its terrible black hands. Above the roar of the tempest could be heard the crash of falling trees on the western shore, as the forest was rent asunder. Twigs, branches, and clouds of blood-red or faded leaves filled the air, and covered the fated boat; whole tops of trees fell on -the deck, or slashed the river on every side. A sanLd-bank rose from its place in the stream, and fled away on outstretched ashen wings. The storm was not above them; they were ini its very heart and centre; the light- nings did not descend, but seemed to play on the ends of one's very eyelashes, so close were they, and the thunder-bolts seemed page: 368-369[View Page 368-369] 368 THE STOnY OF AN OUTCAST. to leap out of one's very breath. At the first note of the tem- pest, Auswurf flew in exultation and delight to the upper deck. He cared not for, he remembered no more, the sorrows of the past; sublimity and freedom held a carnival in his soul. The storm gave back his strength; Olympus with its gods seemed to throb again inllhis every heart-beat. Clinging to an iron brace that crossed the deck, to keep from being swept away, a skeleton transfigured into a god, he revelled in the scene which blanched every other cheek with terror. Then, as his spirit swelled up with pride and joy into a part and possessor of the storm, lihe asked himself whether he might not loose his hold on his sup- port, and perish there in the midst of that wild grandeur- whether he might not break the thin, worn links of his earth- shackle, the bond of his weakness, and go away with that storm, enthroned on its brow of night and fire forever. The first shock of the tempest sent through every timber of the boat a jar and trembling as if she had collided with a mountain of iron. Then came a crash and a quivering like that of part ing ice; a huge snag had penetrated the hull, and came crashing through cabin and roof like a rebounding thunderbolt; the clhimneys fell like trees, and crushed in half of the upper deck; instantly a cry arose that the boat was on fire, and forked, wide-flaring flames, blue, white anIL red, from the cargo of whiskey, lard and bacon, twisted and wrung into a thousand fantastic shapes by the whirl- ing and inconstant winds, came clambering up the sides of the boat, locking, their long, hot fingers across the roof. The horses and mules broke overboard in wild stampede, and foolishy swam round and round the burningc boat, or else struck out towards the shore. On striking the1 snag, the boat tfurned on it as on a pivot, and the stern was wrenched around towards the shore. Crowds of men, women and- children came rushing up from the cabin -with the many-colored flames glaring on their pale, wild faces, to try to escape from the stern of the steamer to the bank; for the rain which accompanied the hurricane protected the upper- deck to some extent against the flames which swept thrloungh the cabins and the lower deck. Snort camle rushing wildly up stairs in this way, alone, and throwing himself with a tremendous leap from the stern of the boat towards the bank, suc- ceeded, after a desperate struggle with the waves, in reaching it. Auswurf, smitten with remorse for his strange absorption in the I; i THROUGH AUTUMN. 369 storm, flew to the head of the gangway near the wheel-house to descend to the cabin in search of Urania. He met her there just ascending; her faithful female friend had already perished at her side, burnt quite to death, and her own clothes were on fire. Before he could speak, almost before he could look at her, she had traned on him a face whiter than his own, and recoil- ing as she thought, "It is his spirit, come up out of the grave into this storm," relaxed her grasp on a brace to which she had clung, and was instantly swept overboard by the wind. It was precisely what he would have told her to do, and quicker than thought he plunged after her. Rising from the first plunge, he saw her dress, and long loose hair rolling away upon the waves. How he thainked heaven then that in all his boyhood swimming had been his favorite sport-an exercise in which he had never encountered an equal. A few rapid strokes brought him up with her. Barely elevating the white, insensible face above the waves on which the matchless hair still floated wide, he grasped the mane of a terrified horse with one hand, and, directing the animal with it and with sharp commands, brought her, by an al- most superhulnan effort, to the shore. The shaken bank had sunk down by acres, and lay all split and quaking, just above the surface-of the water. Auswurf, releasing the exhausted horse, which was swept away and drowned, succeeded in dragging his burden partly out of the water, and up on the dissolving bank; but the mighty effort he had made had consumed the last atom of his strength, and apparently of his vitality, and, nearly as lifeless as she, he could do no more. The threatening waves boiled and eddied roruld them, and were fast washing away from under them their unstable landing-place. He saw dimly, as in a faded dream but half-dreamed at daybreak, the now reddening flames glaring on the dark, wild stream; he heard faintly, as in a pit a million fathoms down, the screams and bubbling groans of the perishing, whom, alas, he could not aid. It seemed that Urania was already quite dead, and that, in another moment, the en- croaching waves would sweep them both away, and he would be drowned too. Then his dim, half-conscious thought was; "It is thus, then, that we two die at last--together. The bank is trembling and dissolving beneath us; the hour has come. Shall our immortal parts, rising simultaneously from the mists of death, recognize each other, and journey hand in hand into thf depths 16* page: 370-371[View Page 370-371] 370 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST, of the eternal world? Thou hast preceded me, sweet spirit; yet wait for me on the resplendent shore; I am coming quickly. Thesecythe is again uplifted, and will quickly repeat on me the stroke which has cut thee down." But not yet was the scythe of Death to harvest him. In his exhaustion and semi-unconsciousness, he had not noticed the pre- parations maling to rescue them. Two strong men, with cords around their waists, had made their way to them, along thick planks laid across the cracked bank. They lifted Urania from his breast, and one of them, carried her away, while the other bore him back to the solid ground. "Carry them into my house," said a gentleman, 'pointing to the nearest dwelling; for the villagers had come forth into the storm, and were busily engaged trying to save the victims of the disaster. "Do not wait to carry me into the house," said Auswurf. "Put me down here on the bank, and go on saving others. After I have drawn breath, I shall be able not only to take care of my- self, but to help you;" and they obeyed him. Then came a de- tonation, a quaking of the earth and air, a gleaming of the sky, as if the earth's imprisoned fires had broken her thin crust, and spouted forth. Burning brands whirled through the sky, and. fell hissing into the river. The boat had vanished; her boilers had exploded, and blown the burning wreck to atoms. The acres of sunk bank, shaken yet further by the explosion, trembled and sank still lower; the water rushed in over them, and there was a great boiling gulf where once was solid ground. A number of the passengers had been saved by means of ropes thrown out from the shore; but many perished, and their blackened corpses were swept away. out of sight down the river, along with the charred timbers of the steamer. Nearly all of Claiborne's party had been saved, as we have seen, by the lucky chance of his taking them ashore when and where he did; so that it was to Auswurf's influence at last, that even they remotely owed their safety; but they were stupefied by the belief that Urania, whose life each secretly felt was worth more than all their own, had perished. Snort, on rejoining them, thinking he could do so safely, had told them about his succeed- ing, by great effort, in getting Urania and her friend off the boat with life-preservers around them, when the latter, he said, begin- THROUGH AUTUMN. 371 ning to sink, had dragged Urania down with her and drowned her, in spite of all that he could do. For helhated the faithful girl for remaining by her friend after he had run away, and so he de- famed her even in death. So Claiborne, Cheveril, Dr. Greed and all the rest, both men and women-nerves are forgotten on such levelling occasions-wandered along the bank looking every- where for the remains of their missing friends, glancing-the women timidly-at every blackened corpse that was brought ashore, and making inquiries of every one they met. The dark- ness was now lifting, the storm had spent its fury, and day was again returning, a second dawn at sunset. Dr. Greed, at length, concluding that the object of his search had drifted off in the cur- rent, got up on some sort of rostrum, so that he could be heard by all, and, with choking sobs, and floods of tears, offered a very large reward to any one who would either recover his ward's body, or give information which should lead to its recovery. Then Auswurf, still sitting there on the bank, plucked by the coat a man who stood near, and said: "GGo, tell him that his ward is there in that hoise." The Doctor and all his party went into the house, and presently the holy man came out again, commissioned by Urania, now restored to consciousness, to discover who had saved her and to reward him. "There," said one, of whom the Doctor inquired, pointing to Auswurf, "that-boy sitting there saved a lady. I saw him do it." The holy man flew to the place iwhere Auswurf sat. The latter staggered to his feet. They two were to meet again, but not now after the similitude of that melancholy scene at the office of the clerk. The Doctor's present role was the pathetic one of melting gratitude to heaven and the preserver of his ward, and his life-long experience as a whiner being in his favor, he resolved to do it well, and did. Tears were streaming down his face ; his arms were stretched out impulsively to clasp his ward's preserver; but the moment he was about to cast him- self on Auswurf's neck without speaking, too full, in -short, for ut- terance, the latter stepping aside to avoid the embrace, -said in tones of ice: "Dry your cheap tears, crocodile, and put down your lecherous arms; you are wasting both your art and your pollution." "In the devil's name who are you?" cried the Doctor, gazing into Auswurf's face in amazement. "Am I then so changed?" asked Ausw'rf, lifting his dripping hair off his face and forehead. page: 372-373[View Page 372-373] 372 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Did you save her?" asked the Doctor, recoiling. "I have not said I did," responded Auswurf. "Let not the sun deny his brightness," exclaimed the Doctor in unconscious fervor. And then he thought, for a moment, that it would be as little as he could do to tell the sick and wasted boy how deeply he had injured him within the last few weeks without his knowing it, and to reinstate him in all that he had deprived him of. But the virtuous spark never made its way out of the fog in whvich it for a moment glimmered. In another in- stant it was gone forever, and what think you now, curious stu- dent of human nature, was the only result it- left? It was these words, which he spoke aloudl: "Don't hesitate to take this money, because you think it is mine; for it is not. She gave it to me with her own hand just now to reward her preserver, if he should bepoor." Andhefeltthat somehow or other this insulting ex- planation, which left Auswurf perfectly free, as he supposed, to accept the accompanying tender, was a full reparation for his suppression of the late virtuous suggestion. "Of course, this is not your money," returned Auswurf. "But I am not so good an economist on such occasions as you are. Say to her that her life was not saved for hire; it is un- necessary to command you not to tell her who did it. And now, pardon me, Doctor, but your further presence is a horrible blot on this experience--a screech from Tartarus interjected into the symphonies of heaven." Then the Doctor quickly went away; and Auswurf's soul no longer mourned or sighed,--no longer felt weak and utterly un- done. The descending sun, too, like his soul, a picture of it, had burst the bonds of cloud and tempest, and now shone forth above the melancholy and riven forest in unparalleled softness and splen- dor. Auswurf in new strength and activity walked to and fro along the bank, with the wild eddies boiling near, and the sullen clouds lying in broken masses in the sky, and looked now on the freshy, sadly glorious sun, and the red fields of heaven, and looked anon with gleaming eye into his own consciousness. "When Death Shallcome for me," he said as he walked onward, "I would that he should find me in some such frame of mind as this. The sense of having achieved somethng-the feeling of well-done-how it satisfies! I should have died after some great deed heroically wrought out, instead of sinking into a nameless grave unknown. I.- ;F THROUGH AUTUMN. 373 NatuLre meant that fate, not this, for me. E ven the paltry action which I have performed re-enthrones my spirit, and makes it smile and smile at its own joy. 'Tis true that in tie first shock of galled and throbbing sensibility, I cowered in that man's pres- ence, but when the storm stripped us of Fortune's blundered lendings, and pitted his naked soul against mine, I found that my spirit's core was sound, though the outside wlhere the body infects it is crumbling away. Yet him the world calls great, and is sswift to honor; Ibut me-if T should challenge the whole universe, im- portune each angel, appeal to every saint, which one would grant 'me any recognition?"Then he pansed and looked away again outi s of his own life and consciousness, to the beaming sun, illumi- nating the dark, torn forest, and flashing on the turbulent tide and boiling eddies. c"The Beautiful, ah, the Beautiful!" he sighed, "is the true physiciarn of the sick at heart. How her touch, her presence soothes and calms and stimulates. If I could give my- self into her charge, she wotuld heal me, even yet. Italy, the Alps, the AEgean, the relics which civilization has left in her footprints, the hoary lands -where Nature, reaching her loftiest altitude, stepped over into man and spirit,--wherever nature and man have been gZanldest, there would be my proper hospital. But this can never be ; the leash of poverty holds me tight in the hand of Death. Yet this tough thong which my poor strength has -vainly tugged against, and my teeth have gnawed in vain, the scythe of Death will now soon sever for me., The Beautiful is eternal; it cannot die, and it cannot abdicate; its home is beyond the stars, from among which it dimly shines down into the yearning eyes of men, and Truth, and the Excellent which I have sought, are there with it. And-I, too, shall be there with them and among them, capable above what I am here. Wondrous Nature, that never yet has taken a backward step since the first crude germ -of the uni- verse began to sprout, will never fail the soul of man, her noblest work. Then, cheer thyself, my sorrowing and defeated soul, for when time and sense are no more, both thou ancd that which thou seekest, will survive ; the champion and the prize are both eternal in the future. I must needs go awaVy -without achievement or at- tainment in this world, since Fate is relentless, but, as the child of God, my Father, I will wring deathlessness from death, and victory out of the grave, and renew the conflict on the plains of light, unconfederated with matter, free forever from defection and betrayal at its hands." page: 374-375[View Page 374-375] 374 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. His meditations and his walk were abruptly ended by his finding himself clasped in Claiborne's arms. CHAPTER II. A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. "SERAPEx of the storm," cried Claiborne, " you here? Faith, it is in keeping that you should be. But how came you here? You did not drop down out of the clouds?'I "No," said Auswurf, "I came on the same boat with you." "Incredible!-impossible!" cried Claiborne. "You were not on that boat with me four days and never spoke to me?" "Yes, I was," replied Auswurf, very dryly. "I have come to this country to teach in some planter's family. Can you tell me where I can find a situation?" "You, my demigod, turn school-teac7ier/" ejaculated Claiborne, in dismay. "Tell me you are jesting." "Skeletons don't jest," said Auswurf, with the same purposed curtness as before. Claiborne turned pale and red by turns, like a man who has received a secret stab in his most vital part. "I do not think," said he in painful embarrassment," that you understand the state of the case exactly-you have decided hastily-you have not re- flected how "- "If you will remember, that I came on that boat and yet we did not meet, you Till conclude tflat I have reflected." "I did not mean that-but the temper of the people--your opinions-will you be safe? You are very reckless. How will you deport yourself? I cannot tell." "I have never sent my conscience to a geography-school," replied Auswurf, " and I will not do it now ; but I trust I have some common-senise. ' In unspeakable mortification, springing from two or three different sources, Claiborne stepped away from Auswurf, and strode back and forth once or twice before him in silence. His pride in Auswurf, his admiration, his almost worship of him had just received a cruel blow, dealt, indeed, by his own noble, but A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. 875 miseducated mind, yet scarcely less painful for his dim conscious- lness of the direction whence it camane. Ought he not to acdmire the boy more than ever?-but a school-teacher I Besides, Auswurf had plainly cut him; that stung him to the quick; but had not the boy taken the sensible, proud and correct view of the case at last?-tlhat was still more stinging. Suddenly his face half un- clouded; he thought he saw a way out of the difficulty. "It is so late in the season," said he, " that -you will find it very diffi- cult to get a situation. So we will say nothing about it, and you shall spend the winter with me, and teach me." "I will find a situation," replied Auswurf, quietly, " if I have to hunt for it from Charleston to the Brazos." "Well, the fact is, father wants a teacher," said Claiborne slowly. "He wrote to me to bring him one, but I forgot it. Shall, I tell him that I engaged you?" "No," said Auswurf ; "tell him the plain truth, or nothing." "Well," returned'Claiborne, with a half-laugh breaking through the cloud on his face, "it will not be necessary to tell him a single word of any kind, except that you are from Y--." "My native place is X----"replied Auswurf, coldly, not relish- ing a geographical recommendation. "Better still," laughed Claiborne. "He will be the happiest man alive, and will love you at first sight. I will get you a horse, if the town affords one, and then you and I will start"--unless, he added, slowly--doubting whether Auswurf would wish to ride with him--"unless, now that one of the seats provided is left vacant by the young lady's melancholy death, you would prefer to take it." "By no means,"' answered Auswurf, decisively. Claiborne then went away, and quickly returned mounted on his own splendid bay, and leading a horse for Auswurf. The latter mounted -and rode forward for a hundred yards at Claiborne's side on a venerable gelding which it required all the vigor of one arm to goad-along, and all the strength of the other to hold up. ': During that hundred yards, not a word was spoken on either -side. Then Auswurf said: "Ride in advance; my horse will follow better than he goes by your side." Claiborne looked searchingly and ruefully at Auswurf, and said only, "Well," and rode on in advance. Not another word was spoken between them till they got to Greenwood. page: 376-377[View Page 376-377] 876 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. Leaving the village, they struck into a broad, plain dirt-road, in which the yellow dust lay several inches thick; for the path of the sform had been very narrow, and thoughl the boat had been wrecked and the upper end of the village wrung off, not a drop of rain had fallen here. Mr. Claiborne's house was several miles off to the south-east, on the hills, but he owned a -large share of the immense body of bottom' land which lay between hs home plan. tation and the river. Vast fields of cotton and Indian-corn lay on either side of the road, the blades of the latter being now all burnt or fallen off, while the cotton plants were yet green. Many of the bolls had already been picked; others with bursted pods, exposed to view their snowy wealth, civilization's veritable gold- en fleece; while still others hung on the bush like unripe nuts on a tree. The sun was still, perhaps, an hour high; droves of hands under their drivers were at work in the fields, with hemp bags slung over their shoulders, picking cotton, while two or three overseers could be seen pacing about on horseback-all overseers ride exactly alike-from field to field of the. different plantations. Auswurf looking at the scene and then glancing forward at Clai- borne, took up the theme which the conjunction was most likely to suggest. He reviewed with an alert conscience the conversa- tion' which had taken place a few moments before, and then brought up out of the unfrequented corner of memory to which he had consiged them, those many interviews at Y---, in which he had applied a secret but decisive test, and had received a pain- ful but not unexpected answer. How noble, how generous, howl chivalrous was Claiborne, yet in the highest point of view, how hopelessly and forever enslaved. He had been cradled in a bedl of poison, had breathed it, eaten it, absorbed it through every pore at every moment of his life. Free from the more vulgar and dis- gusting coarseness of money-grabbing imbeciles elsewhere, the spirit of the age had yet smitten him with the weapon she wore on the other side, and for this world had destroyed him. His bondage under social and domestic ties, his inability to compre- hend a destiny which broke through these, his disgust at whatever clashed with his technical notions of respectability, not only jus- tified but compelled the bearing which Auswurf had just assumed. However Claiborne might struggle, whatever pangs his partial perception of the truth might cause him, now that he had returned home, the old influences which had been transiently interrupted / . ' A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. 3" by meeting Auswurf at Y-- would soon rub out the impression which the boy had made. That was just as certain at that moment as it would be made if Auswurf, like an imbecile, should urge the matter to a downright and humiliating decision. "How little, then," thought Auswurf, " does the world understand of real wel- fare and advantage. What curses are wealth and rank. What vanity they breed, what pettiness they impose, what blight they leave at last. The pride that goeth before a fall, the malignity that cometh after it, the venom and madness that make it irreme- diable -these are and willbe their work in this land. How almost royal are the advantages of the planter's son, the destined lord of many. He does not have to pass through terrible and destroying struggles to acquire supremacy, and reach it at last all scarred, crippled, dwarfed and disqualified by the strife for smaller things; it lies already in his grasp at birth; nature has crushed millions beneath him that he may be lifted up. He has only to say, ' I as- pire,' and at the word, the gates of honor fly open before him and he enters. In that ocean where myriads, with the millstone of poverty around their necks, struggle and sink, the planter's son sails away on even keel with canvas spread, every sail filled, every gale prosperous, his proud heart beating high with hopes that are certain to be fulfilled. And in this evil world it is possible, too, that at the very moment when the bold and confident foot of the planter's son is about to press in rapid succession yet higher rounds of the ladder, one once hailed by him as master-with no hope, with no further aspiration for this world-may be entering his father's family as a teacher and underling without a future. How blest, how happy, then, is the planter's son, the master of his own destiny, his inward self the measure of his life, permitted to achieve in proportion as he is capable. And what confers his ad- vantage? The profitableness of crime-nothing more. Aideclby that, he has all tilings ; while Truth's poor maniacs, scorning the common order of the- world, have for this life and this world nothing whatever." At that moment, a chorus of screams and curses burst from a field on the right. Looking in that direction, Auswurf saw that a negro driver had knocked down one of the hands and was beating him unmercifully. "That is the conclu- sion of .the whole matter," said Auswurf, as he rode forward more rapidly than before. The impetuous Claiborne, driven by stings in his oven thought, page: 378-379[View Page 378-379] O / THE STORY OUl AN UU'T'UAJ.'l. was riding very rapidly, and it was witEh difficulty that Auswurf kept in sight of him. Three or four miles from the village the road struck against the hills and ascended them. Then for several miles, on either hand stretched a sombre forest where strange tall trees, such as Auswurf had never seen before, shot up in the sky; long moss, looking for all the world like swingled hemp, hung from the boughs and waved to and fro in the evening wind; here and there a monster pine threw up his dark crest, as if by an easy effort, above the heads of aH his sylvan rivals, while the green leaves and red berries of the magnolia flashed and glit- tered in the last rays of the sun. Just beyond the edge of this dense woods, they suddenly arrived in front of Mr. Claiborne's residence. The house, situated on a pretty knoll, was built in true Southern style, broad, low and white, with mahogany-colored doors and green shutters, and rambled over a prodigious extent of ground. A veranda-always called at the South, or at least in that part of it, a gallery--rith white posts and a saffron floor, and many doors and windows opening out on it, ran around the entire circuit of the building. The declivity on which the house stood sloped off gradually in front and reached the level of the road at the distance of a hundred yards. A white board fence encircled the foot- of the hill and enclosed the whole of the rswelling surface, many acres in extent, as a yard. Oalis, chincapins, hollies and magnolias, scarcely more sparse than they had clustered in the primeval forest, shaded the rear and flanks, while in the front, less encumbered with trees, all kinds of flowers and ornamental shrubs flourished in neglected abundance ; rows of box fringed the edges of the walks, and countless varieties of roses flaunted everywhere the;r scentless autumn bloom. A folding gate admitted all vehicles and horsemen that arrived at once and directly into the yard; an ornamented but neglected carriage-way circled past the very door-step; the hitching-rack stood inside the yard to the left of the house. It was now after sunset, yet the front door of the house stood wide open. Claiborne and Auswurf ascended to the front gallery by three wooden saffron-painted steps. A long, wide, airy hall ran entirely through the house from the front door to the rear, and from it doors opened to right and left into the various apartments. The first door on the right opened into a magnificent drawing- room, the first one on the left into a gentleman's parlor or recep- A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. 379 tion-room. Claiborne conducted his guest into this, rapping loudly on the door to summon a servant; for there was not a bell in the entire house. The room was furnished solely with a view to cool- ness and ease. The floor was covered with straw matting; a mag- nificent gilt-framed mirror filled the whole wall between the two front windows ; two or three sofas, half a dozen divans, and almost a score of rocking-chairs occupied the room; on a centre-table lay a few newspapers, the Richmond Enqui er being the most promi- nent, and several numbers of De Bow's pyrotechnic Review. Claiborne's summons was answered by a quadroon boy eighteen years old, dressed in stiffly-starched cottonade pants and a blue gingham hunting-shirt which was gathered round the waist, with a shining black belt clasped in front withl a large, bright .steel buckle. His hair was pomatumed and carefully combed; his shoes were brightly polished and fitted with the utmost neatness ; his face, hands and neck fairly glistened from the cleanness and smooth polish of the skin. The absence from his dress and person of all that tinselry in which the negro so delights struck Auswurf as re- markable. He had a face which was at once sad and intelligent, and an eye which was the soul of melancholy-large, liquid, down- cast, half-terrified. You saw in his eyes none of the stolidity and insensibility %which natural and legal degradation have given the negro; a white soul looked out of them, though it did dwell in a bondman's body. And Auswurf thought then, looking at that face, as he had often thought before, that the most mournful spec- tacle on earth was an intelligent, sensitive Anglo-Saxon soul, born of Anglo-Saxon parentage, peeping out timidly from the dusky face of a slave, perpetually hawked at and bleeding, ever on the lookout for the mean, petty hen-peck of caprice, or the buffet of causeless and irrational rage, and ever mourning its hard lot. The boy Tvith a pleased and bright, but timid, smile of recognition, made Claiborne a. respectful obeisance, and said only, "Blaster Manlius! "Yes, I'm Master Manlius, " returned Claiborne; " but who the deuce are yon, my gay troubadour?" "I am Saladin, master, " meekly returned the boy. "I had not been bought yet when you went away, but I knew you, master." "Oh, yes, you're the newhouse-boy, are you? I remember my mother wrote me something about you. Well, Saladin, is your master at home?" page: 380-381[View Page 380-381] 380 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Yes, master; but master is not well this evening." Auswurf noticed again, with surprise, that the boy did not use the thllick- African " moster," but the clear Caucasian "n master." "But he will be well by morning, eh, Saladin?" asked Clai- borne. "I hope he will, master," replied the quadroon, seriously. "And your mistress, my mother," asked Claiborne with a smile that showed where the filial love of his chivalrh-ous heart was-" she is at home and well, I hope." "Yes, master," replied the boy, well knowing he was going to say something that would please his young master, " and she will be'so glad that you have come. She hasn't tallked of anything but your coming for weeks past. And, master, she was mightily dis- appointed when your letter came saying you would not come the way all the great folks expected you to come." "Ah, my eagle-spirited mother!" said Claiborne, with a happy smile,!"I am indeed the darling of her proud heart. Don't tell her that I have arrived, Saladin ; I will go to her room and surprise her." The boy then vanished suddenly, and in an incredibly short time returned bringing a pitcher of water and two goblets on a japanned waiter. "' You might have let the water alone, Saladin," said Claiborne. At this season, guests are not apt to be thirsty." "Master is always so particular about it," meekly answered the boy. "But you must remember your master is apt to transfer his own thirst to others," replied Claiborne. "Ugh!-it's devilish chilly this evening. Is there a fire in the hall?" "Yes, master." "Then, we will go to it. Is your master Belisarius at home?" "Yes, master." "Tell him to meet me at the hall fire. I have a guest whom, in your master's illness, I wish to commit to his charge, while I go to see my mother and look after some other friends." Claiborne then led the way through a door to the west gallery, and down this to another saffron door which opened into a broad hall or open room, extending half across the mansion. Towards the end of the hall next the gallery, was a fireplace wherein a blaz- ing fire snapped and crackled. . The floor was carpetless, but was paintepd a yellowish tinge ; the walls were papered with figures of grim mailed knights with broken casques and spears, the debris of A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. 381 battle, strewn at their feet. About midway in the hall were two carved wooden pillars -Which supported a partition of heavy tapes- try. Generally, the hangings were kept gathered back against the wall, and the hall remained open throughout its whole extent; but in autumn they were let down. In warm or pleasant weather the upper part of the hall next the main hall of the house was used as a dining-room, while the lower part next the gallery was at all sea- sons the sitting-room and lounging place of the male portion of the family, where neighbors, overseers and familiar friends were al- ways received, business transacted, and the dancing, drinking, frolicking and swearing done. A side-board, stocked with liquors, decanters, goblets, sugars, spoons and spices, stood here. "Master Belisarius" promptly obeyed his brother's summons, and the two greeted each other in an off-hand, don't-care-much- for-you sort of way. Claiborne introduced Auswurlf, and said-. "Belisarius, this gentleman wishes to see out father in regard to -well, in regard to a matter of business. It is not necessary to re- nmind you to entertain him hospitably to-night. He is not very well, and prefers to take tea inhis room." And then, unable either to be to Auswurf as of old, or to accommodate himself to the colder and more distant relations now existing between them, he gladly miade the claims of his mother and the expected arrival of his other guests a pretext, and went away. Belisarius was a chubby, stout, dark-skinned young gentleman, black-eyed, black-haired, heavy-featured, slow-spoken and very proud. He was dressed with scrupulous elegance, but without the least sign of foppishness. A broad black fiband thrown over his neck and drawn in pretty contrast across his snowy linen bosom, did duty as a watch-guard, and the gold repeater attached to it was stuck negligently in the left pocket of his speckled silk vest. You could see at once that he was neither brilliant nor amiable, but he possessed the superficial graces of the born aristocrat. "You have business with my pa," he said easily, yet proudly. "My pa is quite sick this evening and cannot transact business, but he will be better in the morning." Auswurf wondered what sort of disease it could be that incapacitated Mr. Claiborne for business that evening, yet was confidently expected to be gone by morning. "I hear that your father wants a teacher in his family, and I am anxious to obtain the place." page: 382-383[View Page 382-383] 382 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "My pa does need a teacher very badly. My pa has, advertised and inquired everywhere, but has not yet found a teacher to suit him. My pa atlast wrote to Manlius to bring him a teacher. Did Manlius bring you or did you just happen along school-teacher fashion?"-the last words with an easy, haughty smile. "My pa won't have Yankees about him, and it is not easy to get a Southern teacher. What State are you from?" "From X , in Q --." "I am glad of that," laughed Belisarius. "My pa will like that; my pa is very partial- to Q---ians, and, Jehu! how my pa hates Abolitionists! I hope you love fox-hunting"-that was warming towards Auswurf a great deal. "It would be such an improvement to school-teachers to follow the dogs a while. " "Will you be so kind as to have me shown to my room?" asked Auswurf. - am very weak and sick, and should like to lie down." ' So a mulatto named Phin was called to fetch candles, etc., and Auswurf was conducted to-a room adjoining the hall, and having also a door opening on the west gallery, and presently his tea was brought to him. An hour later he heard the noise and confusion caused by the arrival of Dr. Greed and his party. The next morning, feeling very much unstrung, and being willing to, post- pone the hour of meeting the other party face to face in public, he pleaded indisposition and had his breakfast brought to his room. He requested that he might be notified when Mr. Clai- borne was ready to receive him. About eleven o'clock, Saladin came and told him that " master " now wished to see him, and invited him to walk out on the gal- lery. M1r. Claiborne had just alighted from his horse at the step. He met Auswurf with extreme cordiality, grasping his hand as warmly as if he were an old acquaintance. Belisarius had already told him where Auswurf was from, and his first glance at that pale, noble, wasting face had finished the work. He was of me- dium stature, rugged and hardy, but full and sightly. His nose was prominent, his face square and firm, his eyes kindliest hazel, his hair short, coarse, stiff, and dapple-gray, his head tough and hard as a ram's, and borne with the peculiar air of sturdiness which we see in the rough-and-tumble style of men. He had a firm, de- cided, lordly walk, as if he knew perfectly well that he owned the soil he trod on; and a full, strong voice, thoroughly used to com- !6rt' A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. 383 mand. His face came very near being iron, but there was in his physiognomy, as there was also in his nature, a certain abruptness -which made the whole expression of his rough features, and the whole tone of his manners, one of unequalled geniality and sin- cerity. "Take a seat, sir, take a seat," insisted Air. Claiborne. "I told Saladin to invite you out here on the gallery, because it is cooler here than in the parlor. I tried to have my house built so that it would be cool, but it is a perfect Tophet, sir, a perfect Tophet. Saladin, Saladin, I say, you chalk-faced puppy, why don't you bring the gentleman some water? Have I not told you a thou- sand times about bringing water to visitors?" Every time a word flew out of Mr. Claiborne's lips, Saladin dodged as if a llatoon of soldiers were firing at him by file, and the moment the atmospheric bullets ceased to fly, he started off ae a run, as if for dear life ; he did not dare to start sooner. "He is a new nigger," apologized Mr. Claiborne, "and he hasn't learnt his business yet. He is a Missouri nigger, too, and God knows the Missouri niggers are the infernalest set on earth. But here he is, already, with some water; have some water, sir, have some water. In this country you will have to spout water lile a whale, sir, or you will burn up in a week, burn up in a week, sir." Mr. Claiborne tossed off two or three glasses, while Auswurf, not at all thirsty, took but a single sip. "Saladin, tell Phin to come and take my horse. The rascal is forgetting his business. Phin, Phin, you dog, where are you?" "Here, moster; Ise here," answered the mulatto boy, rushing up out of breath. "Where have you been, you scoundrel? Down at the quarter talking Freemount and Ossawotamie Brown-have you, you vil- lain? You want me to get hold of you again, as I did when I caught you at it before. Why didn't you come and take my horse, sir?" "'Cause, moster, you said you wanted him to learn to stand up a while always after you got off'n him." "Did I? I forgot about that. Well, take him along now, and be more cautious nexst time, you thief. That horse, sir," pointing to the superb roan fromn which be had just dismounted, "is the best saddle-nag I ever owned. I paid seven hundred dollars for page: 384-385[View Page 384-385] 884 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. him last fall, and that is not a fourth that he is worth. But it is not often yout get a bargain like that in this country. Those Ken. tucky&drivers, sir, are almost as grand a pack of thieves as the Yankees themselves. Kentucky is a noble old State, sir, and I love her, sir, but they have not got niggers enough there, sir, they have not got niggers enough there, sir. They will all soon be a set of dirty, thieving Yankees, sir, if they don't get more niggers. But instead of trying to get more niggers, Kentucky is selling off the few she has got. The first thing she knows, she will have no niggers at all, sir, and then, sir, even if there was a panic in lower Wall Street, and the Pope's anathemas at a discount, I would not give a wildcat damn for her, sir." Auswurf expressed the opinion that the same causes which had driven slavery from Cape Cod to the Potomac, were gathering fresh strength and volume every year, and now threatened its utter extirpation. "That's so, sir, that is certainly so," said nM. Claiborne, with refreshing unconsciousness, gratified at a solution of the matter which seemed to favor certain notions of his own. "Why, sir, Missouri is already gone to the devil, and Kentucky will follow on the next boat, if we don't stop buying her niggers. The Cotton States ought to prohibit the importation of niggers from the Bor- der States and re-open the Congo trade by State action. That is the only way slavery can be saved in this country, sir. Kentucky is a great State, sir, a splendid State ; she raises the finest horses, mules, cattle, niggers and women in the world, sir. I buy thuou- sands of dollars' worth of her mules every winter for all my plan- tations; my wife and my boys and girls cost me a little fortune every year for Kentucky horse-flesh; and as to Kentucky woimen, God bless nme, sir, I love every one in the State, sir, every one in the State. But I don't like to buy Kentucky niggers, sir ; it is too much like shortening the gaffs of the pro-slavery cock and lengthening those of the Abolition dominecker. But come in, sir, come in," he continued, rising and approaching the hall door, "come in, and let us have something to drink. I have apple brandy, peach brandy, French brandy, cognac, Widow Cliquot, Green-seal, native Catawha, pqrter, ale, and old Bourbon whiskey, older than your grandmother. Walk in, sir, walk- in, and take something." Auswurf thanked him very cordially, but pleaded both habit and illness, and declined to drink. A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. 385 'Then, if you won't drink," said Mr. Claibornme, "come in and see me drink. It's devilish Yankee-like to drink by myself, but I have been riding over my plantation, and I never had as dry a pulse in my life. I have five thousand acres in this home place, and it keeps me always in a hell of a sweat to prevent everything's going to rack. Therefore, I hope you will not think strange of my drinking alone." Auswurf told him he considered it nothing strange, and that, to prove there was no Puritanism in his refusal to drink, he would go in and look at him drink. So they went in to the side-board, "Phin, Phin - Saladin, Phin, - Saladin!" bawled Mr. Clai- borne impatiently. "Here. you dogs-this way-quick, I tell you. If I were in an ocean of whiskey, I should have to wait a month on you black devils before I could drink a drop. Fly, fly, fly, you rascals, like hell a-roasting Methodists, and bring me some fresh water, and some ice. You see," explained he to Aus- wu'rf, "I never drink without ice at any season, and keep it on hand the year round. Peeples, my agent in New Orleans, sends it to me by the hogshead, packed in sawdust." Phin brought ice and Saladin water, and Mr. Claiborne turned off three heavy glasses before quiting the side-board. Auswurf felt uneasy for fear he might be taken ill again. "You know," explained Mr. Claiborne, "after you were so courteous as to come in to see me drink, I wished to acquit myself creditably. Come, now, let us go back to the gallery where it is cool. My son Belisarius tells me you lwant to teach for me." "Yes, sir, if you need a teacher, I am extremely anxious to have the place. For my competency, I think I may refer to your son Manlius, with whom I have had some acquaintance." "It is strange," said Mr. Claiborne, "that my son Manlius did not speak of knowing you." It appeared, then, that Clai- borne, not inclined to tell the true story, and refused iperlmission to tell any other, had concluded to tell nothing ath. "Well," thought Auswurf, ' I would rather have it so." "Then I, even more reluctantly, refer you to your guest Dr, Greed." "Bother the competency and the references," said Mr. Clai- borne. "I don't care to have anything to do with old Grabtithe, in there, who would no doubt read me a homily on drinking and swearing, before I could get away; I'd far rather settle it with 17 page: 386-387[View Page 386-387] THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. 386 you on the spot. My son Belisarius tells me you are from Q-- ; that is competency and reference enough. The first question I always put to a stranger is, What State are you from, sir?-and lwhen he has answered that, I lknow at once how to take hold of him, or whether to take hold of him at all. There is nothing like being from ithe right kind of a State, except belonging to the right kind of a family." "Then, sir, I certainly'rejoice that in common with five or six million other paupers I enjoy the multitudinous and highly aristocratic privilege of having been born in a slave State." "That is right, my boy; you ought to be proud of it; and I have no doubt, either, that you belong to a first-rate family." Auswurf answered evasive]y, that he knew very little about his family ; he did not add that he cared less. "No matter for that, no matter for that," said Mr. Claiborne quickly; "I'll bet my home plantation that when you trace them up, you'll find they are one of the best families in the country." '"Buti, sir," inquired Auswurf, not relishing the topic, "I sup- pose that, though my face rmay be good for my character, you will at least have me examined?" "Examined? --What for?" inquired Mr. Claiborme, with a very non-comprehending air. "As to my educational qualifications to teach. You surely cannot be satisfied with nothing more than a stranger's word for his attainment s." "Damn it, my boy," asked Mr. Claiborne impatiently, " have I not already examined you and found you qualified? You ought not to depreciate my education and learning so. My method of ex- amination may be .peculiar, but it is the best of all. I don't know much about sines, cosines, high-potty-noses, and other right-angled fandangoes; but if you give me a man's outside, I can soon find his inside; and though I couldn't understand a Fword of Greek or Choctaw, I can translate a face as well as the next man. Now tell me whether I didn't know very well, before you opened your mouth, that you were not the man to come ask- ing for a place unless you were qualified in every respect to fill it." "You are very noble, sir, but had you not better be more rigid? If you please, sir, let us not let too much generosity into a matter of business. Yet I could not have you think I do not appre- ciate your kindness. I knew both your son Manlius and Dr. i A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. 387 Greed at a time when my prospects in life were rather better than at present; and, to be ftank, it would have been somewhat painful to me, necessary as it seemed, to have them interrogated as to my fitness for a place like this." This confidence, and the calm, sad, modest, merely explanatory manner in which it was bestowed, touched Mr. Claiborne's best and tenderest spot, and, aided by favorable prepossessions, made Auswurf complete master of his rugged and impetuous but noble heart. "Sensibility is something I particularly admire," said Mr. Claiborne very gracefully, " and I imagined that the case was pretty much as it proves to be. You have the right ring, and it's a great pity you don't drink. The fact is, sir, I already think a great deal of you, sir, a great deal of you, sir." Auswurf reminded him that they had not yet agreed upon the term's on which he vas to teach. "True, true," said Mr. Claiborne, briskly. "Very well, I pay my teacher according as I like him, always taking care, however, to pay at least as much as anybody else is paying for similar ser- vices. I never enter into writings in regard to anything. I do not need any agreement to make me do right, and I will not have anything to do with a man that does, if I know it. You will have only three regular scholars, my son Randolph, my son Thad, and my daughter Eugenie ; my son Belisarius may attend occasionally if he likes you, and I think he will. Your salary begins from to- day, but you need not commence teaching for a week or so yet. You don't look to be in robust health; I don't mean to say you are an invalid; but you need rest. Do just as you please here; let Grabtithe and the fine folks alone, if you want to; but don't be too solitary'; whenever you feel like you wanted to see an old acquaintance, plain, -blunt and dull, but true, come over to my, room on the east gallery, and call on me. But it's a pity, my boy, you don't drink." "You pain me. sir, by your unexampled generosity, and have divined far more of my ill health than I meant you should ever know; and'you have displayed a tact in your kindness that all the tricksters in the world never equalled in their scurvy selfish- ness. " tc No, no, my boy, don't flatter me. I have no penetration but that of a plain, true, honest heart, and no tact but the rude in- stinct of sLuch a heart. I always was a blockhead, and have never page: 388-389[View Page 388-389] 388 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. done anything worthy of my ancestry except to father my son Manlius. I always was dull. My father used to say, 'A pin has a head, and so has my son Randolph.' I was his oldest boy, he would have loved to see me brilliant; but I disappointed him temribly. Often when he would be provoked at some piece of hon- est stupidity on my part, he would say: ' D--n the boy, his name alone ought to put some brains into him.' And, by George, sir, it is really wonderful how I happened- to be such a numb- skull; I don't see how I managed it; for I have the bluest blood in America in my veins." He then went into a long and particularly confidential account of his genealogy, telling Auswurf from whom he was descended, paternally and maternally, and giving a catalogue of the names and virtues, and synopses of the lives and exploits of the great men of either house. Ausw-urf listened attentively, interested not in the subject, but in the traits displayed by the narrator. The person in whom Mr. Claiborne took most pride, however, was one Hal Claiborne, who was, as Mr. C. repeated a number of times with great satisfaction,!" my father's first cousin." "Ah, he was a bitch for you, sir,-a perfect bitch for you, sir. He was always called Prince Hal, because he was so gay and bold and devilish. He never was beaten for office in his life. No man in the State could beat him electioneering. He knew how to take the low people, and there was no end to his witty sayings and sharp tricks. He stopped at a log-rolling once when he was out on a stumping tour, and broke down every man on the ground in lifting, except a buck nigger, famous for strength, and with him he broke the hand-spike. Every man in that precinct voted for him on election day. At the next election, the Whigs put him up against an able and popular man named Sanders, and it seemed very probable that he would bealt Hal. A few days be- fore the election, they met at a barbecue in one of the backwoods counties of the district. Sanders was in his best feather, and had an admiring crowd at his heels wherever he moved, while Hal was scarcely noticed. When the dancing began, Sanders insisted on doing the fiddling. He was a splendid musician, but unfor- tunately for himself played with his left hand. Now was Hal's time. Turning to a man near him, he said : 'Just look at that hypocrite, will you? Up in the rich counties, among the aris- tocracy, he always plays with his right hand, but he thinks left- A. PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. 389 handed fiddling is good enough for you fellows down here.' That did the business, sir. They raised a mob and ran Sanders off, and at the polls went in solid column for Prince Hal. Oh, Hal was a bitch, sir, a perfect bitch, and no mistake. And," he added, all a-glow with pride and enthusiasm, "my son 5Manlius looks as much like Hal as his own picture ever did. 5My son Manlius, sir, will far surpass all of the name, and carry the honor of the family to the highest point. The moment our inde- pendence is declared, he will receive an appointment second to none in the country. He -will, sir;-yes, sir, young as he is, he will, by George; for it was arranged in the first place in his absence, and now it has just been ratified; half the great men in the State came here hot-foot this morning to meet him and settle the matter finally." 5Mr. Claiborne, in his honest pride and enthusiasm, did not ob- serve the agony his words caused his auditor.. It was not simply Claiborne's apostasy, his derelicton, his wilful turning away from the light in blasphemous scorn, his betrayal of the truth for a re- ward in political honors, that stung and darkened the soul of Aus- wurf, because he had known well enough that these were certain to take place, but it was to have such a vivid and home reaching illustration how easily even the cheapest treason, succeeds in this world, how richly it is requited, while loyalty to truth and right leads only to obscurity and pain and death. Sick at heart, Aus- wurf begged to be excused, in order that he might return to his room. c No, no," cried Mr. Claiborne, thinking it was only Aus- wurf's modesty that spoke," I I have further important business with you, and as soon as we have drank to my son Mianlius's success, we will transact it. Come let us go and drink; for it has been so long since you refused before, that you may have changed your views by this time. But it's as hot as Tophet in there, and so we will have the things brought out here. Phin, Phin, Saladin, Sa- ladin, fly, you scoundrels, and bring me whiskey, ice, sugar,- whiskey, ice, sugar, water, you dogs." When iMr. Claiborne was well, very few things happened that did not remind him to take another drink. The two servants, knowing very well that the mention of whiskey always portended a storm, and that an impatient order of that kind invariably ended in their being soundly beaten for some reason or other, darted forward, but unfortunately ran against each other page: 390-391[View Page 390-391] 390 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. in their haste, and both fell sprawling on the floor'. Mr. Claiborne was furious. He flew at them, seized Saladin back of the neck with one hland and Phin in the same way with the other, jerked them to their feet, butted their heads together two or three times, then standing them up side by side, he fumed: "There, you sim- pletons, I'll teach you some sense. Now, stand there while I curse you as you deserve, to relieve my feelings." So Saladin and Phin remained drawn up. in line looking pitable and ridiculously demure, while Mr. Claiborne swore away at them at a horrible rate. "Now," said he at length, "when I give the word ' Go,' Saladin, you are to take this crack in the floor and follow it straight, and, Phin, you are to take that one. Maybe, in that way, I can keep you from running into each other. Now, Go."' At the word, they shot away, each one following the line prescribed for lhim. In very short order, a waiter containing a decanter of liquor, a bowl of sugar, a lump of ice, two goblets and a pitcher of water, was placed on a chair in front of Mr. Claiborne. "Come, come, my boy," he cried joyously, " let us drink now. I am greatly troubled in my own mind about your not drinking. I know you have not got the conscience to let my liquor go .un- sweetened, by refusing to drink with me, after I have had so much trouble to get it." "To speak of no other reason, there is one insuperable objec- tion to my drinldng with you," said Auswurf, with a smile. "What is that?" asked Mr. Claiborne. "Propriety would be violated by my drinking with my em- ployer." "Damnation!" cried Mr. Claiborne; " if I had known that, I would not have employed you till to-morrow." "Still I will sweeten your clram for you, if you will accept such poor sweetening as I can supply." "How?" "Let my sincere esteem for you sweeten it." Mr. Claiborne hastily raised the goblet to his lips and drained it dry. "It was very sweet," soid he, setting down the glass. "What do you suppose made it so sweet?" "Probably because, as you said just now, you had been thirst- ing so long," said Auswurf, quietly. "Not that," said Mr. Claiborne, relishing the joke, "but be- cause it had a lump of a brave, out-spoken boy's love in it. - 5May I always .sweeten my liquor with your love for me, my boy?" A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. -91 "You may, sir, and with the love of every genuine human heart that knows you." " I have been a moderate drinker ever since I got married, be- cause since then I have had to take my liquor most confounded straight. The fact is, I don't think I have relished my liquor much since I got married. But I am going to improve now, and drink the Jordan dry. And do you mind that the supply of sweetening don't' give out." "Never fear for that, sir; but I could wish you would take the sweetening without the whiskey." Mr. Claiborne had taken up the decanter, and was in the act of filling his glass again, but his hand trembled and he spilt the liquor on the waiter. He set down the decanter again as if mechanically and without intention, and putting the stopper back in its mouth, said slowly: "I believe this will do for this morning, Phin. Put all theses things away. And Saladin," he continued, brightening up, "do you run-fly, you rascal-to your Miss Birdie and tell her that her old pa wants to see her on the gallery immediately, and if anybody objects, tell them I have im- portant business with her." What was Auswurf's amazement, a moment later, to see Urania coming down the gallery with Saladin. The first glance showed him that she was very ill: but he hoped her -illness was only the transient effect of her terrible excitement and exposure at the time of the steamboat disaster. But as she came nearer, he saw what he had not noticed in the terrible scene where he saw her last, that fell Disease had laid his fingers on her face and was making havoc of its beauty, and that her carriage and demeanor displayed the weakness of a chronic malady. The fact was, though he did not know it, that the failure of her health--the violent breaking forth and rapid progress of hereditary disease long lurktug in her system--and the hope of benefiting her, were one cause of this journey southward by Dr. Greed and a party of her companions, in accordance with Claiborne's urgent invitation. The Doctor's other motives, and how his projects prospered, we shall see. "Come here, Birdie," cried Mr. Claiborne. "I have particular business with you. Do you see that boy over there with his noble face and brave, bright eyes? Now, Birdie, I want to make you acquainted with him. He hlas some sort of a Germanw name which the devil himself could not remember, but no matter about the page: 392-393[View Page 392-393] 392 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. name, the boy himself is the material point. You can just call him Bqy, as I do, or Old Boy, if you prefer; for I'll bet he has got a big sprinkle of devil-good devil I mean-in, him. And now. my boy, on the other hand this is Birdie-not Urania, nor Miss Moultrie, nor any such stuff, but sweet and pretty Birdie. I named her that in her cradle; they said it was a nick-name ; but I said it was her true name and that the others were nick-names, just as your true name is no Dutch lingo, but just the Boy, in plain English, which, I expect, is God'slanguage at last. .And you see, my boy, because I named her Birdie, she repaid the compliment as soon as she could' tallk, and commenced calling me ' my pa' ever so prettily, and she taught it to all my children, from Belisarius down; she made even his thick tongue catch the music of it after he was a great chuckle-headed lad, and so now they never call me anything else. Well, I ought to have been her father," added Mr. Claiborne, " but the infernal angels schemed and lied and broke off the engagement. But come, Birdie, you and the boy, I want you-to know each other and be excellent friends. I consider it, highly important that you should know each other well, and I would not have you miss being friends for my home plantation. But you must keep it close ; for if the angels got to know it, they would raise Cain. You see, Birdie, the boy is only a school-teacher, though he ought to have been President years ago, and angels have no palate for school-teachers. Go and shake hands with him, Birdie; go and let him squeeze that pretty hand of yours." For a moment Urania stood irresolute and trembling like a ce- dax shaken by the wind, then as if resolved not to flinch from the ordeal, or violate the proprieties of the situation, she went forward with downcast eyes, and offered Auswurf her left hand. "You see," she apologized without looking up, "that scrofula has already disabled my right hand." With a tremor and a twinge, Auswurf looked at the beautiful hand which his own had pressed in days of yore, and saw that it was, indeed, all bound up and useless. "I intend now," said Mr. Claiborne, "that while you both re- main here, you shall take an abundance of horseback exercise, and that is the particular business I have with you just now, Birdie. Just look at the boy, Birdie, and see what a state of health he is in. And, boy, do you just look at Birdie, too, and see what a state of health she is in." - . E: A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. 393 And then, at last, Auswurf and Urania, obeying him-the com- mand was necessary, and he had given it because he noticed how strangely they each, for different motives, avoided more than their first glance at one another-looked freely into each other's al- tered and wasted faces, and saw the fearful ravages canker and disease had wrought, and each realized with sickness of the soul that the other was slowly but sturely dying. Auswurf was the first to look away, unable to endure that sight. One who has never saved a life only to see it expire the moment after, could not un- derstand his emotions, even if it were possible to describe them. Had he been beholding her for the first time in life, that sight --Psyche, Aphrodite and Athene in the coils of the serpent -could not but have affected him most powerfully; but it was now what it never could have been under any other possible or conceivable state of the case. A true man of even common mould, however little disposed to a general sentiment of any sort, is always very tender to an object that has once, if only by accident, greatly needed and received his protection. The act' confers at once an intimate personal claim which nothing else ever can confer. It is often wondered at that strong men so frequently marry very weak women; but no truly masculine na- ture ever loves an object that does not need his strength and pro- tection, and the stronger and nobler the nature' thee more does it delight to shield and cherish. In saving Urania's life, Auswurf seemed to have acquired aE personal interest, an unselfish prop- erty, in every pulsation of the gentle heart which, but for him, wouild already have ceased to beat. No matter what her earthly lot might be, in every product of her mind and spirit, in every joy or sorrow of her heart, he had a part; and he bore in his heart for her a serene and heavenly tenderness which was its own reward. He almost wished that while, for her own happi- ness, she should remain all that she had been, she could yet, with a kind of dual existence, be poor for him, so that he might work for the food that sustained her life; ignorant, that he might instruct 'her; homeless, that he might shelter her; friendless, that he might cherish her. He thought it would be sweet to suffer for her, or to avert or palliate the smallest of her pains. If but a strand of her hair, too tightly drawn, had hurt her head, he could not have rested till he had eased it. If but a vapor had threatened to sully her mind or her heart, he would page: 394-395[View Page 394-395] 894 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. have interposed to save her from it. With what emotions, then, did he now .endeavor not to see her sickness, pain and wretched- ness. Urania, on the other hand, having once looked at Aaswurf's face, did not look away from it again for a single instant, but stood re- garding him with such a mixture of emotions as probably has rarely been depicted in a human face. She was shocked and sick- ened by the terrible change she saw in him, but it was not precisely the same horror and inability which had averted his eyes from her, that had at first averted hers from him. She had believed since yesterday that he was dead, and she had already spoken of his apparition on the boat with a thrilling and lofty rapture, scarcely comprehensible to herself, and of which we shall see more presently. But she understood that apparition now, and also the evasions and contradictions with which her guardian had met her keen and persistent inquiries as to the manner of her rescue ; and the first definite and entirely clear look which she directed at Auswurf's face was an overwhelming outpouring of her heart in an entreaty for permission to acknowledge her- grat- itude. But she only read prohibition in his face, and then, as she asked herself I'Wherefore?" she felt a deeper and more destructive pang than those of physical disease. For the con- straint and pain which the reflex of her rejected entreaty carried back into her face and manner, can scarcely be described; and Auswurf, for the first time since he had known her, felt disap- pointed in her. He would not for the world have had a sylla- ble spoken about an act he considered as not having one particle of merit in it. The slightest allusion to it would have been hu- miliating, and very painful to him. To see that she knew of it at all, to have even a suppressed consciousness of it between them, embarrassed and troubled him. Anld when he saw that, no mat- ter what emotion came or went, she did not in the least sup- press that consciousness--that she did not want to do so, and had no intention of trying-that in pleasure and in pain, in all con- ceivable shapes, shades and conditions, it, and it alone, was eb- bing and flowing all over her face-and that she was quite de- termined, too, that he should see it, and either accept or reject her gratitude, the singular display of nobleness, impetuosity and perverseness at once astonished and annoyed him. But though their faces were thus expressive, neither of them A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. 395 spoke a word, while Mr. Claiborne, intent only on his generous plan, went on. "The boy must ride all over the whole face of the earth every morning, while this bright weather lasts, and you must go with him, Birdie ; for you need the same medicine, and solitary rides will do neither of you any good. So you must both get up and be off over the hills every morning before sun- rise, till it gets too cold. The meddlesome angels will know nothing about it; for angels always lie abed till breakfast is over. " Then Urania, recoiling from Auswurf, cried out impetuously : "Oh, Ircannot, cannot ride, my dear pa, indeed I cannot!" "Not ride?" cried Mr. Claiborne. "Why, Birdie, you can outride the witches. How many lubbers have got their necks half broken trying to ride with you? Colonel Moultrie told me years ago, before his death, that you had already cost him a little fortune in horse-flesh, God bless you." "But, oh, I have lost all taste for such exercises now, my dear pa ; and besides, you know," she added, "my disease forbids my ridling." "Tut, tut, I'll cure you of that in a week. You shall ride Gipsy-don't you remember Gipsy, the mare I bought for you two summers ago when you were here? She is better now than she was then, and will be as full of fire a thousand years hence as she is now. You will have to look out for your neck, my boy, when Birdie and Gipsy get you out -with them, on some of their mad chases. If they don't kil you the first week, you will soon be as sound and round ad and plump as a dollar." "Miss Moultrie declined to ride with me from lack of inclina- tion, sir," said Auswurf, with acute disappointment at her conduct. "No, my dear pa," she cried, more impetuously than ever, C" you see, I know, for you are always just, and very tender to me, that it is your other patient who has rejected your prescription. But, oh, my dear, dear pa, I did so hope that I should be asked to ride!" "So you have been, Birdie, so you have been," answered Mr. Claiborne. "That, is just what we are tallding about." "Yes, my dear pa, but I didn't mean that." "Then, what the devil do you mean, Birdie? It strikes me you are gettilg your lealders hellwards among the bushes, and a, page: 396-397[View Page 396-397] 396 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. their heels are tangled in the chains. Back out, Birdie, back out, and keep the straight road." Then there were other galled sensibilities there, besides Urania's --not, indeed, the hot and headlong impulsiveness of pain which she was displaying, but a gentler and less fiery emotion. It seemed that she was recklessly following the lead of her own caprice, not caring for the pain she was giving him-nay, not even noticing it. She was bent on deoTading him by dragging out the act of yesterday and making it a subject for- gratitude. So, while the calmness and gentleness of his manner remained, he said, with a bitterness only the more intense because he yielded to it so unwillingly, "Miss Moultrie was quite right, sir, in reject- ing your plan. Human communion is, at best, but a poor affair -a shabby mirror which misrepresents you. to yourself, and makes you despise yourself by showing you what you are sup- posed to be. Give-me a horse, sir, and I will go out alone where the legions of decay are camped in the glens, and hear my own heart take up the tattoo of their wailing bugles. The only com- munion that never pains, and never disappoints, is the experience which we know, when, being alone with Nature, her moods unite ,with our own into a participation in her eternal and infinite being. And, sir, if I were in heaven and found that its commu- nion was not a mutual heart-throb, but the same sort of jargon that mocks us here, I would scale the wall and get away. " "Yes, yes, my dear pa," cried Urania, in passionate grief, " it is all well enough to enjoin this cold compression, this death-like silence, when we wish to get rid of any communion at all. O, umy dear, dear pa, it is a grievous thing, when you have clung to a joyless life, dreaming only of the approbation of one mind, debating no question but how much he cares for you and imag- inMg the emotion which you know, indeed, the scornful lips will never utter, but which you fancy will thrill in his soul unworded, when he shall learn of the heroism of your self-repression for his sake--i is a- grievous thing to find that it was not repression but crcifixion that was expected of you. And, my pa, when you have consoled yourself in one great, and, for this life, hopeless grief, with anticipations of the time when the river of death should be crossed, and the fetters of this world left on its shore, / it is a grievous thing to know that you are to renounce all this too. It is not hard-that is, not very hard-to give up earthly .; I A PLANTER AND A CHARACTER. 397 peace and all this world, but it is very hard to be robbed also of the world of recompense beyond the grave." , Then, Auswurf, struck speechless by a pain which he had little thought he should ever feel in this world, said not a word, and Urania continued : "Yet do not, please do not, misunderstand me. When the arch of heaven falls, I may give back reproaches, or at- tempt to retaliate pain in return for these hollow cheeks, and gaunt eyes, and this dissolving frame. Disease sped an arrow at me which punctured the skin, but the poison which bred death in the wound--whence came that? But I knew a hero once'who taught me strength and resignation. I accept my fate as he would have me, too proud and too wise to whine reproaches. I was an idolater by nature'; the coldness and distance of higher worship are not suited to me; but when my divinity will have none of my adoration, and insists on tumbling from the pedestal where I have placed him, I would not restrain him, I would not, if I could help it, even let him see me weep for him. But I would permit my heart to say aloiud, just once ere it broke, ' Oh, if tiis beautiful and glorious marble had but been flesh and blood ' " "Merciful heaven!" cried Mr. Claiborne, in utter amazement. "What do you mean, Birdie, by talking this way--with your lips as pale as ashes and the light of your eyes flickering over your face like torches in a churchyard on a rainy night." "It means," said Auswurf, "that Miss Moultrie has deprived me of the privilege of riding rwith her, or of seeing her often." "Is that all?" said Mr. Claiborne. "That's enough, though, the devil knows. But why did you spout so much dictionary at one another over my shoulders? Now, I don't want you two to get to kicking up brimstone in this way, for if you do, you will scorch me a great deal worse than you do each other. I think, my boy, you have hurt our Birdie, somehow, without intending it. Come, take her by the-hand again and say something very kind to her ; for Birdie is a tender dove, and harshness is death to her." Auswurf at once advanced to where she had recoiled from him, and took again the hand she extended to him. "Do you not know?-you surely ought to know,"' he said, "that I would gladly die to spare you a single pain." "Oh, would you?" she asked ; and then a radiant joy and grati- tude beamed from her eyes on Mr. Claiborne. She went up to him, and brushed back his bristly hair from his brow, and kissed his fore- \f . *. page: 398-399[View Page 398-399] 398 THE STOIfY OF AN OUTCAST. head fervently, and sad i: "O my dear pa, you are so good, and I do love you so!" ," No, no; Birdie," said Mr. Claiborne, "I am not good, and I don't deserve to be loved. I am old, and ugly, and very stupid, and besides I have habits I ought not to have. Yet I love for you to kiss me, Birdie; it reminds me of one very like you, who used to kiss me sometimes in the days that are gone. But how was it you did it, Birdie? I believe I have forgotten already." "Was it not just this wfay, my dear pa?" she asked, -repeating the action as before. "Precisely-to an i-dot," cried Hr. Claibome. "Only, Birdie, I don't think your hand ought to tremble, and your lips quiver. That is a departure from the true theory of State Pights; it is not constitutional. Brush away your tears, my pretty Birdie, and al- ways try to keep the confounded things out of your eyes in future; for, Birdie, too many of them will wash all the brightness out of even your bright eyes." "See, my pa, they are all gone," she replied, dashing them off her hand. "That is right, my daughter, and now be cautious to keep them out in future. But, I'll tell you, Birdie-do you know, now, what makes your old pa love you so? I'll bet you could not guess." "Why, because I am so nice, of course," answered Urania, smiling after her tears. "Not exactly, Birdie, not exactly. I canter off that way, you know; but when it. comes to the home-scratch, I love you because you are mortal, and know how to love, and kiss, and cry-because, splendid as you are, you are at last only a thing of clay, human flesh and blood of a superfine quality, it is true, but not an angel, and with no angel ways. Never be an angel, Birdie, as long as you live, if you can possibly avoid it; for it is a d-d poor busi- ness. A man draws an angel in the great lottery, and what is she worth to him? Does she love him, or ever kiss him, or ever cry? Nothing of the sort, sir. She only spends his money, carps at his vulgarity, goes into tantrums whenever he gets drunk, worries the life out of him, and abuses him the balance of his days for mixing his coarse, human clay in the composition of her babies. If one child happens to suit her taste, she claims all the honor of pro- ducing him, and don't allow her husband a bit of the credit; but all the numbskulls in the family are set down as exclusively his A PLANTER AND A CHAEACTER. 399 work; and she never gets clone saying of them, ' Poor things, they couldn't help it; they are just like their father.' Well, what I would like to knonow,ow, is how my wife would ever have gone about bringing my son Manlius into the world, if I had never mar- ried her." "My pa, I am aktonished at you," cried Urania, with flushed cheeks. ' There is nothing astonishing about it, Birdie. But I hope you don't think that in my criticisms I had the slightest allusion to you, my daughter. No, no, you are no angel. Yet, as the sub- ject is up, I would say to you, Birdie, by way of advice, when you g-et married, and heaven sends you a brilliant, lovely boy, give your husband credit for his share of the exploit, and afterwards, when a shoal of fools comes, acknowledge that you had something to do with bringing them into the world." - , y pa," said Urania, starting off, "if you are going to talk that way, I must go away." "D it, Birdie, sit down," cried Mr. Claiborne, tartly. If you put on such airs, I shall think you are turning angel, and I would not believe that for my home plantation. Well, well, Birdie is mad at her old pa; that is too bad. I must have something to drink. Saladin, go and bring back the same things I had out here just now." "Wait, my pa," said Urania, knowing from past experience that if she left him in that humor he would drink to excess, and knowing too that tact and the careful concealment of her object were necessary to set him right again. 'I am not muc7h angry with you, and to prove to you that I am not, I will make you a regular old Virginia julep." "Will you, Birdie-will you, though?" cried Ir. Claiborne, in delight. "Then, I would not give ten cents a gallon for nectar, and Jupiter can keep Hebe. Saladin, Saladin, Saladin,-I'll send him by himself this time-confound you, Saladin--don't stand there, you terrapin-what do you mean, sir?--fly, you leaden- heacled devil, fly, I say, fly!"The mention of whiskey was pro- ducing another storm. "Where must I fly to, master?" asked Saladin, meekly. "Oh! confound these Missouri niggers;" cried Mr. Claiborne, in a rage. "Come here, you idiot, and I'll pull your ears off. How dare you ask me that, question?" page: 400-401[View Page 400-401] 400 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. He sprang up from his chair, and darted towards Saladin; the poor boy trembled like a leaf, and his great liquid eyes dilated in terror; but he dared not make the least effort to get away. No No, mno y pa," exclaimed Urania, stepping in front of Mr. Claiborne, and intercepting him in his swoop upon Saladin, "you must not hurt him. He did not know what you meant. Listen to me, my pa," she continued, still holding him at bay with some r difficulty. At that moment, Yarico, Urania's maid, appeared on the scene without having been called for. "Yarico, " said Urania, "run to the storehouse and look in the hogshead on the ice, and bring me some sprigs of mint here. And, Saladin, do you bring from the sideboard the other thiings." Yarico darted off like an arrow, and Saladin followed as rapidly. "Well, you lubberly ass," cried Mr. Claiborne, "she has saved you from one good thumping. Confound these Missouri niggers, anyhow; the devil in them won't let them learn any sense. But here they are with the ingredients; quick now, with the julep, Birdie. Instead of being mad with- me, Birdie, you must be in better humor with me than usual. What have I done? I'll be switched if I ]mow ; for I have tried only one little scheme to-day, and failed in that. You see, my boy, angels have a most devilish prejudice against juleps, and Birdie, though not an angel-no, no, not an angel-is rather bigoted on the subject of juleps. But she has a wonderful knack of making-them; and makes me one now and then, when she is here, as you teachers give medals, for good behavior. I have no doubt, now, I had done or said something very fine, and of that I am very glad-but plague take me if I can think what it is. Ah, you have got it ready, have you, Birdie?" He held tup the glass in his hands, and surveyed its Icontents. He then threw away the straw that was in it, and put a spoon into it to hold away the ice while he (d-ank. He then again held up the glass and surveyed it. "Reward of unconscious merit," said he, and then he drank it off. "Well, well, my boy," said Mr. Claiborne, cheerily, " to come back to first principles, you must take a long ride every morning, and then hunt the rest of the day. I will place at your disposal a good horse, and will make my son Thad show you a good gun ; we have a dozen or so about the house. The woods here are full of all sorts of game, and you can have six or eight hours' sport every day. Don't shut yourself up too close with the children. SPITE, SPICE AND "STATESMANSHP." 401 All of them, except my son Randolph, are such numbskulls that it will not be worth while for you to worry with them much. Two hours a day-are enough to teach, and one of them had better be spent on horseback with your pupils at your heels. That is the kind of education I want my boys and girls to receive-genuine, Southern, hearty, pro-slavery education-with no Yankee Aboli- tion metaphysics and other logarithms about it. " Auswurf told him it would be mistaken kindness to interfere to prevent his doing his duty fully, freely, and to the uttermost. And then excusing himself, he turned away and walked down the gallery towards his room. He had scarcely gone a dozen steps then he heard a sob, and looking back saw Urania lying in Mr. Claiborne's arms, her head pillowed on-his shoulder, and weeping bitterly, while he was soothing and caressing her most tenderly. Auswurf's next step was unsteady; the world swam round; he could not even see the floor, but he set his feet hard against the boards and walked on to his room. CHAPTER mh. SPITUE, SPICE AND "STATESMAISHP." PEEcSEmY at three o'clock, Saladin came to tell Auswurf that dinner was ready, and then the school-teacher went to face those whom he had previously avoided. The table was spread at the intersection of the two halls heretofore described, and, as the day was very warm for the season, all the doors and windows on either hand were thrown open. To save from mishaps and gravy-dishes the few feeble flies that still buzzed about, magnificent bunches of peacock feathers were swayed to and fro by a white-aproned signal corps. A very large company, including Dr. Greed andhis entire party, a number of the wives and daughters of neighboring plant- ers, and half a dozen -or more of the leading politicians of the State, who had come from their distant homes to confer with Claiborne in regard to the crisis, were already seated at the table. Among these, were two or three of the genuine politicalHowards, who ruled the State by virtue of blood, family connections, and a vulgar excellence of genius; others were merely official no- page: 402-403[View Page 402-403] 402 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. bodies who had been raised to unhonored eminence byv the lazy or politic abstinence of the aristocracy, and whose fitness for prominent positions just at that critical moment, was measured by their subserviency to the ruling order, and their ability to carry the lower classes. Of course, as Auswurf was only a school- teacher, he was not introduced to the company. Those who might have thought Mr. Claiborne uncouth in his manners, would have been surprised at the way he sustained his part as head of the family. Mrs. Claiborne presided at the- head of the table with the grace and dignity of a countess. She was a tall woman, with floods of black hair, black eyes, and features full of pride and fire. It was difficult to realize that she was the mother and not the sister of Manlius Claiborne, for she appeared to be scarcely his senior. The first theme started, was, of course, the steamboat accident. nothing could have been less to Mr. Snort's taste, especially as Auswurf was present; yet he and the Doctor had succeeded in patching up a story which would have partially saved his honor if anybody had believed it, as, of course, everybody pretended to do. "My dear," said one of the ladies to Urania, "I shudder every time I think of what you have passed through. The stranu- gest part of it all is that you have never been able to discover who it was that saved your life. You say you were swept over- board by the wind; then you were unconscious till you awoke in a house in the village; no one could tell who had saved you, and your guardian, after diligent inquiry, could obtain no clue to him." "My dear Irs. Sevier," cried BMrs. Claiborne, with a contelmpt- uous glance at Auswurf, "you have omitted the most mysteri- ous and romantic incident of all. Urania, with admirable tact, saw a ghost just at the critical moment, and was so unnerved by ? the sight that she relaxed all holds, and was swept overboard. She informed me of this the moment she arrived; but to-day she seems disposed to cover up the supernatural part of the occualrence. Of course, as ghosts can't be drowned, it was the ghost that saved her. " "How unfortunate,' exclaimed an insipid young lady, who took everything literally, and never troubled herself to make head or tail of anything. "I was sure Urania's preserver was some romantic youth, who was violently in love with her." Silly peo- SPITE, SPICE AND "; STATESMANSHP. " 403 pie have no idea how useful they are in very polite society when the devil is loose and in a humor for scratching faces in strict ac- cordance nith etiquette. "Bless you, Miss Abbey," cried Mrs. -Claiborne, in a tart voice, "have you the simplicity to suppose that our dear Urania can- not love a hobgoblin quite as well as the noblest apd most chiv- alrous specimen of manhood?" "If she judged me by some of my sex,'" replied Urania, quietly, X "she might conclude that I loved hobgoblins so well that I would be glad to see the noblest of men made a ghost-especially if I had sworn to love, honor, and obey him." "If you had sworn to love and honor the chivalrous gentleman, my clear? The supposition is -violent. Wotld a spiritually minlded young lady ever vow to love and honor the noblest of men, while there was a ghost to whom she could give her heart? But there is nothing so queer that you won't find an explanation for it after a while, if you live long enough." "Truly, there is not," replied Urania ; ' and, therefore, when we have noticed, from our infancy, a wife who despises and neg- lects her lord, we might know, if our horror would let us reason, that we should discover at length that she married hinm without love, and only in order that his wealth and standing might gratify her diseased vanity, and minister to her cold pride." "Still,' continued BMrs. Claiborne, mildly, "we should always try to be rational even in that same maudlin horror. The inno- cent grasshopper that sees the ground all drenched with the gore of the slaughtered ox, doubtless feels horrified at man's cruelty in slaying him; but anything above a grasshopper would find no dif- ficulty in justifying the bloody deed, on the ground that the baser creature is well sacrificed to the welfare of the nobler. But on the other hand, when the terms are reversed-when, for instance, a reptile, mistaken for a seraph, turns on its infatuated worship- per, and stings him--how different the spectacle." "I remember -reading once, when I was a child," replied Urania, speaking but thoughts which in her sickness were becoming only too familiar to her mind, "of a man who putr- sued a reptile that was trying only to escape from him, and just as he was about to put his foot on it, the creature stung him. And I remember thinking that the despised worm was justifiable in its terrible purchase of security. For the humblest of God's creatures has its rights." page: 404-405[View Page 404-405] 404 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "But now that you are older, my dear," replied Mrs. Clai- borne, in the same bland tone, 1"I trust that you take less super- ficial views of life and duty." "I do,'" was the reply, "for what was only the child's impulse, has grown to be the woman's conviction." With the exception of Claiborne and the school-teacher, not one of the auditors gathered so much as a hint of what this very bland conversation measnt. The guests sipped their soup in perfect unconsciousness that it meant anything at all, while Mr. Claiborne's face expressed itself thus: "I never understood a word of Choctaw in my life, and so I don't know what Birdie and the angels are in such a row about; but I know very well the devil is in the wind somewhere." Perhaps no proud and chivalrous spirit ever experienced such shame and degradation as Claiborne did just then. He had bolme all day a careworn look, and it seemed now that every syllable of this conversation was adding a year to his age. It called back to him afresh, and to his acute sensibility seemed to be publicly exposing, the extraordinary interview which he had had with his mother the evening before. Again he heard her ask him, between her proud kisses, "You darling, naughty boy, what made you evade the reception that was prepared for you?"Again, in great embarrassment, yet in perfect honesty of purpose, he undertook, by way of explana- tion, to state the changes that had taken place in his percep- tions, and the agencies by which they had been wrought. Again he heard her cry of pain, like a wounded -tigress's; .again her splendid eyes flashed forth their surprise, scorn, disgrace and loathing; again, her haughty brow was wrung with spasms, and again, with the floods of her raven hair falling around her, she cast herself upon his neck, or sunk at his feet, and implored him to either tell her he was deceiving her, or to Mrill her. Again, after the fashion of her frenzied sisters at that time and since, she covered herself with infamy, as with a garment, and stung reason from the judgment-seat with swarms of hornets led by scorn. Again her maledictions fell in storms on Auswurf's head, and her frantic vows to have him lynched, hung, burnt at the stake were uttered. Then, listening to his entreaties and his representations of the extent to which he considered his honor, his very soul, pledged for the boy's safety, she had slowly re- lented, and agreed to do the latter no harm, with the understand- SPITE, SPICE AND ' STATESMANSHP." 405 ing that her son should surrender his own future entirely into her hands. Then had followed a question in regard to Urania;- and the mention of Auswurf's name again in this connection made her regret the agreement she had made, before its words were cold. But what were Cla iborne's pain and shame, when he saw his mother openly making these sarcastic allusions to his re- jection by Urania, and to her opinion of the cause of it. Then, too, as he raised his disturbed face to look at Auswurf's, he saw the boy's deep, earnest eyes fixed on him, reading the full story of his shame and weakness, and for the first time understood how entirely the puny, unknown lad was his superior. "Mad- am," said he to his mother, with gloomy eye and flushed cheek, ,it would be nothing more than justice for you to remember that, if any of us now disappoint the expectations you have had of us, we have been sitting together at the feet of a teacher who has taught us deeper and more intelligent hatred of preten- sion, and a- readier willingness to sacrfiice petty considerations of pride on the altar of even an ignominious duty. The period of our pupilage was indeed short; but it was long-enough for us to see that the partial and halting moral heroism it had given us was worth more than all the pleasures that any sordid spirit can ever attain. And those of us who have proved unworthy of that teacher would be beneath contempt, if we did not feel grate- ful to others, who by instinct scorned our base hearts, and have given their devotion and beauty to perfect truth and him." For an instant, Mrs. Claiborne's eyes fairly blazed at Auswurf, and her clieek and brow alternately paled and flushed. It is probable that she would have attacked him at once, if another matter had not demanded her attention first. Claiborne's gloomy, passionate, half-expressed meaning had been quickly appre- hended by Urania, and the candor and fervor of her thanks at once beamed into her face. Now, nothing was more, fixed in Mrs. Claiborne's mind, than that, in spite of everything that had hap- pened, there should be a maTriage between her son and Urania. For years she had only been waiting for Urania to attain a mar- riageable age before formally taking steps to secure the " alliance," and her haughty scorn had consented to the visit of the Greeds, only because she thought it would promote her now ripe designs. As to Mr. Snort's pretensions, she treated both them and him with cool and speechless contempt. Neither did she care anything page: 406-407[View Page 406-407] 406 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. for Urania's supposed love for ALuswurf, provided Auswurf him- self could be got out of the way. If her social and religious creed had not mads her quite indifferent to love as an element of mar- riage, the recollection of her own " alliance " with Mr. Claiborne would have done so. She did not intend, therefore, that Urania shouldforgyie Manlius for having addressed her. In another in- stant, without so much as a word being spoken, the marriage on which her heart was set, would be buried a thousand fathoms deep under pardons, gratitude, established friendship, and other rubbish from which it never could be rescued. So darting at Urania, -before what had beamed into her face could begin to beam out, she proceeded to scourge her for weakness which Clai- borne had displayed. It is possible that the mother, by some sort of. mental process, taught only in the " logic for mothers," actually transferred the fault she detested, from the houlclders of her idolized son to those of the woman who had rejected him. It is more likely, however, that she reasoned thus: " "My son has just spoken an execrable mess of sentimental stuff; Urania is re- sponding to it and ruining my scheme ; I guess that I, under the circumstances, will just give her his punishment." "You spoke, my dear," she said quickly, but very calmly, " of the child's silly impulse, in regard to the value of human trash, having become the woman's conviction. I am not disposed to dispute the fact. But you may depend upon it, that both the impulse and the con- viction are utterly contemptible-a silly vagary of girlish imagi- nation, aggravated and inflamed no doubt by the incendiary teach- ings to which you have alluded. Though the subject is one of no importance, I -should prefer for you to hold to a more courageous and masculihne philosophy. For do you iknow, ladies, what a sin- gular penchant our dear Urania displays at present for speculative fancies. Once she was full of girlish freedom and vivacity ; now she is all the time moping in a brown study, and when I arouse her, she forthwith breaks out into some such a rhapsody as you' have just heard." This was not-at all true of Urania, and she had done nothing of the kind; but several times in the course of the morning Claiborne had committed this identical fault, which rwas one with which his mother had no patience at all. "For my- self, I despise such silly moralizing, cordially in man, egregiously in woman ; and I must seek to purge our dear Urania's mind of its perilous stuff by combating the distemper whenever it shows SPITE, SPICE AND STATESMANSHP. 407 itself. But school-teachers," she said, suddenly turning to Aus- wurf, " are supposed to take especial delight in the same sort of dainty moonshine which of late possesses such fascination for our dear Urania. Perhaps, therefore, sir, you felt no disgust at her mnalady, or, being deeply versed in its mysteries, will be so kind af, to tell me how to cure her." M Madam," said he, looking her full in the face, "I hesitate to prescribe ; for on which of us might not our patient retort, ' Phy- sician, heal thyself! ' We are not all sick alike, perhaps, but which of us is well?" Herface flushed at this thrust-she began to think there was something in this school-teacher-but her manner lost nothing of its composure. "I see, she said, unconsciously glancing from Auswurf to her husband, '"that you are also infected with our dear Urania's sickly views of the dignity and importance of trash." "On the contrary, I fully agree with you that a base nature has no rights at all, except the right to be wrung by secret remorse at the thought of its own guilt-whenever the conversation turns on a kindred and associated subject." "Go on," she said, leaning back in her chair, " we will listen to the school-teacher." "We may depend upon it, madam," he continued, "that when, our hearts are sick, we can find no proper medicine for them in falsely accusing others, nor-in skulking behind the wicker shield of platitude, and mountebanking our consciences with chimeras and apologetic fictions born of our own distemper. Yet the wise phy- sician, in a case like the one supposed, would probably reason thus: Nature adapts herself to every exigency; when there is lurlding unsoundness in one organ, she compensates it by morbid action in another, and thus restores the equilibrium; the whole system gradually accommodates itself to the new condition, and the con- stitution or the character is reconstructed on a basis of disease. For instance, it is found, in the 7zospitals at Paris, that conscious treason of the heart is apt to be followed by a stilted admiration for commonplace chivalry and petty magnanimityl and to end in virulent secession rabies. Nor is it safe to interfere with this' morbid action.; the equilibrium of distemper had better not be disturbed; if one organ-the heart for example-be restored to health, it is no longer adapted to the rest of the body, and the re- page: 408-409[View Page 408-409] 408 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. sult is sometimes fatal-i. e., divorce, suicide or murder. The rule is general, madam, that unless human nature be permitted to hoodwink itself with compensating crotchets, and atone for deel-reaching guilt by far-fetched worship, there is a power of conscience which would make maniacs of all the sinful sons of men." "Is. there, then," she asked with unexpected seriousness, less of Auswurf than of her own consciousness, "in the cases you so pungently describe, no remedy for disease except to propagate disease?" Auswurf made no answer to the question, and was gratified when a moment later the conversation took a political turn. The state of affairs which was at once revealed was the most surprising and melancholy of which human history, with its long catalogue of crimes and follies, makes mention. The position which Clai- borne now, thanks to his mother, found himself unable to avoid, as he had intended, was the most painful that can be imagined. Forbidden to rise entirely out of the approaching strife, he could only suffer himself to be led on and sacrificed on the altar where all he loved was to be immolated. It had been decided, before his arrival, to hold at the county-seat, at the earliest praticable moment, the pioneer convention of the State, and call for instant secession; and on that convention, Claiborne's future, as at present determined for him rather than by him, in a greats measure depended. It was by no means certain, as yet, that the disunion programme could be carried out; it was as yet a doubtful, a criti- cal point; possibly, it might prove a disastrous failure. Conse- quently, Claiborne, the noblest, the most gifted and most popular young man in the State, was selected to take the first long public stride up the slanting face of the pyramid. If he gained a secure footing, he would easily make his way to the very vertex of that bad eminence; but if anything should go amiss, if the popular sentiment should prove lukewarm or partial, not even his genius, popularity and family influence could save him from ruin. A- single premature or injudicious step would seal his doom. The particular blast of hell before which he proposed to scud might prove unmanageable and capsize his argosy. Mrs. Olaiborne, therefore, as she looked at the darkly clouded face of her son, felt a deep solicitude, unacknowledged bastard of the conscience, lest the infernal propulsion might wreck her bold mariner in sight of / SPITE, SPICE AND ( STATESMANSHP." 409 the haven to which it had been engaged to waft him. Ah, woman, well indeed might you pause, and ask whither your insane fury is driving you. What dark thought, connected with another aspect of your son's future, is this which is arising in your mind even as you ask that question about political perils. You do not say openly to your consciousness: "Since my son will not let me have this dangerous viper crushed, he shall himself quarrel with him and kill him." Our demoniac passions do not deal thus candidly with us. Concealing their movements like wary strategists, they rush suddenly upon us in the ruin towards which we have been blindly groping. Your feeling is only: "If a personal quarrel were to arise, of course my son would kill him, and that would be the end of him. It would not do for any one but Man- lius to kill the Abolition reptile, for then he would never forgive the murderer. He shall himself kill him ; he deserves to be made do it, and it would be no crime." "Senator," she asked of one heretofore described in this book, "do you think the times are so out of joint that there will be hazard in advocating now a manly and decided policy?" "It is true," responded the Senator, "that statesmen always risk something in taking a step in advance of the people; but in this instance the hazard will soon be removed by the progress of events. No better opportunity for Major Claiborne to secure a permanent place in history is possible. Let him signalize his return home by taking a bold stand in regard to the exciting issues of the day, and his fame will be secure, forever." "In regard to one point," said Claiborne, slowly, " my mind is thoroughly made up. I will not openly advocate, though I may not publicly oppose, a precipitate course which would separate the Border States from us. We shall be weak enough, even with them." "I am not in favor of waiting," cried a nobody who had been to Congress some years before, and thought now was his chance to get officeagain. For defunct politicians alwayslie unquietly in the tomb, anid have a knack of stitching up the red chasm in their political throats by out'Heroding Herod; and scores of these putrid celebrities on both sides availed themselves of the occasion of the rebellion to resuscitate themselves, by the horrid galvanism of demagoguery. "I am not in favor of waiting on the slave- breeders. Let the Gulf States act for themselves, and act at once.' page: 410-411[View Page 410-411] "O THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "On the eve of such events as are coming," replied Claiborne, moodily, " our true policy is not to drive the Border States from us by our folly, but to lead them with us temperately and wisely. We ought not to begin the march until the entire Southern column is ready to strike tents. I no longer doubt for a moment that if we, like maniacs, leave the Border States behind, they will remain forever in the old camp." "Then let them remain," hotly rejoined the ex-Congressional nobody; " if they are such dastards, we do not want them. " "I think," replied the Senator, seductively, "that immediate, separate State action is our only resource. If we were to wait on the Border States, we should probably never get out of the Union at all. The Border States, in remaining behind, will be very ser- viceable to us by paralyzing the coumsels and impeding the arm of the Government; and we may depend upon it, that at the proper time they will come to us." "And if they don't choose to come,"- exclaimed another fire- brand, "we will make them come. They belong to us, and we will have them if we want them. The way to accomplish a revo- lution, is for a few bold minds to do the thinking, and then let the swinish multitude be driven into measures." "And by the way," said the Senator, "we may have a little tender manipulating to do, right here at home. We must organize a police over opinion, and teach traitors to tremble. We must search into the very souls of men. Aspirants and office-holders, especially, must be thoroughly understood: the staunchest must be retained and supported, the timid and halting gained over and then rewarded, and the incorrigible got out of the way. For, when the time to strike comes, we must have complete control of the State, and the State must be a unit." To this declaration of policy there was not a whisper of ob- jection; and it was at once unanimously agreed, Claiborne re- maining silent, that if the great State of were only, a : "unit!"-the Federal Government would never dare to take up the gauntlet of defiance hurled at her by said State in thus being a o "uni t." f At that moment the ex-Congtressional nobody jerked from his pocket the string of resolutions which had already been cooked up for adoption by the coming convention, and proceeded to read the last one of the series in support of an opinion just advanced SPITE, SPICE ANMD "STATES'IMANSHP.7' 4" by him; thus actually giving the platform its usual canonical au- thority before its promulgation. Claiborne gave a quick look at Auswurf, and understanding the light which flashed from his eyes, turned to the ex-Hon., and said sharply y: "Put it up, sir." "Perhaps, sir," said hMrs. Claiborne spitefuflly to Auswurf, having observed her, son's action, " you don't like the resolution." "No, madam," replied Auswnrf, "the resolution is a very pretty one, and I am greatly in favor of its adoption by your con- vention; but it does not suit well for the last of the series." "What would you give in lieu of it?" asked Mrs. Claiborne. "Nothing in lieu of it; let it stand, by all means, just as it is. But I would follow it up with another, eulogizing in the same breath the man who invented the guillotine and him who invented the American political convention. I would defend the propriety of the resolution in this way.' Whenever you approach a so-called 'practical' man in regard to a matter of importance, you will al- ways do wisely to present to him the smallest possible aspect of the case first. If you let him suspect there is anything consider- able in or about the matter, he would see you in perdition before he would touch it. Politics and house-breaking are remarkably practical professions, and are followed by. the most ' practical' of men." "I do not see the bearing of your remarks," she said, as he wished her to do. "Because, madam, I am not a ' practical' infinitesimalist. But, madam, death is a very rapid process. It pulls down in an hour what ages have built up, and it is well that it is so rapid. He who accelerates its rapidity, when it must take place, is a benefactor. Therefore, the inventor of the guillotine deserves our thanks. True, they say the eyes wink sometimes after the head drops off; but that don't matter. In like manner, a political convention chops off heads neatly, expeditiously, artistically; by means of it 'the party'. can always dispose of troublesome or intractable hon- esty and independence in the most effectual manner. It is the Spanish Inquisition re-established for a different purpose. The advantages of it are manifest; and, therefore, I think, no 'practi- cal' man would cavil at that aspect of my resolution. But, madam, the course of the Christian civilization has been very rapid; the different ages have run into each other in a manner page: 412-413[View Page 412-413] "2 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. never witnessed before; one process has not waited on another. Ours has been a very prosperous country, and ourgreat Ithinkers' conclude that the vigor it has displayed indicates along-continued life, and progress here. Madam, it indicates only that the death of the Christia= civilization will be as rapid and violent as its life has been; that it will be hurled at once from the throne to the tomb. Since it must die, let its death be hastened by every possi- ble means. Therefore, I eulogize the man who invented political conventions." While he was spealking, Mrs. Claiborne did not take her eyes off his face. When he stopped, watching her opportunity, she said to him in an undertone: "If you will agree to talk no more, I will agree to molest you no more." "I eagerly accept the privilege of silence," he replied. "Enough ;" said Mrs.- Claiborne. "Senator," she asked im- patiently,!" will you not sketch out for us the domestic policy you think our Confederacy ought to pursue. Do give us something pleasant and thrilling to think of. The question you know is al- ready attracting anxious attention." "The moment our independence is achieved," complied the Senator, "the most important questions of domestic and social economy will arise. The world will demand of us that every cul- tivatable foot of our soil be planted in our great staples. Our forests must be felled, our swamps drained, our rivers dyked. Our only choice in the matter is whether we will do these things for ourselves or have them taken out of our hands. If we omit them, the wants of civilization will send Abolition swarms upon us who will exceed their commission and drive out slavery. But in order i to do the work before us, we must have more labor, and there is ;i but one kind of labor we would have. Nor must we permit lthat labor to come from the States on the Northern border. That : would be to gradually abolitionize that region, to introduce again a wooden horse within our beleaguered Troy, to recall the god Terminus to the very walls of the capital, to crowd slavery down i into the Cotton States and smother it. We must, then, reopen ! the ancient channel which a stickling and chicken-hearted morality if has closed up, and which the political and commercial jealousy of X the North has sealed against us. Our brethren in the slave-breed- i ing States will be likely to kick against the measure at first, but a X very moderate degree of strategy will bring them to it at last. X i SPITEI SPICE AND STATESMANSHP." 413 Thpir wealthy families, hereditary slave-owners, awould rather have their present consideration and importance guaranteed to their children, than to receive' few dollars more or less for a slave when they sell him. The same remark applies with even greater force to our own large planters, while our poorer classes will be unani- mously in favor of malking slaves so cheap that every man may own one or more." Strange as it may seem, the whippers-in of the poorer classes at once started up and declared that their peo- ple would be unanimous for secession on condition that this should be followed by the reopening of the slave-trade, and repeated many times over, in the strongest possible terms, that nothing ought to be done to discourage their expectation that this would be the case. One of them predicted, however, with considerable bitterness, that as soon as secession was accomplished, the "big planters" would again prohibit the slave-trade. Now, it is proba- bly very improper, in these days of Abolition peace, to write down such things, but, so far as depends on this hand, posterity shall know precisely what the questions and the men of that age were. "Why any man in 'the Cotton States," cried Mr. Claiborne, "should be such an idiot as to oppose the Congo trade, I can't see. A Congo will cost, say, three hundred dollars ; a Kentucky or Missouri nigger costs eighteen hundred. Why any fool should be unwilling to receive a present of fifteen hundred dollars every time he buys a nigger, is beyond my comprehension. Besides, it is a troublesome business, raising niggeis in this country. This climate don't seem to agree with nigger babies, and the con- founded things will die, in spite of you. Why, I've got a ten-acre lot full of nigger babies." "With us near Y--, where land is high," said Mr. Snort, or- acularly, helping on the discussion, "we think it best to have a separate graveyard for the nigger babies. If you put a little nigger down by the side of a big one, all that he lacks of being as long as the other is a dead waste, and so your nigger graveyard creeps out over half your farm, after a while." "I have adopted the same rule,' said Mr. Claiborne,!"not for lack of ground-I have five thousand acres in my home plantation, sir--but because a big graveyard is an ugly thing to have on a plantation. Wife, you always keep count, how many little niggers have we buried since we built Greenwood?" Mrs. Claiborne mentioned the number with asmile. page: 414-415[View Page 414-415] "4c THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "When the stubborn things tale a notion to die," continued Mr. Claiborne warmly, thintking he was distingsuisling himself in the service of the Southern Confederacy, ,c there is no such thing as stopping them. It don't pay to fool with them; you'd better let them die at once; and buy grown niggers. You can't keep their mothers out of the field to attend to them, and besides they know no more about nursing than a lot of bears. They are not like other mothers; they don't love their babies; and I expect if they are ever free, they will murder them by thousands. And to take the young ones from their mothers, and make the old women take care of them, don't mend the matter one particle. The fact is, sir, we can't raise niggers to advantage on a cotton farm; we have to import them, and I say let us get them cheap. " You have given an inside view of the argument," said the Senator with a smile, " and there is a great deal of blunt energy and truth in what you say. But just suppose for a moment the Abolitionists could hear you; wouldn't they howl?" "Abolitionists?" cried Mr. Claiborne with animation. "If I were Satan, do you know what II would do with Abolitionists instead of burning them? I'd put every sneak of them to nur- sing the dead nigger babies." "That would be a congenial occupation;" laughed the Senator, "and would convert your perdition into an Abolition Paradise. " "I believe, you," cried half a dozen ladies and gentlemen, and then they all laughed heartily. "But, sir," continued Mr. Claiborne, "even if niggers were born grown with hoes in their hands, I should still be in favor of the Congo trade. I can wear out any nigger in the world in , three or four years. By that time pneumonia or congestive chills kills them, or else rheumatism, consumption, or some otherlinger- ing disease gets hold of them -and they are never of any account afterwards. You can't knock them on the head, and here you have got your hands full of dead niggers with the breath still in fthem. Kentucky and Missouri niggers cost so much for doctors' ? bills that you have to buy themtwice, once from the trader, and X once from the devil, through his proctors, the doctors. I imagine -t the Congoeswould stand the swamps better than northern niggers " do, or at all events we could buy sound niggers for less than it now costs to have the sickly ones patched up. So they would not I spite anybody by dying, and when they found out that you did SPITE, SPICE -AND STATESMANSHP. 415 not care a curse whether they lived or died, they would probably get well." "I am sure," returned the Senator, determined to shy around the question politician-like, without committing the "big plan- ters" one way or the other, "that Congoes would stand our swamps better than Border State niggers; but we must remember, too, that it would take time to civilize them, and for many kinds of labor they never could be used at all. By the way," very shrewdly changing the subject, just a little, "my correspondents inform me that, in some portions of Missouri, since the election, first-class slaves can be bought almost for a song."- "The white-livered Abolitionists are taking that State," cried an irate Hotspur, running off with the bait like a game fish. "Every time a master whips his slave, he wakes up the next morning to find two thousand dollars run away. The people cannot hold their slaves, and so they are bound to sell." "I don't care," said Mr. Claiborne, stoically, "how soon the Abolitionists steal every nigger in that State. I don't like to own Missouri niggers. One half of them are like my Saladin here-got more sense than nine-tenths of the white men; and the other half are too near free in their notions to make good slaves. You have to break their necks to make them obedient. I confess that I don't fancy niggers of either of these descriptions."^ "For my part," said the ex-eight-dollars-a-day, "I prefer Mis- souri niggers to all others, because they are so saucy and indepen- dent. I would give more for a devilish nigger than a submissive one, any day, just0to have the fun of breaking him in." "There is a good deal of Southern human nature in that," said the Senator, with a smile. "And, by the way, this exercise of governing is ;lhe principal cause of the superior dignity and man- hood of the Southern character." "I prefer to think," said Claiborne, slowly, speaking for the first time in half an hour, " that the effect you speak of is more pro- perly attributable to our lineage. The first settlers of the South were cavaliers, and from them chivalrous manners and sentiments have descended even to this day." "You are both wrong, entirely wrong," cried Mr. Claiborne. "The real cause of Soutlhern nobility is horse-flesh. That is my theory, sir, and I am prepared at all times to defend it. Neither slavery ndr lineage would save us frori being a sneaking set, if it page: 416-417[View Page 416-417] were not for our horse-flesh. Nigger-flesh and patrician-flesh are I not to be relied on as the basis of a new State. Horse-flesh alone will furnish a safe and solid foundation for our institutions. Tile 1: Abolitionists are the infernalest set of maniacs on earth, and the ! reason of it all is that they don't take enough horseback exercise." '; '"Yes," said Mrs. Claiborne, with another smile-it looked like honey, but itwas amused contempt--"Mr. Claiborne came home . from our first and last trip to the North, two years ago, thoroughly imbued with the opinion he has just expressed. He is convinced that the root of Abolitionism is insanity, and regards the North as a vast Bedlam, rendered so by lack of horseback exercise. He :. told Col. Carroll, in Baltimore, when we got back there, that the true remedy for Abolitionism is horse-flesh; and I believe from n the way he eyed a drove of horses which a Kentuckian brought down on the same boat with us, that he had a notion of buying the whole lot and sending them, North as advocates of Southern'. rights." "It is a fact, sir," admitted Mr. Claiborne, jovially; "that very idea did occur to me, and it was a downright shrewd one, too; for the Yankees are all crazy for want of horseback exer- cise. One half of them are locked up in the asylums already, and the other half- are as mad as March hares about slavery. No man can long keep his right mind without plenty of horsebackl exercise; and I know very well from repeated experiments that there is enmity between horseflesh and Abolitionism. Every one of my teachers" --addressing himself particularly to Auswurf-- "that I have been able to prevail on to take a great deal of H horseback exercise, has become a violent pro-slavery man before the year was out, while the, sneaks that remained Abolition to the last, I never could get to back a horse. Put the meanest slink X in all creation on a mettlesome horse before breakfast, and send t him whirling over the hills head and tail up, and he can't think of his Abolition meanness for the rest of that day. Repeat the dose the next morning, and the next, and so on, and you will keep his Abolitionism out of his head so long that he will forget all about it after a while, and become a gentleman. I have cured scores of Abolitionists by that treatment, and I could cure Seward, ; Sumner, Chase, and the awhole kit of them, if I'd dirty my hands with them. The institution of slavery rests on horseflesh, sir. You may taLk of cotton, climate, cavaliers, and all that, sir, but SPITE, SPICE AND "STATESMAiNSJHY . JIi they are not at the bottom of the question, sir. We owe the blessings of slavery to the fact that our mothers loved fine horses, and our fathers had the good sense to raise us on horseback; and thus our sanity was preserved, and we were made gentlemen. That is the reason why we love slavery and see its advantages. Slavery will stand just as long as we raise our children on horse- back, while, if we ever adopt the moping Yankee system of edu- cation, slavery is doomed, and the devil himself couldn't save it." I IBut we propose, now, to educate with the bayonet, for a while," said a sprig of chivalry. "( We propose to save slavery with salt- petre, this time." "Very well, very well," said Mr. Claiborne,!" but be sure you keep the fundamental principle well in view all the time. When the North and the South come to blows, I want the South to mount all her soldiers, infantry, artillery, and all ; andif she will, sir, the war won't last ten days, will it, my boy?" "I should think not, sir," returned Auswurf, quietly. "I am glad, my boy, to find you so true a Southerner. The last teacher I had was as complete an Abolition hound as ever stretched hemp. One day I caught him talking Abolitionism to Saladin. I had just bought the baby then, and he was snivelling and crying every time my back was turned. Well, this fellow was talking away like a parson, and Saladin was snuffling like a sinner on the anxious-seat, when .I stepped in and spoiled the fun. I made Phin and Saladin catch him and tie him, and then I made Saladin whip him, paid him his salary, and the value of his clothes, and started him without a rag on his back; and I have never heard what; became of him from that day to this. Ah, my boy, we sometimes have a devil of a time of it with Abo- lition teachers in this country." "From your account I judge you do, sir." "The horseback treatment is the more charitable, it is true; but for outright, down-ea'st, incorrigible Abolitionists, a hemp poultice is more to my taste. Am I not half right, my boy?" "I do not love the class of men you mention, sir ; but be they base or noble, they are my fellow men, and I would rather cure their faults than publish them." - - "Pshaw, my boy, I used to feel squeamish that way myself, until I went among the Yankees, and saw what sort of things they really were. But now I not only have no scruples on the 18* page: 418-419[View Page 418-419] C:tJL O Ji-nltJ ai vn VJiL Ati vUvlUalo subject, but feel as if I never could abuse them, enough to offset all they made me suffer on that trip." ("Mr. Claiborne loves home so well," smiled his wife, broadly, "that Manlius and I had great difficulty in persuading him to take that trip at all, and he finally agreed to it only on condition that all the children should go along. NVe had hardly crossed the line into the Abolition States, before he wanted to start back. The first real we took beyond the border was at a railroad eating- house. A blubber-lipped white man calme along, inquiring, 'Steak or fool, sir?' Mr. Claiborne jumped up and bawled, 'Do you call me a mistaken fool, sir?'-and the next moment the fellow was lying under the table. Of course we had a scene then; but an explanation soon set things right again." "Why didn't the fool send a nigger for my plate as a gentle- man should?" asked Mr. Claiborne. "After that little exploit," continued Mrs. Claiborne, "we couild not get HMr. Claiborne to sit down to the table to take a regular meal on any occasion. He declared he could not eat after white cooks and waiters. - When we got back to Baltimore, he had lost forty pounds of flesh; and I know no human being ever ate such a supper as he did that night." "Fact, sir, fact," confessed M3r. Claiborne. "I felt like I wanted to pick up the nigger waiters and eat them. I could not eat Abolition cookery, and besides it took my appetite to see white men turned into dining-room servants." "It was a mystery to Mr. Claiborne,"' continued the smiling lady, "how the Yankees manage to live. He could not understand how human beings could not only subsist but become immensely rich in such a country. All the time we were travelling in New- England, he kept saying, ' Can it be in human nature to be stingy enough to squeeze a living out of these flints? I shall never again blame the Yankees for being thieves.' He was thoroughly disgusted with the White Mountains, and declared he wouldn't give a five-acre cotton-patch for the whole of them.',' "And," added Mr. Claiborne, slapping his stomach, "I would not give my home plantation for all New England. It is slavery, sir, that puts bread 'and butter in the mouths of the Yankees, and yet they have not got sense enough 'to know it. They are maniacs, sir, maniacs for the want of horseback exercise, and when we are out of reach of their tariffs and other plundering schemes they'll starve as they deserve." , ONE DAY'S PEDAGOGING. 419 Then the dessert being finished, they arose from the table. The hours which the family and the guests kept not being favora- ble to study, Auswurf, that evening, had arrangements made by which he and his pupils thenceforth took their meals together, and in fact constituted a little world by themselves, as completely separated from the other inmates of the house, as if they had been thousands of miles apart. Thus, in faithfully devoting himself to his humble duties, he avoided those whom he had no wish to meet. *.0o CHAPTER IV. ONE DAY'S PEDAGOGING. THE next morning Auswurf began school. The school-house was a neat and well-appointed building, fifty yards in rear of the man- sion,-in the edge of the forest, and under the boughs of its first oaks. Fifty yards still beyond it, began the rows of negro-quar- ters, extending off under the scattering trees. The finst cabin of the series was the negro cook-house, where three or four women were constantly employed in converting into every conceivable form of odious "grub," the allowance of the field-hands. The soup they made was a paste' of grease and ashes; the bread was husks, mixed with cold water, and partially desiccated. A few old women were permitted to cook for their families in their own cabins. The house-servants took their meals at the man- sion with the rest of the aristocracy; for there was precisely the same difference between field-hands .and house-servants at the South, as between the nobles and serfs of crazy Paul or Master Peter, of Muscovy. The next cabin to the cook-house was styled tersely, "the nigger-baby house." Here the infants of such wo- men as were field-hanas were left during the day in charge of a nurse, and here, too, every day or two, a mother coming in at noon or evening to suckle her child, would- lift it up out of the corner, where the nurse had forgotten it, and cry: '^Bless God, it's dead!"More tales of horror were associated with that house, more murders had been committed there, than there were shingles on it; but no Rachel ever wept over these slaughtered innocents, and refused to be comforted. ? page: 420-421[View Page 420-421] 420 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. On his way to the school-room that morning, in company with his pupils, Auswurf noticed, at a distance of some hundreds of yards in the depths of the woods, a negro man chained to the limb of a tree, and chopping wood as well as his bonds would allow. Turning to Belisarius, who had concluded to honor him with his presence for one day at least, he asked rapidly what that man was doing there. Belisarius explained that it was a desperate fellow who had been chained up there, and put to chopping and splitting some dead pine logs for a tar-kiln, so as to "tame " him. "But what has he done?" Belisarius said, in his easy way, that Manlius had bought the "nigger" from Dr. Greed, and sent him home a short time be- fore, and that the reason for the sale was insubordinate conduct on the part of the slave. "The charge is false, a mere pretext. He had no slave that was not faithful and submissive. He is selling them off now only because he knows that slavery is doomed, and he is going to get rid of all his own chattels and then help over- throw the institution, so that he may get office, and the loss fall on more stupid schemers than himself. But what is the man's name?" "Jerry, sir." , Turning deathly Sick at the name, Ausvairf sate down on the door-step of the little school-house, and called for a glass of water. This was brought, and sipping it to hide his emotion, ! he continued: "You have told me who he is; now tell me what [ he has done." "Well, sir, notwithstanding the good character you have given i him, he has been desperate and unruly since he has been here. He I says he always intended to serve his mistress faithfully as long : as she lived, and then take himself off to freedom after her death, but that since she has let him be sold, he will never serve any master again. He has tried to run off two or three times, and : smears he will do it yet; and for my part"-carelessly-",I hope the next time he tries it he will not be seen, and so get a good sart." "Why do wish that?" asked Auswurf, curiously. I "So that we can chase him with the nigger-dogs. It is better , sport than fox-hunting, when the nigger has good wind, and, a ?S Criminy I how this devil would run." . Then Auswurf'sthought, but just nowconcentrated intoa burn-. 2 , I ONE DAY'S PEDAGOING'. 421 ing bolt of condemnation and prediction against the perpetrators of this outrage, diffused itself again into reverie, and wrapped in in its misty folds the larger question of which this hideous specta- cle was but a single projection. The holiest and tenderest of all his aspirations-that which had looked to the lifting up of all his lowly brethren-though the fulness of both its suffering and its peace, belongs to the days of his completion, which lie beyond the scope of our present purpose, began now, by touching deeper springs of pity in his helplessness than hope can ever know, to accomplish a mournful but heavenly work by aiding his crushed life to assume its final shape. To himself, he had already died, for himself had already submitted to the extremest ravage of the despoiling hand of Fate; the power which henceforth prolonged his life was not the selfish sort of vitality with which some men at times so surprisingly defeat disease, but a more sacred force, dwelling in depths which no stain of self-remembrance ever reached. It was, perhaps, a cruel destiny which sent him there to show him afresh the consequence of the failure of his life; but out of the struggle which he therefore made, came all the glory and sweetness of his closing years. He had just reached that point in his reverie where he was say- ing to himself words which we will prudently suppress, when he was interrupted by Belisarius saying, with scarcely a moment's in- terval from his last remark, "Nothing but the dogs will ever tame down this nigger. I have seen too many cases like him- good servants at home, as you say, sir, this fellow was, but per- feet devils down here. Why, sir, he has been chained there now ever so many days, and the devil is just as big in him as at first. " "Very likely. But if, besides the chain around his neck, you were to put one on each wrist,@ and two or three on each leg, I should think it would improve him. " ' IPossibly, it might, sir; out of respect to you, as you once knew the fellow, I am willing to admit that possibly it might ; but it would take a long time, and then he could do no chopping with, all those things on him." "True,"--looking long at the negro; "(but that's a small matter. The aim-of the rulers of this world, however each of them'may deny it in his own case, is not to make the laboring man, of any color, the prince his Father God, the Day-Laborer, designed him to be, but to make him work for his betters in due subjection page: 422-423[View Page 422-423] 422 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. and under proper discipline; or, if he is too strong and intelli- gent to be robbed openly, the plan of plundering him with tariffs and national debts is adopted. And the retribution twhich- awaits the latter crime will be more terrible than that which awaits the former. A part is sometimes greater than the whole. It is bet- ter, you know, to waste half a low-flung villain can earn in mack- ing him work, than to let him work voluntarily to never so great; profit. And why? The subject, you may say, is of no impor- tance, for we are only talliing about niggers and operatives; but i when a man is in a humor for theorizing, a nigger or an operative is as good a peg to hang a moral on, as any. What do you think, . then, of this answer to our 'And why,' of just now? To wit; because, in the first case, the laborer works for people of a higher race or more wealthy class, and all born of the very first families, and is taught to feel that he is a dog; a wholesome lesson which cannot be too carefully inculcated upon human nature; whereas, in the second case, he works for himself, and having all that he makes, he soon takes up big notions, and begins to think he is as, good as anybody." "That is all true, sir, in theory; but in practice, when a nig- i ger gets so he won't work without a constant fuss, it is cheaper 'to let the overseer kill him than to bother with him." - "I should think that would be an expensive plan, with niggers at eighteen hundred dollars a head." Il "Yes, sir; but the other niggers work enough better to more f than make up the loss. Ihave heard many an overseer say he could make a bale more to the hand, by killing a nigger every spring." "But why should the overseer take such a killing interest in the matter? Why should he care whether he makes a bale more: or a bale less to the hand?" X "Oh! the overseers take more pride in making large crops than the planters do. When an overseer has a reputation for makldng heavycrops, he can get any situation, and any salary he wants." i "I see ; but what do the planters do to the overseers for killing their negroes?" id "They always discharge them. They can't whip them or hurt them any way, because it would have a bad effect on the niggers ; and they can't prosecute them, because nobody ever sees the kill- ing except the niggers, and they can't be witnesses. Besides, HE ONE DAY'S PEDAGOGING. 423 the overseers are always sharp enough to kill some stubborn devil, or some sickly, no-account whelp that it is an advantage to get rid of." "Then, how has such a 'devil' as that fellow down there, managed to escape for a whole month?" , Because my pa's overseer is afraid of him." "Well, I suppose a fact of that kind does make a good deal of difference." " Yes, sir, it does. Dry pa's principal reason for takring Jerry out of the field altogether, instead of punishing him there, was that the overseer was afraid of him." "I confess," said Auswurf, "I have some curiosity to take one more look at this desperado. Randolph, you may go with me." So, taking Randolph with him, Auswurf walked down into the woods where the man was at work with a chain around his neck, and found that it was, indeed, Ihis faithful and well-remembered friend of years gone by. "God bless you, moster," burst from the wretched slave's lips, and still more from his face, as the .one being in whose. nobility and viitue he had unbounded confidence drew near. - At first Auswurf could not speak. The question he had to decide was the terrible one which this age has presented in so many cruel forms. He had to choose between the man and the growing freeman; to counsel the former to 'possess itself in patience, even at the expense of bitter pain to the latter, rather than that both should be destroyed together. "What are you doing, Jerry, with such a necklace as that?" he asked, lightly, in ia moment more. "Things ain't here as they was there, roster," was the appar- ently inconsequent but in reality most conclusive reply, as the gloomy eye sought the ground, and the black bosom heaved. "Jerry," said Auswurf, changing at once into seriousness and most impressive pathos, " if you have any confidence in me"-- "Don't say ' confidence,' moster; say love." "Then, Jerry, if you have any love for me "-- "Don't say if, good moster; you know poor Jerry does love you." "Jerry," said Auswurf, " if even a dog were to come up to me at this moment and show that he loved me, I think I should emnbrace him. Then Jerry since you love me, you will listen at- tentively to what I have to say." page: 424-425[View Page 424-425] "For God's sake, moster," cried the poor slave, divining Aus- i wurf's purpose from his gravity; c don't tell me that I must not run away. Thee white man's God has give him freedom, money, home, wife, children; the black man's, if he has got any, has give 1 him only a hope; and if you take that away from me, good moster, there will be nothing left-nothing at all left, good + mosfter." [ - s"But Jerry, poor man, many of the mad hopes we nourish in our passionate hearts only tempt us all, black and white, weak and strong alike, to speedy ruin. If you could realize the hope i you speak of, e-ery noble mind in the world, no matter where, :? would rejoice; because what has hitherto proved a protection to your weak race only crushes your strong manhood, as it also now begins to crush thousands more of your strengthening brethren, and you individually would be competent to use the fruition of your hope. But that is not at all the question. If I were to go away from you to-day without commanding you to lay aside all purpdse of leaving your master, I should soon feel your blood wet : and red upon my own soul. I see further into this business than you do. Therefore, I counsel you to throw from you as\you would scorpions, the frenzying thoughts which are now driving you full t against your own grave. .What dutyrequires of us all, JenT, is to I do our permitted part bravely and well, accepting facts as they are, and relying on God our Father. Make up your mind to what is s inevitable, serve your master willingly and faithfully as long as necessity and self-preservation require you to do so, and live out 4 your natural term of life, knowing that the Power on high will surely grant you soon a better and higher destiny, if not in this world, then in that which will soon receive us all," The slave's chin sank upon his breast, while his fierce black features and neglected beard made the spectacle of his grief terri- : bly affecting. . "I cannot rid myself of, the thoughts of being free, good i? moster," he sobbed ; "they stick to me like ticks. But I promise to mind you as to acts, good moster, for I know that what you say X is true, and they would be sure to catch me and kill me, if I was ;: to run away. But if my wife comes to me, and tells me of her being treated so that it would make me kill the overseer if I staid here, then, moster, you must let me run away, so as to get killed." "Your wife is she here, too?t' * - # e (UO DAY O rjLEUAWUWllJu i"What is left of her, moster, is a field-hand," was all the slave could say. And then Auswurf, glad to terminate the terrible in- terview, turned away and started very rapidly towards the school- house. Looking back once, he saw Jerry sitting on a log with his face buried in his hands. "O soul of freeman, cribbed in a bondman's frame," cried Auswurf in anguish, hastening on, , how hard is thy lot 1" "Poor boy," said Randolph, fervently, as they went on side by side, "I wish that he was free." Auswurf caught his breath, he was so surprised. ," And I almost hope," added the noble boy, ( that the war will set them all free, somehow." Auswurf almost ran, so rapid was his pace. They reached the school-house. Auswurf paused until Randolph came up. "Ran- dolph" he asked, " do you remember which queen of England it was that said when she was dead the word Calais would be found written on her heart?" "I, think it was Bloody Mary, sir.' "Have you a school history with the anecdote in it?" "Yes, sir." "Get the book, erase the word Calais with your pencil, make a caret, and write your own name above; imagine a different utter- ance from Bloody Mary's and a different. application of the words; then keep that book, Randolph, till I am dead." "Yes, sir," answered the boy, as his glad face filled with con- scious blood. And on entering the school-house he literally obeyed the boyish command. Auswurf already understood pretty well the materials he had to deal with, but his first care, after entering the school-room, was to make a still closer and more certifiying inspection. As much-as an hour was therefore spent in what seemed to be cursory con- versation, but which was really a keen study of character on the teacher's part, and an unsuspecting display of it on the part of his pupils. Mr. Belisarius Claiborne was one of that large body of American youth who develop a passion for foxhunting at the age of sixteen, and a genius for drinking somewhat later. Now, at the age of eighteen, he was a trowsered Artemis, and a flowering Bacchus. At twenty-two, his nose would blossom forth into a full-blown Lancastrian, and his gullet widen and crisp into a potatory rat-hole. The chase was his only serious occupa- page: 426-427[View Page 426-427] 426 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. tion, his only uncommonplace theme, and when left to direct the conversation himself, he never spoke half-a-dozen words about anything else. Timing his favorite pursuit by the moon's phases, he devoted to it the former or the latter half of every autumn night. His horn was the last sound that had melted in October's creamy ear, and it twined reveille for all of November's dark- browed Auroras. When his slumbers were broken by the morn- ing chase, he always returned to bed after its toils were over, and resumed the sleep from which its blandishments had allured him. He had we khow not how many quadrupedal nymphs with volu- minous lugs and tails of gentle flexure, each and all endowed with the most wonderful qualities. If the master's sluggish tongue ever waxed eloquent, it was in dilating on the incredible performances of "' the dogs." The sagacity of this one, the fleet- ness of that, the strength and courage of a third, were, by turns, the subject of eulogy. A catalogue of the names, pedigrees and points of these astonishing creatures would beat nodding Homer's catalogue of ships hollow. Among the) most distinguished, if distinctions could be said to exist where each, the moment his name was mentioned, straightway became the most extraordinary dog that ever did live, were Blucher, Necklace, Plunder, Blue Dick, Wapello, Warrior, etc., etc., etc. Back of the house- kitchen, within a picketed enclosure, lay the territory of Houndstan. Here polynomical dogdom enjoyed comforts, and a consideration which starved-cheeked and hollow-eyed humanity vainly sighs for over half the world. In the centre of the king- dom-commonwealth, rather, for was not the chief the parfrater of the people?-stood the capital, an extensive and well- appointed hospital for the aged, wounded and infirm. Strung round the fence were the kennels of the force, "present for duty," where they dozed away the unoccupied hours on comforta- ble beds and full stomachs, very grateful, no doubt, to their attentive and congenial prince, and glad from the tips of their graceful tails to the ends of their cold noses that thley were not field-hands, or poor white trash; or any such low stuff. In one corner of the Republic, stretched campus mdartius where the heroic troop was daily marshalled and inspected under the affec- tion-qifickened eye of the Chief Magistrate. The next son, Randolph Claiborne, junior, was the exact copy of Randolph Claiborne, senior, except that the rugged, honest face & ONE DAY S PED AGOGING. 427 I was lighted up by the fire of undeveloped genius. In compounding }I his nature, halithe ingredients-were drawn unchanged from his ; father's character, but with them were mingled finer elements from a different source. The next son, Thad, was a lumpish lad of fourteen, with a bulky, mulish, downcast look-a natural-born, unmistakable clown, notwithstanding his chivalrous origin--one of those unprepossessing faces which nature, delighting in melo- dramna, sometimes offsets against a whole generation of handsome ones, by way of caricaturing her own works. The fourth and last pupil was a daughter named Eugenie, a delicate and amiable child eleven years old. After Belisarius's dogs, and Randolph's volume of manuscript poems, and Th-od's shot-gun and pony, and Eugenie's winter in New Orleans had all been effectually discussed, the next step was to subject each of them to a rigid examination in their previous studies. The results elicited were not very inspnirig. These were the spoiled children of a princely planter, more sinned against than sinning, in respect to education. 'The policy of their teachers had been to make a great show, humor the pupil, flatter the parent, avoid the unpleasant scenes which a rigorous exaction of duties would have caused, and to draw the salary. The children had completed branches concerning which they could not answer a single question--nay, the very definition and subject-matter of which they could not give. Belisarius was deep in Thucyclides and conic sections, while he could not inflect an adjective in of V/, oy, nor tell the difference between a straight-line and a semi- circle. Randolph, having longer vision, had not yet been rushed quite out of sight of the elementary principles of the higher branches; but, even for him, geography, English grammar, arithmetic, and all such homely things, had sunk behind the waves of a starless sea. Eugenie had made the round of the " ologies " in brilliant style, and had acquired an abiding recollection of the color, shape and size of the hated text-books--nothing more. When asked what chemistry was, she answered that it was something very hard, in a big book with a rough black cover and dull red edges. But Thad, instinctively reserved for the lasti-when Auswurf came to him, he met a blank stupidity which coolly defied him. After worrying with him an hour or two without being able to hit upon a question which he could answer, Answurf asked: H Eow long have you been studying Latin?" page: 428-429[View Page 428-429] W4z - THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. *g: "Ever since I could remember m" "Then how does it happen that you know nothing about it? Have you had a spell of sickness which affected your memory?" "No," doggedly, "I never was sick in my life. Does being sick : make a man forget things he never knew or wanted to lnow?" "The question is very insolent, and I see that I shall have to : teach you manners aswell as everything else. One thing at a time, however. Have you ever studied Greek?" X "No," rebelliously. "Your answer is a failure in point of style. Try it over again." "No, sir," slurring over the last word in an undertone. "Why, have you never studied Greek? I feel curious to hear that anomaly explained." "The teachers wanted to put me at it eight or nine years ago, but my pa objected." "Your father is a sensible man; but didn't you object, too?" "I didn't care; I'd as lief study Greek as any other kind of turkey-tracks." "Doubtless; but when did you study geography, grammar and arithmetic?" "I finished all of them long ago." "How long ago?" "Don't know-five or six years, I reckon." "What is arithmetic?" "Don't know ." "' What is grammar?" "'Don't know." 3 "Do you remember anything at all that grammar treats of?" "It has got something in it about isthmuses and them things." "That is geography; but no matter, we are progressing ; so tell : me right quick what an isthmus is." "It is a narrow passenger annexing Pennsylvania to Content." "You may return' to your desk. Do you expect ever to go to e college?" "Not if I can help it. My pa sent lManlius to college, but he i suffered so much anxiety about him that he don't want to send - any of the rest of us. My ma says, though, that Randolph shall X go, for he's smart. I don't think she'll ever want to send me." And so ended Thad's examination. i "Listen attentively now, all of you, to what I am going to say," ! ONE DAY'S PEDAGOGING. 429 said Auswurf. "Not another step is to be taken in this ruinous direction. I am going to make some changes here which will no doubt prove very uncomfortable to you. As for me, if I were to let you go on as you have gone, I should feel a sneaking sensation every time I touched a dollar of your father's money. As for you, if you go on seeing no beauty in knowledge, you will turn out dis- gusting and insufferable blockheads. You have got to forget that you are rich, and go to work. We will begin with Webster's spell- ing-book, and ascend, parsing every word in your Latin and Greek, inflecting every noun, pronoun, adjective and verb-making our own rules in arithmetic and algebra, demonstrating in as many different ways as possible every proposition in geometry. Hard work is practical morality, and I shall not give any of you time for disobedience and incivility. But I give you fair warning that if any of you are such-brutes as to require to be punished, I am not like those who have hitherto pretended to teach you, afraid to punish you. No, no, I assure you that whenever you call for it you shall have it to your hearts' content, and thick and hot as you could wish. If you had forty ducal planters for fathers instead of one, and if you owned a thousand slaves apiece, I would punish you severely every time you chose to make me do it." Strange as it may seem, they all, with one exception, fell to work, from that hour, most heartily. A spirit of activity was in- fused which grew stronger every day that brief school lasted; and ' when it closed those wealth-blighted children wept in the first real sorrow they had ever known. Their minds raised themselves from the jumbled mass which crushed them down, and struck out vig- orously for real knowledge; thistles and brambles, and all the harsh, stunted, hark-fibred growth of a gold-bearing soil were rooted from the glebe, and good seed sown. It was wonderful how tractable and obedient they were. Correctly dealt with for the first time in life, they felt actual pleasure in being properly managed, and were absolutely astonished to find how much ami- ability, genuine nobility and real intellectual power they possessed. Auswurf sincerely pitied his rich pupils, and almost wished he was their elder brother, or stood in some other intimate relation to them, so that he might watch over the whole course of their growth and education, and turn aside from them the baleful influences which were warping, and must soon destroy them. Thad was the only one who presumed to test the teacher's will or the vigor of his page: 430-431[View Page 430-431] 430 THE STONY OF AN OUTCAST. purpose. In him, however, there was a stiff-necked, rebellious I devil which took delight in kicking off the harness. A single glance was enough to drive him to sullen obedience ; but the watch- i. fulness and tact which it required to discover and thwart all his - malicious tricks and manceuvres was astonishing. A dozen times I that first day, Auswurf had to lasso the morose and tricky demon which possessed him, and drag him to his feet; and then rejoicing 0 that he had such a pupil to call forth his energies just then, and I thoroughly determined to subdue him, he felt faint flushes of his - old vigor, soon dying awaylike the pale gleams of December's sink- . ing sun pencilling- the clouds. That evening after school, Auswurf, watching Thad, in order to get a secure and final gripe on him, rode into the woods with him 1 and Randolph as they went gunning. As the sun sank, they found themselves in a glen surrounded by knolls. Squirrels, too thick to be counted, were springing from tree to tree or running along the ground all around them, and the hor'semen in a group, excited by the plentifulness of the game and the uncertainty of ;i the light, were loading and firing with great rapidity, while a ser- vant gathered up and carried the game. Suddenly, a crash louder than thunder burst in Auswurf's ear, and a stream of fire shot for- ward apparently right into his breast. His left arm and side felt numb and lifeless, and quickly carrying his right hand to them, he found them bathed in blood. Turning round, he saw Ban- dolph pale as ashes, with his hand grasping the barrel of Thad's gun, and heard him exclaim: "Demon, what have you done?" Jerldng the gun from Randolph's grasp, Thad put spurs to his horse, and darting at Auswurf, dealt him a blow on the head with ! the breech which shivered it and felled him to the earth, then plunged into the woods and disappeared. Randolph, dismounting, 1 ran to Auswurf's side with trembling limbs. "Thank God, sir," i he exclaimed, "you are not killed!" "I am not hurt at all," % said Auswurf, struggling to his feet. "Your arm is broken, sir. Let us hasten to the house and haye Dr. Ricochet to set it." "First," said Auswurf, "we will wash off in the brook some of this hot red paint, and put a tight band above the wound: besides, there is blood on my head and face which must be removed. And mind, Randolph," he continued, as they both went to work on the wound, " you are never to attempt to give any explanation of this accident. Leave me free to make the most of it, and it vill r ONE DAY'S PEDAGOGING. 431 end in malking a student and a man of Thad, while it won't hurt me much. Do you know, Randolph, that you have saved my life? But I shall not thankl you: for you have done me little favor." In briskness born of his momentary cheerfulness-for whatever taxed his nerve or endurance always made him cheerful-Auswurf presently, with Randolph's assistance, had washed his wounds and remounted his horse, and laying his head down on the ani- mal's mane, xode slowly towards the mansion. They were already in the yard, when, from excessive pain and weakness, Auswurf's head began to swim, and a misty darkness passed before his eyes, "Ind he fell from his horse. He thought, with a feeling of morti- fication, that he was going to faint; bult he held on to his con- sciousness with a terrible grapple to retain it, and succeeded. He staggered to his feet and walked to his room. ERandolph had gone to summon Dr. Ricochet, who came every day to attend some one, black or white, and was there then, and the physician , came rushing out with Mr. Claiborne at his heels. The latter burst into Auswurf's room in advance of the physician. The wounded boy, unable to keep his feet any longer, had lain down on the bed, all pale and faint. Mr. Claiborne ran to him, and lift- ing him up in his arms, cried : "Merciful God, is my boy killed? O merciful God, is he killed? Randolph," he groaned, as a sus- picion of the truth flashed across his mind, " where is Thad?" "He ran off into the woods, afthr it," said Randolph. "And why did he do that?" howled Mr. Claiborne. "Hold on, sir," said the wounded boy, straightening himself up. "You are Thad's father, but I am his teacher, and when I ,am with him and'you are not, my authority stands precisely in the place of yours. He was under my charge, not under yours, when this accident happened, and I insist upon my right-to manage the whole matter from first to last without even a question being asked about it. If you make inquiry, or take the control of Thad in regard to what happened while he was under my charge, I shall conclude that you think I do not understand my business ; and therefore I shall give up my situation at once." With tears of gratitude chasing tears of love down his cheeks, and falling on the wan face before him, Mr. Claiborne sobbed : "Then, if I grant your wish, you must hasten to be well, pale, sweet, match- less boy. Oh, you must not go away into the silent land, and leave the old man forever miserable on account of this day's page: 432-433[View Page 432-433] 432 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. work." And for how much thoughtless profanity, for how many darker crimes of education, did not those drops and words atone. The doctor then proceeded to set 'the broken arm. Both the doctor and the fainting but extremely cheerful patient, insisted that lMr. Claiborne should withdraw from what both knew must be a very painful sight to him; but probably feeling that he must do penance in some way for his son's crime, he obstinately re- fused to go, and in refusing made a wretched pun, at which the wounded boy smiled; and then, with fresh tears standing in his eyes and choking his utterance, he apologized for the miserable display of wit. "But don't you know, sir," asked the colorless boy, "that wretched puns are the only sort that are worth a groat?" "Then, my boy," said Mr. Claiborne, with the great drops rolling rapidly down his cheeks again, "I would give my home plantation to think of another pun desperate enough to make you smile again." Presently the work on the arm was done, and the pain-racked patient was tucked away in bed. Then Mr. Claiborne consented to retire, on condition that he might send Saladin to sleep on the floor in Auswurf's room and wait on him. In trouble, 31r. Claiborne had but one resource. He at once weit to drinking furiously, brought on in. a few hours a violent attack of his old disease of the stomach, and lay for several weeks at the very door of death. i CHAPTER V. THE PERSISTENlT QUESTION AGAIN. WHEN Auswurf was left all alone in his room upon his bed, the terrible physical and mental reaction against which he had struggled so powerfully, set in with unusual rapidity and fright- ful violence. The extreme delicacy of his physical and mental constitution no doubt had much to do with the acuteness of his sufferings and their idiosyncrasies in many respects. He fell into a kind of torpid agony, in which all the poignancy of his suffer- ing remained, and only the power to make head against it was gone-and lay for hours only half conscious, yet cursed with THE PERSISTENT QUESTION AGAIN. 433 an increase of sensibility which he would not have believed hu- man nerves could ever possess. He strove in vain to rouse him- self, and scare away the vultures which he felt feeding on him. He lost his hold upon his will; mental control deserted him; he was no longer master of the movements of his own mind, and like a cloud whose darkness hides the lightnings that burn in its depths, he drifted out upon dark and boundless seas of pain. Heaven and earth seemed to have fled away, and left, not chaos, but a void ; the firmament bent above him a pitchy vault, black with floating demons, and wild with echoes of their wails and curses. Tides of liquid gloom heaved and throbbed against the grimy sky; he could see them rise, rise and fall, as he floated in them on the ghost of a rotten plank, and while the inky waves rolled over him, they launched shocks of darkness at his fainting and bleeding breast. Streams of fire which parched but blazed not, which crackled but did not sparkle as it ran, shot along his nerves. He thought that his hour had certainly come at last; and recalling, with a struggle, the, latest forms of his changing consciousness, he resolved to die thinking of it, and with his fin- gers locked around it as his last hope. Once he heard, or thought he heard, the rustle of an approaching step, and felt, or thought he felt, with a kind of numb, sensationless recoil, a kiss imp:inted on his burning forehead. Then he struggled- more and more to rouse himself, but could not, and it seemed to him that not moments but ages were rolling over him as he lay there. Pres- ently he heard some one entering the room from the west gallery, and at the same instant a step receded from his bedside and passed out the other door. He recognized the step as Claiborne's. Turning to the new intruder, he inquired, with a great effort, "Who's there?" "It is Saladin, master," returned the quadroon's meek voice. "Master sent me to sleep on the floor here, so as to be near if you want anything." "Very well; light a candle." Saladin struck a match against the jamb; there came a crack- ling noise, a green blue flame, a smell of sulphur; how attentive- ly, bed-ridden, pain-wrung, lethargic Auswurf noticed, or tried to notice, them all; it was a relief to have anything, no matter how trifling, to fix his feverish, wandering mind. Saladin applied the burning match to the wick of the candle, but it went out. 19 page: 434-435[View Page 434-435] 484 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "You made an awful fist of it, Saladin," said the suffering, wan- dering boy, in half-delirious reprimand; "a baby ought to have done better than that." "I am so sleepy, master," apologized Saladin, humbly; "I always set up -with master, day and night, when he is sick, and he is sick so often, Master, and it seems like I am dying for sleep; I'm afraid to show that I am sleepy be- fore master, and as soon as I am out of his sight at night, I can scarcely stand up any longer." He struck another match, and this time lighted the candle. The sick boy knew that Saladin was still saying something, but he knew not what; his ears were dinned with a whiring noise; his mouth seemed to be crammed with chestnut burrs; the great black shadows of the bedposts fell on the walls as big as giants, and he thought he had never beheld ugliness before. "Master will not let anybody but me wait on him," continued Saladin, "because mistress always comes and says such bitter things to master about his drinking, and he orders her away, and says nobody but a servant shall perform the duties of a recreant wife." "Stop, Saladin," said Auswurf, rousing himself, and striving hard to talk. "You must not tell me these things. Don't you know it is very wrong for you to speak of your master's domestsc troubles?" "Yes, master, but you blamed me, and I wanted you to know why I am so sleepy; and I know white folks never believe what a colored person says, if it is an excuse, and a strange one, unless he tells all about it, so that they can see it all." "That is shrewd enough, certainly; but why do you let a little scolding gall you-so?" "It is very hard, master, to be blamed and abused for nothing, and to be kicked and beaten, when you don't deserve it, is worse than death. It was not so at home, master; it was not so at hone. " '"Don't let your voice linger that way on the word home. The saddest names are those which once were sweetest. I am sick to- night, and do not like to hear that word. " "I beg your pardon, master," said the boy, meekly; "but I could not keep from speaking of home, master. And, oh! I wish," he cried, " that I had died before I left it." It was evident that some recent outrage, some unjust, cruel and beastly deed, had stirred afresh all the poor boy's tender recol- THE PERSISTENT QUESTION AGAIN. 435 lections of his early and happy home; and, that the instinct which rarely leads a sensitive person in distress to mischoose a confi- dant, was urging him to speak of his heart-breaking grief to Auswurf. The latter, his sympathies once touched, had an ad- ditional -reason for trying to recover control of himself, and doing so as well as his reeling brain would let him, then said : "Sala- din, poor boy, unburden your oppressed heart to me; it will do you good, and possibly I can help you. But whether my hand can aid you or not, it will comfort you-to know that there is one heart in this unhappy world which responds with as full and qtick a sympathy to the simple tale poor colored boy, as to the sublime woes of aristocrats and tyrants." "It is not much to tell, master; you will say that it is nothing at all, I am afraid. I loved my good old master and mistress, and my young mistress; for they were very kind to me, and my young mistress taught me to read and write. But I did not love my young master, because he was a bad man and had a spite against me. - Old master always said I was to be free after his death, because I 'knew too much to be a slave, and-and-be- cause I was his own son. When he died, everybody said I had been left free by his will, and young master said he was going to take me to a free State. He took me to St. Louis, and we went straight down to the wharf. As we were going on a steam- boat, I looked up, and as I could read, I saw that it was a New Orleans boat. I begged my young master not to take me on board a New Orleans boat, but he only cursed me, and said I knew too much for a nigger. Then I started to run, but he knocked me down, and dragged me on board, and told a trader there was the boy he had promised to bring him. They then put me back on deck with a lot of other colored people, who had been sold down the river, and young master went away, and the boat shoved out-and that is all, master." In the entire pharmacopoeia, there was for Auswurf no anodyne like that simple tale of outrage and injustice. It made him for- get his own wealmess and suffering, and he rose up in the bed, and sat erect, as he registered among the most solemn vows of his life, a resolve to see the poor boy righted. But it would be worse than useless to take the least step in the matter then and there; the very first thing to do was to hunt up legal proof, and lay it before Mr. Claiborne, when, Auswurf doubted not, he would page: 436-437[View Page 436-437] 436 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. at once tell the kidnapped boy to go. But in the revolutionary times that were coming, it might be impossible for him to go or even to write North, or for the necessary papers to be transmit. ted South. The whole matter, therefore, was involved in great doubt; and, for that and other reasons, it was important that Sala- din should remain ignorant of his intentions. He, however, inter- rogated Saladin closely as to the precise locality in which he for- merly lived, his old master's -name, the names of white persons in the neighborhood, who were conversant with the facts, etc. Fi. nally, reverting in thought to Mr. Clhiborne's recourse against those who had sold him a!" chattel" to which they had no title, he asked: "How much did your present master pay for you?" "TIwo thousand dollars, master," answered Saladin, despond- ently. 1 "Does not that make you feel proud? -Most colored persons would be gratified at selling for so large sum." "But it only makes me feel sad, master." "Why so?" "Because it will take me such a long, long time to get money enough to buy myself." "Ah, you think, then, of buying your freedom?" "Oh, yes, master," he answered, eagerly, "I have already com- menced laying up money to do it with." "Well, how are you getting along; that is, how much money have you got already?" -His head sank as he answered: "Very little, yet, master; so little that I am ashamed to tell you. Gentlemen here don't give I me money for doing little things for them, as they used to do at i: home. But then you know, master, I have not been here very l long." "Well, well, cheer up; go on, and act your own part . faithfully and well, and you may find yourself free almost before : you know it." "But, master," he asked, sadly, "Iis it not against the law of : this State for colored people to buy themselves? And, besides, master, how can I hope ever to get two thousand dollars?" "You need not let the first question trouble you a great deal, but'go on hoarding every cent you get. Meanwhile, be a good servant, and do your whole duty where you are, bravely and well. i Don't forget that you have a good master and a comfortable home; THE PERSISTENT QUESTION AGAIN. 437 you enjoy more comforts than ninety-nine one-hundredths of the; white people in the world. Curb your imagination, and see things as they really are.; don't foolishy suppose that freedom is perfect bliss ; on the contrary it is a lot of toil and trial, a rugged path which very few indeed of your unhappy race have yet been able to tread. When you and they are free, Saladin, you will find the whole- world arrayed against you-Southern malevolence, Northern cupidity, general spite, prejudice and meanness, all against your weakness, simplicity and inexperience ; and the woes which you have suffered in the past are but a pin-prick compared with what you will suffer then." !"Do not say so, master; please do not say so. If -you were a slave, master-forgive me, master--but if you were a slave, mas- ter, could you bear to think that, if you were ever to be free, you would only be more wretched?" "Yes, I could bear that well enough, and rejoice at the prospect of the higher pain. I am not offering you advice which I would not follow myself. The same counsel which I give you, I make the rule of my own life. Poor boy, I am only your brother in a11 respects-not a far-removed and different being. And do not think that you and I, and your unhappy race, are the only or the most wretched slaves in this land. No; for this whole age lies in bondage which it will never break. All alike, both white and black, stand in the same condition. Shallow minds imagine they see great differences of earthly lot between your race and mine, but these are not skin-deep. Posterity will regard us all alike as slaves, and will have little higher opinion of the white man's position than of the black man's-not so high a one, per- haps, of his heart and spirit. The tyruant tyrannizes only because he is himself a slave. It is only his servitude, not his power, that makes him a tyrant. There has as yet been but little real freedom in this world, -nor will there be a true freedom until all the races, yours included, shall help to build it. But what I say to you and myself, and to all higher or lower slaves is, act well your part and be content, until the hour of your deliverance shall come. We are all brethren, and we are fast journeying through the little inequalities of this world to a life where we shall all be wise and pure and beautiful, and know our Father and His truth alike." "But, oh master, there is no trouble like a slave's. He is always in dread of punishment which he knows he does not de- \ page: 438-439[View Page 438-439] serve; he is always dodging from blows which he expects, and the dodge is sure to bring- the blow. I would far rather starve ^ master, than lead such a life as that." \ "But why torture yourself with imaginary evils? You do not lead such a life; your master is one of the noblest and best of men; and when you are free, you will rarely find an employer who will be so good a friend to you as he. Why do you look downa and shake your head? Come, sir, you must not think unjustlv of your master." ' - ' "M aster," replied the boy, " the same person does not always look the same way to white and black. White people often praise persons that the poor slave can say no good of, and some persons that I have loved best were not much thought of by white folks." A very shrewd remark, and a true one at all events, thought Aus- wurf. "And, master," continued Saladin, "thatyou may not blame me for being ungrateful to master, please, sir, just see my ears. . ' He came close to the bedside, holding the candle in his hand, and Auswurf looked at his ears, which his long hair usually hid from sighlt. They were greatly swollen, and very sore; the skin had plainly been wrung from its place, and now lay dry, hard, crisped and irritating over the bruised surface beneath. "How, in the name of heaven, was this done?" cried Auswurf, in aston- ishment.. "Master did it when he was sick last," replied Saladin. "If I fell asleep at any time while he was awake, he would call me to : him, and wring my ears with a pair of pinchers which he kept : under his pillow. He punished me that way because he was too - weak to whip me." ' It was an infernal deed; yet the fault is not so much in your master's heart, as in the breath which slavery has drawn hot from hell and inspired into his nostrils. You ought to pity him, and if i you are a Christian, pray for him." - .i "But such things are hard to bear, master." ' .- "Truly they are, and especially for you, enslaved freeman; but they are not so hard as the rancor, murder, outrage, pillwae and contumely which your unhappy race may expect to. encounter in bhis selfish and pitiless world when they are free." "Oh! do not say that, master; it makes me fear that I do wrong in longing to be free, and to see all the colored people free. The colored people know a great deal more, master, and talk about a great deal more, than the white people think. Mas- ter, is it wrong to strike for freedom?" "The question is one which your race will not need to ask, but other questions, much like it, they will have need to ask when they are free. Then they should remember that any stroke is wrong when it will only cut off their own heads, and split the world asunder. The morning that shall rise on a conflict between the races in this land, will be the darkest that ever lowered on this world. In its dawn will be read the deaeth-warrant of your race and of society, and Fate's decree for the beginning of an age which will be lighted only by the redness of blood and fire. Man cannot change the future, Saladin; it is already fixed; but by wisdom he can determine the way in which it shall be reached. There was a hand once which thought to lift up your race without crushing all the others dowmn with it into a paste ; but the heel of this unhappy age has trodden on that hand, Saladin, and ground it to pieces, and it is powerless now, forevermore." "' Then, master, is there no hope for the colored man?" "Yes, Saladin, poor boy, there is still ab hope for him, in sofar as he is AMan, as there is in just that same degree, and no more, for his whRite oppressor. Despise the man, Saladin, who shall ever come to you with cheap platitudes on his foolish lips, to talk to you about either freedom or religion. Do not wonder that I use the two words together; for the things themselves are as closely connected. It is not cheap enthusiasm that makes men pure and free, but deep, eternal, steadfast and progressive forces. Listen to different counsels than this, and they will only lead you to ex- tinction. And if the Southern white man, by his insane enmity, shall compel you to accept any distant brother as your friend and patron, he too will be extinguished.! The negro race, locked hitherto in hopeless barbarism by physical causes, the guilty avarice of the white man has brought to this western land for an end of which he has not dreamed. Slaves as you are still, you enjoy more freedom here than you did in your native continent. There, you were the hopeless and powerless slaves of Nature; here, despite the white man's tyranny, you have a broad, though hum- ble field of action and usefulness. But this prelude is nowplayed out, the scenes are shifting, and no arm can stay the sequel. The lower rounmds of that ladder which we are all climbing were denied page: 440-441[View Page 440-441] "O THE STO RY OF AN OUTCAST. you, and will be denied you to the last; but by your aid tile human spirit will reach the beginning of its true freedom, strength and grandeur in this world. Slowly, sullenly, at fearful cost, will the higher races be brought down out of their pride; but, at length, that process will be complete, and the spirit of man, spring- ing from the dung-heap where it has reeked and rotted, and mounting in the streaming sunrise, will then sing a new song. Thus, the true duty of all who lIve your race and Man, is not so much to make you free as to preserve you; for free you will be ere long, in spite of all the hosts of Satan." "But, master, those who live now must die without seeing that day.!" "We will not discuss that point, for it is not well to do so; but even if those who live now must die without personal deliverance, let devoted lives and manly deaths be their contyibution to the welfare of posterity. Millions of other slaves, equally abject and helpless, must die without deliverance, and when the men of the future shall look back to this age, they will have tears for other bondmen as well as you. If humble lives, and faithful deaths, and righteous hope ace all that you can have, they are much; for to its obscurest martyrs human nature owes the largest debt. Rash- ness, strut, mock-freedom, mock-heroism and evil counsel on the part of your race will only increase their woes. Fate is your friend, and every force in the universe is workingin your interest; no people on earth can now afford to be your foe, for that people Fate will crush. Then, be patient, faithful and innocent; suffer much from blind and wicked men before, by strilking back at them, you give themthe opportunitythey desire. Your simplicity, humility, fidelity and fervor, put all the rest of the world to shame. They are traits which the future civilization will need, and your race will supply them. Nature will never let the race beconle rich and happy till a type is reached which riches and happiness will not corrupt. Then, you should be very careful how you renounce or undervalue traits which will be your glory with posterity. And, Saladin, you should especially beware of meddlers, who, knowing nothing of the cause of your present condition, would lead you only to swift destruction that they might have the profits of the funeral, and the forfeited estates of your murderers. " "But, oh master, I cannot give up my own hope of being free, and satisfy myself by thinking that those who live hereafter will *:I THE PERSISTENT QUESTION AGAIN. 441 be free. I love to think that they will be free too, but to give up my own hope of freedom is like taking away my very breath. I trust in God, master. I cannot believe that He will let me wear away my days in slavery; God is too good for that, master. I pray to Him every night, before I close my eyes, that He will give me my freedom, and I believe He will. For, master, sometimes an angel comes and whispers to me in my sleep, ' Saladin, God will make you free,' and when I wake I can hardly believe that it is only a dream. God is very good, master, and I believe the time has almost conpe ; I believe I shall soon be free." "And you do right, Saladin, to pray to that Power who sets all mourning captives free." The quadroon had already spread down the quilt which consti- tuted his bed ; casting himself on his knees beside it, he raised his eyes to heaven and prayed. His lips moved for a few seconds and then grew still; his tongue forgot to utter the petition which still ascended from his mute, imploring heart to the ear of his Maker. Forgetting Auswurf's presence, he was rapt in devotion, alone with that God to whom he looked to make him free. He then lay down on his pallet, and was soon asleep, dreamning of that blissful freedom which engrossed all his waking thoughts, and. hearing an angel whisper in his ear, "Saladin, God will make you free." Yes, Saladin, poor, poor boy, Godl our Father, blessed be His holy name, -will set you free. The candle burnt low in its socket-and expired, as Auswurf, re- ceiving every moment fresh benefit from his new medicine, sat there and watched the sleeper's heaving breast. Then he got up altogether and went out on the west gallery, and paced to and fro for hours, thinking of him, planning over and over again, how, in the troublous times ahead, he could certainly right him and bring 7is broiher, the man-stealer, to justice. The night-wind cooled his brow and curbed his leaping pulses, and his occupation brought him peace. He knew that if he returned-to bed before this good medicine had time to accomplish its perfect work, fever, unrest and delirium would return; and so he paced slowly back and forth there till dawn, hearing the cocks crow, the winding horns of dis- tant hunters, and the drivers rouse the hands with kicks, cuffs and curses, and watching the pale dawning of the day. Then, soothed and pacified by the prospect of being able to do a good action, he lay down and slept sweetly. page: 442-443[View Page 442-443] "2 THE STOEY OF AN OUTCAST. CHAPTER VnII. AN OL D FRIEND IN A NEW DRESS. WHEN he awoke he heard Belisarius and Randolph talking in the hall. The weather had now turned cool, the tapestry partition remained constantly down, and a fire was kept burning in the chimney at the west end of the hall. "Randolph," said Bellisarius, "the old man was drinking all night, and was taken down with another of his spells early this morning, and if he kicks the bucket this time, I am going to Europe with Cozlen Tucker, for a month or two, before the war commences, to/see he world, and play the devil with the pretty little French e'istes." "Belisarius, I am astonished at you," was the reply. "You don't care as much for my pa's illness as you would for a distemper in one of your dogs." "Let him stop dh'inlrMg, then; that is all that ever makes him sick." "Have you no charity for a noble father's weakness?" , Not when he disgraces us all by making a beast of hnimself." "You learnt that bitter taunt from my ma." "Yes, but I heard Maulius say it, too." "It seems to me," replied Randolph, "that if my pa's big heart were as full of pride and love for me as it is for Manlius, I could not say such a caustic thing about his failings." ':Well, he'll soon make a finish of himself, and then your pullet's heart won't be wounded by hearing the subject mentioned any more." "God will punish you for your unnatural conduct, Belisarius. But I know what has made you forget yourself. I noticed last night that before that man had been in the house five minutes he singled you out, and seemed determined to worm himself into your confidence. Notwithstanding his claim of relationship, we know absolutely nothing about him; and if he encourages in you the disposition you have just expressed, he must be a very bad man. He has some sinister motive, I am certain." "What sinister motive could he have, you pullet? He is a per- ,fect gentleman, else how could he know so much about dogs and fox-hunting? He and I knew each other at once, by the instincts of gentlemen." AN OLD FBEI3KD IN A NEW DRESS. 443 "I am afraid he knew you by the instinct of scoundrelism. For, why does lie want to drag you off with him as soon as my poor pa is out of the way?" "There is no dragging in it, you ninny. He and I are simply going to club our money, and go to Europe on a joint-stock-com- pany spree." The conversation was broken off by a summons to breakfast. When Auswurf got to the table, he found, besides his pupils, a stranger there. The gentleman was diminutive in person, with a lean little face, a puny nose, reddish hair, and sickly whiskers. He was dressed in the very tip of the fashion, being in fact a perfect specimen of the tight little fop, and wore a pair of handsome gold spectacles. Belisarius at once introduced Auswurf to his "Cousin Tucker." After hearing the conversation between Randolph and Belisarius, Auswurf was already interested in "Cousin Tucker," and as he bowed gave that gentleman's face something of an examina- tion. The latter gave Auswurf a genteel stare, such as only the best bred people can bestow, and turning away somewhat sud- denly, promised Belisarius a pair of thorough-bred puppies which he had left at Natchez. The profusion of thanks which Belisarius thereupon poured forth, and the animated mna ner in which he did it, were astonishing. Something in Mr. Tucker's face chal- lenged Auswur'f as an old acquaintance, but whether it was some particular feature, or the whole expression, hle could not decide. The most puzzling circumstance was an impression that, if he had ever had the honor of seeing Mr. Tucker, he had not casuallymet him, but had carefully studied him, and knew all about him. But as he could make no sort of progress in recollecting Mr. T., he con- cluded presently that at some odd time he had compounded such a countenance, in a reverie, out of parts of others, as he had known himself to do before. This hypothesis was very good in itself, but it had one defect. It was this: Auswurf thought that in promis- ing Belisarius the puppies, Mr. Tucker had turned his face more completely away from 7imn than was absolutely necessary. The positions of- the parties rendered it quite natural that Mr. T., in convetoing with Belisarius, should incline his face somewhat from Auswurf, but there could be no sufficient reason forAhis turning his back square upon him, and keeping it so. Simple contempt, even if the object of it be a school-teacher, seldom carries people of fashion to such uncomfortable extsremes.- Besides, it appeared page: 444-445[View Page 444-445] "4 - THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST.. as if Mr. Tucker, in rattling away so merrily with Belisarius as the meal went on, was anxious for it to come out. and be very dis- tinctly stated over again in Auswurf's hearing that he was a Vir- ginian by birth; that he was related to Mr. Claiborne through his mother, and was unzimaried; that for a number of years past he had been planting "in the swamp," but having lost a great many / negroes by pneumonia and congestive chills, had determined to select a different locality; that he had just sold his plantation ', in the swamp," and was then in the neighborhood of Greenwood for the purpose of buying another. He claimed, too, to have just re- turned from a visit to his relations in Virginia, and he had a great deal to say about the various branches of the family. He and Belisarius traced out over and over again, with infinite delight, the minutest ramifications of the ties which bound them to each other. Mr. Tucker certainly was familiar, to a remarkable degree, with the family history, and related many anecdotes of the old cavaliers which Belisarius declared with enthusiasm he had heard his father tell a thousand times. Mr. Tucker further stated that he had left his negroes in a slave-pen at Natchez, having brought them away from "the swamp" to preserve them from its fatal fall diseases. There were several questions inall this which Auswurf's hypothesis [ of having dreamed out Mr. Tucker's face could not solve ; but the meal passed without his being able to make anything out of the matter. ! The hour for opening school found Auswurf in his place, ready to go on with his duties. Thad, too, was there-he had not been at breakfast-but now utterly subdued and enslaved forever. Not the slightest allusion was ever afterwards made to the affair in the woods, and Thad, thenceforth, while the school, lasted, tried as he had never tried before, to learn his lessons and please his teacher. Not that the demon did not return at times to try to regain his lost empire; but a single glance of Auswurf's eye would bring Thad fairly to his knees, with the cry : "Please, sir, don't look at me in that scary way, any more; I'll do anything you want me to; it makes me feel like a ghost was after me. " When Auswurf and his pupils went to dinner that day, the first thing the former noticed was that Mr. Tucker was not present. With considerable concern, he inquired where Mr. T. was. "He is gone to New Orleans," replied Belisarius. "I ow came he to end his visit here so abruptly?" asked Ausw'urf.' ' AN OLD FRIEND IN A NEW DRESS. 445 !"He bought a plantation this morning, and has gone for money tomake the first payment." ; "Brisk and business-like that. What is his factor's name?" "He has none just now; his last swindled him, and he has just broken off with him." v "Doubtless your cousin has a heavy balance in bank to draw on." "I believe not, sir; he expects to get an advance from Mr. Peeples." . ,' Your father's factor. Is your cousin aequainted with him?" "No, sir ; my pa gave him a letter of credit." "Possibly, too, your cousin, being short of ready cash, borrowed a trifle from your father until his return." "He did, sir, and also a horse to ride to--," giving the name of the county seat. Auswurf at once told a servant to go to Mr. Claiborne, and in- quire whether he could be received for a moment on important business. The servant quickly returned, and conducted Auswurf to a very plain chamber on the east gallery. Mr. Claiborne, of the hue of saffron, was propped up by pillows, to receive him. Urania was present, and Saladin stood at the foot of the bed, the picture of devotion; As Auswurf entered, Mr. Claiborne said, with a wan attempt at animation : "I have almost cried to see you, dear boy, but I was too proud to send for you. I thought, too, that if I let you alone, you would come, after a while, of your own accord; but- I must say, in all candor, my boy, that you have been a devil of a time about it." ' I shrank from breaking the quiet of your sick chamber, sir." "The quiet of my sick chamber be --!" cried Mr. Claiborne, using a very emphatic word. "Please don't use such naughty words, sir," said Auswurf, pre- suming far on Mr. Claiborne's love, in order to benefit him, "They degrade and injure you, and, for your own sake, it grieves me to hear you use them." "Does it, clear boy?" asked Mr. Claiborne, submissively. "Then I will try to quit it; but my poor old tongue has got so used to them, that it will be hard to keep them off it. When the parsons say that swearing puts the Great Overseer in a terrible rage, I only ask, What does the Great Overseer care personally for my petty damning, bad as it may be, more than I would for one of page: 446-447[View Page 446-447] "6 THE STORY OF AN -OUTCAST. my niggers telling another, ' I'll make moster whip you.' For I think that all He requires of us is to do big picking, and not get trash in the cotton; and to the hand that has done the best work, though he may have been a little saucy once in a while, He will give the largest allowance, and the best cabin in the winter. No- body but Birdie here--and I thought it was only a woman's pretty foolery in Birdie-ever before asked me, in any such spirit, to quit swearing. Come up here, right close to me, my beautiful boy, and squeeze my hand with yours. What a sight it is to see you with only one. But I must not think of that, or I'll have to go to drinking again. Hardarder,rder, iAy boy-if I were your sweet- heart, I'd sack you, certain, for squeezing my hand in that lukle- warm fashion! Poor, poor, sick boy, can't you squeeze my hand a little harder,. darling? It would do me good, I know, or I wouldn't ask it. There, that's a little better. Now, look at me a minute, my boy. I am an ugly old man, bony, sick and yellow. It is rare sport to kiss a pretty girl, but an ugly, old man--that's against nature. You are not actually going to try it?-and with your eyes open? Well, I think you had better shut your eyes, as I do when I take quinine ; 'taint half so bitter. Thank you, dear boy. I love kisses ; mymother taught me tlat, and spoilt me, too; for of all her children I was her darling, the dearer on account of my stupidity. But I have not had a kiss like hers in thirty years, except firom Birdie ; for the angels don't believe in 'em. Alh, my boy," he sighed, "I think it was a poor idea ever to make angels. ' Did you ever see a little black mare mule the fnist time she was hitched to a plough .kick herself out of the gears and over the fence in three rips, before you could bat your eyes? Well, that's my idea of an angel. What a devil of a time the Great Overseer must have with a whole heaven-full of them." "But you promised, sir, that you would not use any more bad words." "True, true, but you must let me express my feelings on the subject of angels, and every feeling I have on the subject has got the devil in it. But it may-be well enough to have angels in heaven for all I know; I am willing to admit that you see; so you need not get mad at me for what I said just now; I'll take it back. All I contend for is that angels haven't got a d-d bit of business down here on earth. If, not con- tent with adoring them at a distance, we bring them into this AN OLD FRIEND IN A NEW DRESS. 447 everyday life, they only fetch us poor clay yokefellows of theirs sorrow and trouble. They are too proud to go through any of the mudholes themselves; so they pick a way round for their own feet, and crowd the poor old drudge on the off side into the slough. Never put your neck into the bows with such a mate, my boy. But did you never have aflesh and blood sweetheart, my boy, a sweet, particular she, whose smile converted this crab-apple world into a basket of pomegranates? I know you have; so go on, my boy, rattle away blithely, and tell a sick, sad, old man about your pretty darling. Sweet as a peach; game as a blue pfl- let; plump, pretty and glossy as a blooded filly; high, low, jack; gift and game all at one hand-wasn't she, my boy? A creature of wonderful goodness, yet full of pretty faults that only made you love her better. No wings-no, not a feather-no angel ways at all; all flesh and blood. Always preferred to do wrong instead of right when it wasn't too much trouble. 'ade juleps for you, and helped you drink them ; loved to ride after the dogs; broke your neck a dozen times a day horse-racing, and then cured it again with a merry laugh at your clumsiness. Had an enormous opinion of you talents, in spite of your stupidity-thought you were the most learned doctor in all the world, and, though she was the queen and you the slave, professed herself your vassal with the prettiest allegiance that ever made a man's heart swell; but dealt you a death-blow at last, and broke her own heart, too, by discard- ing you because she was too proud to marry into a family who were always so damnably opposed to every match that was not a money making operation. Married a man afterwards who was as far above you, in intellect, wealth and station as the sun is above the earth, and you were always glad of it, out of spite for your relations and the angels, wern't you, my boy?"There BMr. Claiborne stopped speaking, and observed the silent tears flowing down Urania's face. "Birdie always weeps, my boy," he said, " when I tell her of that old time, and when I try to calm her, she always asks me to let her weep on, for she loves to weep over true, sad loves. And you may weep at it a little to-day, sweet Birdie, for your pa's old heart is full of sorrow, and it is a sad pleasure to see your holy tears fall for him." Auswurf, unable before to say a word about his real object, now had an additional motive for proceeding at once to business: I wished to ask you, sir, about Mr. Tucker, and whether you know him mo be really wha at he says lie is." page: 448-449[View Page 448-449] "-8 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Did you dome, then, my boy," asked Mr. Claiborne, suspicious. ely, " on purpose to find out about Tucker?" "Did not the servant say something of 'the kind?" "No, and if he had, I think I should have crammed the words down his throat. Be careful, my boy, or you will make me swear again. I feel it coming on me now. So your interest was all in relation to Tucker, was it, my boy, and he has stolen your heart as he has my son Belisarius's?" "My interest in Mr. Tucker is bounded by the inquiry whether you are sure he is your kinsman?" "I can stand anything now, my boy; go on about Tucker. I suppose he is my kinsman ; he says he is ; I did not see him, my- self, because I was too sick. On my son Belisarius's statement I gave him some ready money, and a letter of credit." "Then, sir, I am satisfied Mr. Tucker is an impostor, and has swindled you. He has already decamped hot-foot, and you will never see either him or your money again." Mr. Claiborne's relief at discovering the true cause of Auswurf's interest in Mr. Tucker, far overbalanced his regret at the loss of his money. "I see it, I see it all," he cried, with animation; "it is as plain as day. But how did you find Tucker out, my boy, and who is he? God bless your bright eyes. " "I am not certain yet who he is, although I know that I have seen him. I would recommend, sir, that Belisarius, who would be -apt to pursue with great energy, be sent after him at once to prevent his obtaining any money on the letter of credit. Mean- awhile, have me shown to the room which the gentleman occupied; perhaps, I may there find some clue to his identity; for I am in s just that state when the least hint would enable my misty mind to remember who he is." "Saladin, Saladin, you dog, show the boy's bright eyes to the d-d thief's room, and tell my son Belisarius to come here," cried Mr. Claiborne, joyously. He would have got out of bed, if he had been strong enough. The report that cousin Tucker was a cheat, ran through the house like wildfire; Auswurf had hardly got to the room which that gentleman had occupied when the whole family was at his heels. Mr. Tucker had left his valise behind him. Possibly, as he had borrowed one of Mr. Claiborne's horses to ride to the county-town, it would not have been convenient to take the AN OLD FRIEND IN A NEW DRESS. 449 luggage ; but the best reason that could be given for his leaving it was that the act would allay suspicion, and seem to promise the speedy return of its owner. There was on it no brand, card, or initials, that could afford the clue to Mr. Tucker's identity. Besides, on giving it a slight shake, Auswurf discovered that it had been left unlocked. ' This studied carelessness left nothing to hope for from the valise, and it was no longer worth while to look into it at all. Sending for the servant girl who had cleaned the room that morning, Auswurf began to question her. She told him that she had found under the pillow a knife which the gentleman had probably left, and that she had put it back there again. Pro- ducing the weapon, Auswurf found that it was a most murderous affair, eighteen inches in length, and two in width, and the blade was bedabbled with rusty blood-stains. Mr. Tucker had no doubt placed it under his head the night before, and had forgotten it in the morning. Auswurf scrutinized the weapon narrowly, and at last, when just about to conclude that he could make nothing out of it, he observed the letters 'P. 0. P.' scratched in diminutive characters on the brass jaws of the scabbard. Instantly the truth flashed into his mind; that man was the Phipps of the long ago. Auswurf at once -informed M1r. Claiborne of the discovery he had made, and Belisarius, grateful to his teacher for the opportu- nity given him to rectify his silly and sinful blunder, instantly set out to overtake and arrest Phipps. tHe used remarkable diligence, and returned the next morning, having overtaken Phipps at the county-seat before he could get away, and having caused him to be arrested and put in jail. Phipps had sold the horse he bor- rowed from M1r. Claiborne, and pocketed the proceeds. Belisarius had reported all the facts to the Commonwealth's Attorney for the District, and had left the case in his hands. The Circuit Court was to begin a session very soon-on the same day the great con- vention was to meet. Phipps, waiving a preliminary examination, had given notice that, in pursuance of his constitutional right, he should insist on being tried the first day of the term. And as his was the only criminal case for that term, this was afterwards done. page: 450-451[View Page 450-451] , 450 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. CHAPTER VC1. THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN. AND now began a period in the life of wasted Auswurf, com- pared with which all the darkness through which he had walked for almost eighteen daik, sad years was noonday splendor. His broken arm caused him a very unusual, perhaps an unnatural, le- gree of pain; but his suffering from this source was a drop of sweetness compared with the rest of his cup. The long journey southward, the change of scene, the giving up of his former hard drudgery, and especially the sweet consciousness of having saved Urania's life, had held him up and strengthened him in a won- derful manner; but they-were only a feeble and quickly-melted reinforcement in that disastrous and mournful field. The pur- pose they served was that they bore him safe over the first sur- prise and panic of his weakness; and though he still went on fading-and sinking more and more rapidly every day, he was now in no danger of ever again acting a part which would -gall his pride, or seem to even his most secret consciousness to be unwor- thy. It was not the fear of this that distressed him, but, first, the thought that, still retaining his hold on his transfigured and ' etherealized self-sovereignty, he could now no longer toil on up [ the steep of his consciousness in fitness to receive his sacred com- pletion,--the free gift of the Father poured out on his quick and plastic helplessness. It is curious to note a change wlhich his at- titude now underwent, and how sweet, how sad his helplessness became. In his earlier years, his sense of incompleteness had been I a dark and glorious tyrant, which commanded him to scale the storm-rent peaks of contemplation anda action, and capture coin- pletion with the sword. He had felt that, if he could not do this, life would and could be to him only a burden of shame and worm- wood which he longed to cast off. As the years went on, the conflict between his power and his purity had gone on too; and through successive and enlarging perceptions he had been led, slowly, and with bitter struggles, to see at last that there was nowhere in all the world anything illustrious which he could do in purity; and then he had decided to give upahll things else and retain only his purity, and that consciousness which never could have existed had it been possible for him to stain his hand. Yet no more able e THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN. 451 to surrender entirely his active instincts and purposes than his purity, he had only modified them again and again, as they were crowded into narrower and narrower spaces, and it was only with the loss of his manuscript, and the overthrow of his last possible hope, even as the sunset clouds had told him it would be over- thrown, that the full admission, -the awful certainty, that he could work in lthat high sphere no more had come. Then, strug- gling like an unsphered and far-fallen seraph to reunite his crushed being with the Infinite above him, and groping yearn- ingly for anything, no matter what, that his broken hands could still do, his own perfect manhood had come to his rescue in 'the privilege of working for his bread; and out of the satisfaction which he felt at the prospect of even this lowly labor, had begun to dawn that peace and victory which were soon to become the per- fect day. Hurled with terrible violence by the rapid movement of his life, square against rocks which blocked up the way, he fell crualshed at their foot, only to find that the road turned there, and that, when it seemed no deliverance was possible, his Mother had opened for him through the granite a narrow path which else he had not seen, and which led him in a new direction, with a strange sense that it was the final one. True, it was a lowly, a blood-stained, a tear-washed way, but his whole being now moved into it and along it. It was clear enough, notwith- standing his once different conceptions, that he had been born to suffer precisely what he was now passing through. Once, flints and glass had torn his feet to rags as he walked on, not caring for such wounds, and the granite world had bruised his fierce fists as he had bitterly fought with it; but now, when all this was past, when his strength was gone forever, and only weakness remained, the merest trifles touching the raw and smarting surface of his spirit, caused him inconceivable agony. Blades of anguish leaped out of the very air he breathed and pierced his heart, but they were bathed in a heavenly balm which never could have reached there if their points had not carried it; for the prolongation of his days in this condition was a divinely appointed pain. He had always been free from all trace of the common view of death. He had never looked on that great change as a terror, but as a sweet and sublime release, a long stride onward in the develop- ment and experience of being; as infinitely better alike for the saint whom it called to bliss, and for the sinner whom it called page: 452-453[View Page 452-453] 452 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. to retribution than any possible life in this world could be; and he now no longer had so much as even one earthly purpose of his own remaining which the fatal scythe could cut down. The only large sensation not full of joy, awakened by the near prospect of the grave, was the one that, in disobedience 'to the command he had received, his spirit would be called away before the sense of incompleteness which still lay like a burning 3Etna on her bosom could be removed. It seemed wonderful to him, who had always heard an Infinite voice in his consciousness, and was wont to spec- ulate curiously upon its utterances, as soldiers discuss their orders, that when he could no longer build any earthly hope or purpose on his completion-when he could never use, perhaps never even utter it-he should not only be held in -chains till it could come, but should be ordered to stand in the breach resist- ing inch by inch the approach of death. Thinking of his helpless- ness and prostration, he would reflect how short a road to com- pletion it would be to cast the burden of flesh; yet it was clear that he would be defeating the whole end of his existence if he left the world before his consciousness became complete. Trying to comfort himself for the contradiction in his orders--for being commanded to remain here in pain and weakness, when it would be such happiness and glory to go away--he would say: "The pure spiritstherehaveno need of lowly and miserable me. One upward waving of their spirit-wings, then one flash of their spirit eyes, re- veals to them more of truth and being than all the prisoners of this earth will ever know, and at my tallest I should be to them only a t babe among giants. It is here in this world, for the sake of my sor- I rowing, down-trodden brethren, that the Truth which is in me should become perfect. Yet how can I comfort myself with this thought? For if Ihave no strength left to whisper that Truth to my crushed and pining fellows, what can I do with it, and why am I held here in suffering?"His feeling was that of glad submission, in which there is no spark of personal hope; and in his quick helpless- ness, his yearning stillness, his Father was making smooth the way for his approach to him, and prelsaring to pour into his mourning eye the final revelation of His peace and love. The peculiar change in the mode of his thought to which we have previously referred, and which was not the least important symptom in his experience, now deepened and increased.- In his earlier years, as ,the movement of his consciousness hurled him on, he had cast THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN. 453 keenest and most searching glances on every side-had analyzed, queried into, dissected his experience. We have-seen, too, how his vivid and rapid thought afterwards began to fade and melt into the indistinctness, the aimlessness, and the far-reaching of reverie. But now even reverie began to have too much of the external and discursive in it for his weary and unstrung spirit. He no longer cared to climb that hazy hillside and look into the valley with dreamy eye. It cost his weariness too great an effort now to stand ion the summit of his own thought, and re- gard the world from thence. His spiritual sense of sight seemed to be failing, and to be replaced by an incomprehensible sense of touch. It seemed that rays no longer came from objects to his eye, but nerves went out from him and attached themselves to objects and made them in some way a part of his subjective existence. He no longer possessed or could master anything which he did not feel. His self-consciousness began to slowly absorb and swallow him up, and' to constitute his whole expe- rience; and the line of his perception shortened as his con- sciousness extended. Besides this suffering, he endured lowlier pains, yet scarcely less connected with the deep secret of his present experience. It had taken all his money, to replace, from a country store near Greenwood, the little carpet-sack of clothing which he had lost by the steamboat accident; and, therefore, it seemed, for the first two or three weeks after he began to teach, that he must sink before his earnings could amount to enough to bury him, and he must be indebted to charity for sepulture. He counted the days, nay, even the hours, as they passed, and blessed each stroke that told him time yet remained to him, and might by a miracle hold out to, the longed-for end. How insignifi- cant, at any other time, were a few days or weeks; now what an eternity. How paltry, at any other time, were a few or even many dollars; now, when they could prevent shame from being written on his tomb, how precious, how powerful! But as he cdaily watched his withering limbs and blanching cheeks, something at his heart told him that even ere the time required to make him master of enough yellow dirt to pay for his fune- ral, he would be food for worms. Throughout the week, while his school duties kept him busy and his pupils were constantly around him ivth their needs and page: 454-455[View Page 454-455] 454 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. questions and attentions, he got along pretty well; but Friday evening always closed the one and separated him from the other. "Oh! those awful, eventless, unemployed Saturdays and Sundays which he spent on that lonely Southern plantation-their mono- tony surpassed the pains, not of the damned will we say-for there is a purer and greater pain than theirs, and it was his all his life long-that of the angels who weep for the damned. What would he not have given, as they approached, to fly away to that far Northern home and taste its rest; to lay his head upon Miss Pa- tience's lap and feel her thin hand press his fevered brow; to look again at Miss Temperance's face, and hear her sweet tongue speak words of peace to his torn heart. How dear to memory now were even the click of Miss Patience's knitting-needles-surely they were the most-extraordinary that ever were seen in this world-- the original Howell skimmer, the marvellous butter-print, the round poplar milk-lids, and everything in that blest abode. As he thought of Miss Patience's accident, and Miss Mercy's disap- pointment, and Miss Temperance's campaign against the Profes- sor, and of Tom's discourse on dogs, and of the oration of Mr. Harvey's hands, and tried to speak aloud their names, his voice would grow husky, his eyes dim and bleared, and it would almost seem that for the first time in life he was about to weep. All, and howhe wondered then, whether they were thinking of him and still loved him. And often in the awful nights when his dancing nerves, disordered by the day's exertion, kept him tossing for hours, vainly, courting sleep, he would fall to thinling of them, and a i, sort of soothing balm -would be dewed upon his eyelids, peace J would creep into his plunging heart, he would go placidly to sleep, like an infant at its mother's breast. Ah, and how he longed, through all his waking hours, for some devoted, all-loving heart to draw his weary head against itself and throb in his ear the story of its love; and at night he would dream that his mother came and bent over him and kissed him. He would have given all things beside-save only that he would not have parted with one throb of his broken but regenerate heart, one smile of his defeated yet approving conscience-for one caress, one ministration of ten- derness. This craving was not now like the dry, hot desolation : which he had known in the past. 'It was not a hunger or a thirst, : but a mild and mournful yearning like that of the bruised plant ii3 for the dew. And he thought, too-alas, he groaned as he thought THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN.; 455 of it-that there beneath that same roof with him was a great and beautiful spirit who would rejoice to- give up all the world for him. But he only deplored, for her sake, that they had ever met at all, and while imagination was not equal to the task of conceiv- ing any personal suffering which he would not have run to meet if it could have bought off the smallest of her pains, yet he could not, even had there been no other reason why he should act a manly part-had it been possible for him to act any other--he would not have insulted her by offering her the companionship of a spirit which was capable of falling below itself or shrinking from anything appointed for it. So, pressing his palms against his throbbing temples as he thought of her, while his bloodless face would turn yet paler than before, he would yet let his own weakness and weariness, and his sympathy for her, no more dis- turb the rigid calmness of his purpose than the Arctic surge ruffles the ice-bound surface above it. As the condition of his arm prevented his riding on horseback, he inquired for books with which to occupy his vacant hours. Ran- dolph conducted him to a recess in the wall near Mr. Claiborne's liquor-chest. There he found a school history of the- United States, a "Pictorial History of All Nations," two or three pam- phlet histories of the Mexican war, a book entitled "Western Ad- venture," lives of Boone, Marion and Davy Crockett, "Charlotte Temple," "The Children of the Abbey," and some extremely flimsy specimens of yellow-backed literature. These "works," and no more, constituted the library of palatial Greenwood. He could not look to books, then, for amusement. Therefore, after taking what physical exercise on foot his waning strength would allow-strolling off into the woods through autumn's rag- ged shadows--he would, at last, when he could walk no longer, select a seat where the fading leaves fell on him, and where he had a broad view of the empire of decay, and he would sit there for long hours, with his helpless arm stretched rigidly across his breast, looking abroad at dying nature, or up to heaven, with mourning eyes, as if to- catch the first coming of his final peace. At other times, when the chill, November rains would keep him indoors, he would sit all alone in his room for hours, counting the number of days he had taught, and estimating his earnings. He would conjecture the amount Mr. Claiborne ought to pay him, and then, with this starting-point, he would distribute the day's page: 456-457[View Page 456-457] 456- THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. A wages among the hours, and every time the clock struck, he would thank heaven that he possessed so many cents more. He always / performed these computations mentally, in, order that the possi. bility of an error in them, arising -from his weariness and want of alertness, might give him an excuse for repeating them over and over again. A few strokes of the pencil would have swept away from him his only occupation, and have left his preying mind to sink its own fangs into itself. Several weeks, including as many, of these awful chasms be- i' tween Friday and M1onday, passed in this terrible manner, and with effects which we shall see more fully presently. During that time, he had not seen one soul of the family, except his pupils and the servants who waited on him and on them. Jely was still chained under the tree at his task. He saw him every day as he went to and from the school-house, and every hour in the day, as he went on with his humble duties; but he had not again gone near him. Mr. Claiborne was reported to be almost convalescent. Auswurf had not visited him a second time. Had he been a mean beast it might not have been painful to took at \ him; but with his many noble and tender traits, Saladin's Story, and Jerry's punishment, made the sight of him unendurable. Manlius was absent almost all the time. Dr. Greed and Mr. t Snort, with a fear for the poor, pale boy far greater than they : had ever felt for any earthly object -before, avoided him quite as carefully as he did them. It was theSunday morning before the convention and Phipps's trial, that Auswurf, with a mind whose vacancy was filled with hollow pain, started on a solitary stroll through the woods. He had not gone far when he came suddenly upon Urania, attended only by Yarico, her maid. At first, she r: started as if she would avoid him.; for it was terrible to her to meet him. Her heart, which was once so full of roseate and beautiful dreams, which had longed to lean upon him, and lav- ish on him all its wealth and tenderness, which had startled and blushed, yet looked again, at its imaginings of its own sweet trust in him, and of its sweet confidings to him, was now all darkl and- agonized. She had a far more distressed and harrowed look than when he had seen her last, yet beneath its pale distress were increased importunity and anxiety. As he saw her, in the first shock of the encounter, about to leave him, a tumultuous pallor rolled its white waves across his face, while between the swift THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN. 457 billows appeared the blankness and gray waste of a hopeless woe. He would have given the world not to have met her; but they had met, and she was running away from him. But when she saw the expression of his face, remorse became her strongest pain, and at once changing her purpose, she advanced rapidly to meet him, and lifting up her sick face to his, said : "You must par- don me, will you not?-for, oh, I am so wretched! I thank the pain that wrung your faje, for calling me back. I am glad that I still have power even to wound you, not that you may suffer, but that I may ask your forgiveness. And I am glad of this meeting on my own account, because this torment has lasted long enough. Let me understand you fully, Selric-let me know why it is that for the first time in life I am scorned, and that by you." "Scorned is a strong word, Urania," he replied, most gently, "and scorn is a fierce passion for a ghost. When we come to die, scorn is one of the first passions to expire." "I meant to use no word that would wound you, Selric," she replied, in still tenderer remorse. "I meant to charge you with no conduct, no sentiment that is not noble; but pain, does not reason calmly, nor does it always speak the word it should. I only meant to ask you humbly and forgivingly why you have divorced your spirit from me. I miss it from my side; it is gone, it is gone, I know not where. I know not where you stand. I once nursed the proudest of all womanly thoughts-that I alone understood you, and could interpret you; but now, alas, Selric, I cannot com- prehend you, and am afaid to try. I am all confused, and scourged, and weary; perhaps my sickness is the cause. Then pity-it, and explain yourself to me. For heaven's sake--yet not for heaven's sake-for no motive of mere duty or humanity--tell me why it is that week after week has passed away without one word, one tone of sympathy and interest, without one inquiry, one message, without your seeming to know or care whether I still lived or was dead. I know that I can speak to you without fear. Then, oh, Selric, do you care nothing for my misery?" "You should not look into the' deadness of my heart, Urania, for motives, as into a living one. All the holy ones in heaven know I have not meant that my conduct towards you should be marked by indifference; but I am so weak, so faded, so inattentive, that the dial may not have shown correctly that which passed within. Then, dry your eyes, Urania," for she was weeping. "Hear me 20 page: 458-459[View Page 458-459] 458 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. plead, whose lips have never known till now wilat pleading was. Explanation is only another name for weakness and folly; I am not used to it; ,and if I were to open my lips now, when I see you in thllis pain, and your tears falling, I know not what fwords that I should never speak would fall from them. Then wipe away your tears, Urania, for I cannot leave you weeping, and-do t t misunderstand the action-- I must walk on." "No, no," she exclaimed, in intense emotion, " not in this un- :. certainty, not in this feeling of disappointment and regret at my I course. It would kill me, Selric; I know that it would kill me. Then, see how pale and sick you are; you ought not to walk on; you could not do it without injury; then, do not try it. Come, let us sit here on this fallen tree, and while I am looking at your broken arm through my tears, and wishing for power to heal it, you shall talS to me very kindly, Selric, and make me see how foolish I have been to be so un'lappy." He did not resist her--he saw that it would not be kindness, but - heartlessness to do so-and she took him by the hand that had just been tenderly caressing her beautiful hair, and led him to the } fallen tree and sat down beside him. Then he said, with gentle firmness: "Urania, child of heaven, remember now and forever- more that I have never spoken to you any word of shame or folly. I I have never insulted you and degraded myself by a whisper of what men call love. Then, there is no guilty precedent to de- mand guilt and insanity now, and make you wonder at their ab- sence. It was a sad misfortune that we ever met; yet till some weak and silly word of mine shall make me otherwise, I must be f accounted blameless. Is it my blamelessness that your woman's heart blames, Urania? Then, should it not know that sacred ap- .: preciation has not ceased to exist merely because the wintry duty of reserve has locked. the stream in ice and buried it in snow? What further would you have me say, Urania, than this-that I would gladly die to comfort you, but that I have no word of guilt or folly to utter? Why should you, of all the world, join the al- liance of Disease and Pate against me, and reinforce Defeat with shame which you alone could bring upon me? I am crownless and an exile, Urania; would you even rob me of -my last refuge, the sterile St. Helena of blamelessness? You cannot do that, in- deed, even if yotlr-beautiful heart should mistakenly prompt you to the attempt. No earthly power can shake my foot from its po- THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN. 459 sition; but you, Urania, and you alone, can crush it where it clings, even as my hand is already crushed, if you will do so. It is impossible for any unseemly word to pass my lips, even now; but you can bury me under mountains of eternal pain by wishing me to speak-by even feeling that I ought to speak." "I It is only the spoken word of affection, the earnest protesta- tion which counnot often enough repeat itself, that brings repose and confidence to the heart; and inference, deduction, even proof itself, is moclkery. I hate my own name now-stately Urania; the coldness of your lips has frozen it; it was not made for one who could ever know this mood. If you loved me, you would call me by some fond diminutive, ridiculous to the ears of the-unloving world, but dearer to the heart than its own blood, and fuller of assurance than all other words combined. May God pardon and bless my noble almost father, here, and let the pet name he has given me plead with Him against his faults, as it does with me. I know I shall not live long, Selric; it would be but for a little span that you would be troubled to be kind to-me." "Urania, your brave, great, beautiful heart is deceiving you. You are attaching the subject's worth to the object, and feeding your fancy with the products of its own enchantment. The charm is in your own sweet spirit, Urania, not in-me. I am only the lowliest, obscurest, least worthy of created beings-a boy in years, a beggar in fortune, a wreck in health and destiny. Urania, make no sentiment which I could feel or disappoint your soul's depend- ence; and beware of your own sterling emotions, lest by their constancy in clinging to creatures of clay over which they should climb very lightly to higher objects, they bring you melancholy injury." "Stop, Selric," she commanded, gently. "I am glad you are so meek. I would not have you know, lest you might seem to know, how beautiful you are. Yet I cannot bear to hear even your own lips say that you are less than my heart makes you. Be unconscious and lowly in your greatness, even as you are, Selric; but there should be at your side a mirror to gather up and show forth the knowledge of your beauty and grandeur, that none of it may be lost to the world. The world is not so full of nobleness and beauty that any of it should be wasted. I would not act as you do, Selric," she hrried,. anticipating him as he was about to interrupt her. "I would not forbid your praising me. I did not page: 460-461[View Page 460-461] "O THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. interrupt you just now, when you praised me, and I will listen to you again and again, if you want me to. I will let you tell me I am beautiful, brave and good, if you wish to; and when you have exalted me as high as you possibly can or will, I would have you stop and moralize: 'How tenderly she should be cherished, and how kind and forgiving we should be to her weaknesses when she is so sick.'"? - "And so I will praise you, Urania," he said, looking with }' gentle admonition into her incomparable eyes, which disease had -/?s not clouded and could not cloud. "So I will praise you, in every word I utter, in every wish I form. The political interests of an empire are not so grave a trust as a human heart, and the happi- y::r: ness of even 'the humblest and most easily contented one would now be too great and responsible a charge for me. I have no ! skill in fondling; I know none of the words that lovers use, none : of the modulations with which endearment speaks; I have not learned such things. I have learnt language only of the genius of bitterness. My life, until it paled into an epitaph, was only a hot invective hurled fiercely out of the larynx of righteous Hate. i I have not conned the gentler of pages of the book of being. I A have only wrestled with an unmastered consciousness like a Titan X -have heeded, have followed it alone. I have cast out every other ,emotion, and restraining my hot heart with the curb of patience, have waited for the day when it would relent and lift me to the throne it promised; but it has only turned on me and crushed me forever. My life, while yet in the bud, has fallen into : -the sere and yellow leaf, like guilty Macheth's. All the phalanxes of armed hopes which glittered hn the vistas of my early dreams have perished, and only the red rust of their broken armor remains to me. I am only a shadow, Urania-a shadow cast by moonlight on the snow, but as yet on stainless and unbroken ; snow. Even to my owri sight my spirit is only like a pallid De- J; cember star, seen through the thin wings of a frozen mist. Look X at my bloodless cheeks, and shudder as you think of my caressing $ you. X- Then, unconsciously, she drew closer to him ; for her devotion heard a challenge to do so in his declaration that his ghostliness would make her shudder. "But the shadow on the stainless X snow is beautiful to the snow, Selric, and so is the wintry star to the planet which cSuld not exist but for it. What if we are both I THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN. 46 dying, Selric ; it is not a cruel fate, provided we die together. I do not quarrel with you because you have not wasted-because you coald not waste-the freshness of your heart, as small men do. I do not quarrel with you because you have never learnt the art of caressing, nor the use of honeyed words. How should you havelearntthem, when you have alwaysbeenso unloving? Yet one caress from your hand can make bliss of the tears that brought it, and you are king of language, neglectful lord of all its sweetness. Love kissed you in your cradle, Selric, and left all his honey on your lips, and when you think you are uttering scorn and hatred it is at last the spirit of love that speaks. The modest daisies, fearing nothing from so pure a spirit, look up and catch the light of your smile, and are happier because you have passed near them. But you did caress me from sympathy when I wept, and tears are God's sacrament to justify the caress of sympathy; and you put away my hair very gently just now, only you did not call me dear 'Urania, and pity is God's sacrament, Selric, to justify at any time the speaking of the words ' dear Urania.' Neither do I quarrel with the sublimity of your consciousness, Selric, nor would I, for the universe, diminish that greatness of mind and spirit on which my own hope of spiritual grandeur hangs. Soar to any height you will, Selric; only let me go along with you. It is said that women are jealous of the greatness of those they love, but 'this is only when they are incapable of being compan- ions in it. In the sphere of perfect love there are no rivalries. A great and pure spirit loves every object better because it loves others so well'; and God will sayto us at last, ' Dear children, you worship me in loving one another.' The world of love is not a world of sacrifice; it is a world of restitution and perfect being. It restores, develops and perfects, and when it shall embrace all beings, there will be no more sorrow, sacrifice or imperfection." "But it is only the Victory of Spirit that can accomplish the results which your sweet and beautiful womanhood beholds as if already present; and that victory will not be bought without the blood 6of those who fight to win it for the world. The heat of that conflict has already dried up the springs of my life. The canker of solitude, the fever of anxiety, the poison of urirest have eaten all the heart out of my heart. The rag of withered fibre which still feebly pulsates here beneath my broken arm is not a page: 462-463[View Page 462-463] "2 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. ? heart. It is a little patch of turf from a prairie which fire has rolled over. Everything that breathed has perished. The very rattlesnakes-and there were many of them, but they wished to sting only what deserved to die-are all burnt to death. A quiet reason has alone escaped; and that, rising above the ruin, beholds it now only as the traveller does Palmyra, and even begins to rejoice, with an inexplicable sense of advantage, at the h sight. The study of my emotional self, as this world regardsl i emotion, is no longer subjective, but at once objective and his- torical-the study of something not only foreign but past. Where once there was a craving heart, there is now a painless void-not I hunger but vacancy. My spirit has passed forever beyond the sphere of earthly hunger, and feels that the desolation of the holy children fails of half of its beneficence when it does not end in even inability to love with the love of this world." "O Selric," she replied, while her voice wept, though her eyes were cdy, " even your cold and glassy eye says to me no, ' Urania, you are nothing to me.' Why are you not pitying me, Selric? I have seen a crushed worm klindle more sympathy in your glorious eye than it now gives to me. Tell me that it lies, Selric; that it is no longer a faitlhful index of your soul; that it no longer gives expression to the withdrawing spirit. O Selric, this is no longer the same world it once was. The universe -may still be as full of light and truth as ever, but I never could go abroad to gather them, and now I cannot see them at all, when they no longer come to me through the star I worshipped. The iron hand of Fate has plucked all the flowers off the brow of Hope ;-where once the fair face of Life smiled and glowed there are now only eyeless sockets, In naled bones, hideous cavities. These autumn flowers may be as meekly beautiful as they were last year, when I loved them so well, - the sombre woods as majestic, the December sun as bright, the sky as blue, the waning, moon up there as like a pale consumptive as ever; but there is no longer any beauty in the earth for me. I ha-ve lost the mood of beauty out of my spirit. I look on nature, on truth, on heaven, and only faint rays, conveying nothing, fall on my sightless eyes. God Himself seems to have withdrawn His 1 face from me, and I see nothing to love or worship." :? "Urania, let-me. believe that these pangs of disappointfment : which you feel are only the travail of an ascending life, in them- I selves really nothing! The warfare which once took place even i - ' j THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN. 463 in heaven, is repeated in your pure and gentle heart. The higher powers will soon conquer, Urania, and the Apollyon, Love, be cast out forever; but, alas, will he not drag downm with him a third part of the stars of heavefn?" "If I had thought what I said would affect you so," she an- swered, noticing the effect of her words, "I would not have spoken it though my heart had burst with it. I thought you were look- ing at me coldly and unfeelingly; but you were not, were you, Selric? No, I see such sweet, deep pity in your face as the world never saw before. It tells me that I may tell you. all my sorrow, and be comforted by you." And the flood-gate of tears being un- locked by the spectacle of his sympathy, she laid her head on his shoulder and wept. "I want no one but you, Selric, to comfort me for the loss of your love. I have no mother; she is dead; and my pride would shrink from telling any one but you my misery. Now that all is past, I can call you dear Selric, as my best friend, and tell you, as my confidant and comforter, how well I loved you. This is no travail of ascension, Selric; it is death. I am not strong, like you ; I cannot survive the breaking of my heart. If I could nurse any noble and holy emotion in such a tame and life- less manner that I could calculate its comforts and discomforts, its advantages and disadvantages, and when it w-as slain, instead of dying with it enrich myself by embezzling the estate it left, then I should cast its sacred corpse out of my heart, and spit upon my heart as not fit to be even a tomb for such a love. Alas, Selric, you made a terrible mistake. Thinking only of my welfare, in- tending only to be very kind to me, and very noble, you have de- stroyed all that my life depended on. Yet it was a lofty error, one at which only the greatest angels are worthy to weep. ' You thought that I could see you witliout knowing and appreciating you, or that having looked at you once I could go and forget you. But had I never even heard your name, I think I must have felt that you were somewhere in this world or in the purer orbs of :heaven, and have become devoted to you alone, forevermore. Do you wonder that a woman should talk so, dear Selric? The won- der is rather that there should be a man to whom a woman would not hesitate to talk so. I feel no wounded pride, no self-soreness. There is that in your nature which takes holy and vigilant care for me, and spares me the necessity of recollecting myself. But why does not your face lay aside its pain, dear Selric?" she continued, page: 464-465[View Page 464-465] "4- THE STORY OP AN OUTCAST. as her own magnanimity and beaty caused him only increased anguish. "Tell me the cause of your grief, so that, if it be any- thing in my conduct, I may notrepeat it. You have no cause for sorrow on my account; for I prefer even this destiny to any in which I had never known you. It is true my hope lies dead, and that is terrible ; but my love still lives, and that is worth more than my hope. Yet it was a priceless and heavenly hope. You do not know how terrible it is, Selric, when what would have made each regular heart-throb, as it kept time to the ticking of the clock fromn year to year, a ministration of bliss, is taken from us. Then we i miss the very purpose of life. The universe goes on, and we are i no longer a part of it; that is the worst grief, Selric. But let my * hope lie dead, Selric. Nay, beloved," she entreated, as she saw i that she was. constantly increasing his anguish, " do not care for . it at all. Ican endure its death a thousand times better than I can thel sight of your face as it looks now. Do not blame yourself on my account, Selric, and do not think I blame you. There is nothing in my heart that should cause you one twinge of uneasi- ness of any kind. I know that it would pain you to know that I regretted your not loving me. I will not regret it. I will even be glad, for your sake, that you did not love me; but, oh! I shall never, even in that heaven of sorrow for which I pine, cease to mourn that you could not love me." "Urania, should you, of whom an angel were not worthy, make my helplessness and bondage the chosen ministers of your hap- piness? If possible, retract even yet the eternal committal of yor : happiness to such melancholy custody. It is sympathy that coun- ' sels you, Urania; for you have -only suffered in a different and t womanly sphere a parallel experience to mine. Then, for duty's i. sake, Urania, forget the transient unpalatableness of the world which the enforced separation of your beautiful spirit from one it : ! loves has caused. How much is there still in life for you to live for. Witlh your abundance, you can visit the fatherless and the afflicted, and pour healing into many a heart which, after you are gone, will bless you memory." - "But I have no heart for such things now. There is no life so beneficent that I would live it. I do not wish to live so that others may remember my good deeds and call my memory bless- ed. I only wish to die so that some one may weep for me. There ' is but one remaining privilege in this world which I prize, and that X THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN. 465 the fact that I am rapidly dying confers. Since you left me at the Cathedral, I have had an abiding confidence that we should meet again, and I have promised myself that when we- did so, I would establish a lasting friendship between our spirits. When I first knew You, Selric, I longed only to serve and befriend you. I thought not of myself then. But alas, I have grown very selfish as I have grown sick and weak ; and now I am all the time thinking only of what you might be to me. Why should we not be friends, dear Selric, since we can be no more? Every hour after you went away, every hour that you stood aloof from me here, I have longed to see you, so that I might plead with you to grant this last wish of mine, and I have imagined over and over all that I would say to you, and how your face would sadden and your heart melt at my suffering. I never doubted, Selric, that I should prevail with you to grant my prayer. If I had done so, I must have died of despair that day ere the last echo of your retreating footsteps died in my ear, as you left me. I have a rugged path to tread, far. more rugged than you suppose. But it would make the flints feel pleasant to know that you saw the holes they are tearing in my feet, and called me brave; and if I had you near me, for my spirit to lean upon and take counsel of, I could not think the awful thoughts which now at times creep into my mind." "But let us not," he answered, sayings that for which he had prepared the way, "let us not in tender imbecility forget the meanness and malignity of this evil-minded world. We must part again in a few moments, never to meet in this world except by chance, even as we parted once before, but not now in the same spirit as then. There is a stainless world beyond the grave, where the frosty wisdom of'this world will be unneeded and unknown. There, where the crime-creating institutions of this world, and their long trains of curses, never come, we shall meet again, and journey onward arm in arm; and then you shall hear from my lips, not the story of sacrifice of which I once spoke, but another experience which your touch alone, of all the bright beings who inhabit the worlds, could ever have awakened in my soul; and eternity shall be too short to bear us to the first pause in the lyric of our love." "And may heaven bless you," she replied, again weeping on his shoulder, "for those words. I came to you, beloved, knowing that you would pluck the barbed sorrow from my heart. At first you 20* page: 466-467[View Page 466-467] "6 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. ?, drove it deeper, but it is all gone now, and gone forever. Tile beauty which expired out of this worcld has only gone before me to the Islands of the Blessed, crossing the dark flood a little in ! advance of me, that I many go to it with the greater joy. I will bury your words in my heart and feed upon them. I have had a- sweetlonging for domestic life, which Fate ought to have rewarded; . but it is sweeter yet to obey you, dear Selric, and I shall suffer ! my weak heart to break no more for the spoken words of affection ir which can never be uttered in this world. But I shall know that, i like all the beautiful things that have died unborn, they have gone Af before me to that land where I shall hear them. For if our hap- piness there is to be without a cloud, must not What should have i been, yet never was, be restored to us, and be a part of its fruition? lHenceforth, beloved, I am in a new sense entirely your own, and I must cherish for you even deeper affection than heretofore, to ? be manifested in the day of revelations. iHow kind it was of heaven to smite us both with death at once. How weary it would be to wait for you, even in that bright world. Oh! you are so beautiful in your paleness, and so near to me now; and in my sefishness I cannot lament your untimely fall as I should do." "It would be a mistaken tear, Urania, that would fall upon my grave. Even while you speak, I hear a voice in my own conscious,- ness, the echo of your own, telling me that I shall live to see the completion of my being, and shall lie down to sleep at last in the valley of Content. I know that I shall never be able to tell the' world what that completed life within me is; yet I shall fold my withered arms across my breast and go to sleep in sweeter joy than that with which any human -being has ever yet welcomed death. My last breath, if no earlier one, will find me such a being as com- pleted man should be-such as completed man will be ages hence, when my humble and unheard-of life shall be repeated in millions of shapes of power and grandeur. Heavenly Urania, your love, in its greatness, purity and sweetness, has been to me the greatest boon the universe contained for' me. Give to me all the wealth of your great and beautiful spirit, and never withdraw for one instant the light which now begins to shed on my life its only beauty, andcl to lead me ever nearer to the beaming face of Him who is perfect Truth and Love.' "All that you can ask or dream of, more than imagination can , picture, you shall have without will or effort on my part. In my \ ^ * ,ES VERY SOUTHaERN. 467 love for you there shall be undying faith, devotion and repose. It shall be like the sky in its serenest glory, and the farther I advance into it, the more will its wealth and magnificence be revealed even- to m1e." And then they parted, and Auswurf returned slowly homeward. O46- CHAPTER Viii. VEBY SOUTHERN. THE :next day was the eventful one of the convention and of Phipps's trial. By sunrise that morning, a deputy sheriff arrived with subpoenas for every white adult inmate of the house, includ- ing even the guests. What it meant no one could tell ; for inas- much as only Auswurf, 'Mr. Claiborne, and Belisarius knew any- thing about the case, the others were scarcely wanted to testify. The officer only knew that Phipps had inquired 'what members of the circle had been summoned as witnesses against him, and had asked for writs for all the rest. Mr. Claiborne, having taken leave of his sick chamber that morning, and feeling sure that this was a crafty trick of some sort on Phipps's part, came to Auswurf's room to ask him if he could imagine what it all meant. Auswurf, re- calling all the past, thought he could see a reason for what Phipps had done, but hesitated to allude to it. At that moment Phin came running across the yard, and rushing into the room, cried out : "Moster, one of the hands is dead, out in the field." "Where?-where?" roared Mr. Claiborne, darting out on the gallery. "Do you dare stop to answer me? Lead on, lead on, sir-quick; quick! Phin bolted across the yard, with Mr. Clai- borne after him as if he had never been sick a day in his life ; and Auswurf following as fast as he could. With every jump Phin took Mrt Claiborne roared, "Faster, faster, you leaden-heeled devil, or '1ll kill you on top of him, when I get there!"Auswurf wondered considerably at this great excitement and precipitation on such an occasion; but he did not know as much about such affairs, and the causes of them, as Mr. Claiborne did. Very soon the spot to which Phin guided thiem wash reached. The body of the dead man lay in the nearest field, where the day page: 468-469[View Page 468-469] "8 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. -! before the hands had been gleaning the last of the crop, and had : been discovered by them on returning to their work in the morn- . ing. It was that of a negro man about twenty-five years old, but 5 so emaciated that he looked like a puny boy. 1He was lying stretched out upon his back between two rows of cotton, and the , sack he used in picking was slung across his breast. On his fore- i! head was a jagged cut from which the blood had flowed copiously; : the frost now lay heavy on his clotted hair and gory cheeks, and on the lashes from beneath which his open glassy eyes stared out; and his jaws gaped apart in ghastly relaxation. I "Where is Blackburn?" thundered Mr. Claiborne, pallid from rage, as soon as he had glanced at the dead negro. "Where is he, i I say? I'll make his paunch -eat steel for this." "Here I am, if you want me," said the overseer, tremblingly, coming out of the gin. "Then come here, you infernal son of hell!" yelled 5Mr. Clai- borne; "I am going to murder you." "Oh! I reckon not,", said the colorless overseer, approaching with a sickly, terrified grin, which made him hideous. "What nigger is this, sir?" bawled Mr. Claiborne. - ' "It's only Ake, the consumpted feller," returned the overseer. "Well, what does this mean, sir? Tell me, sir, what in the devil this means, sir." "I don't know as it means anything in pertickler." "You lie, you Thug. Stop shaking, and speak out, you poor coward; I am not going to strike you; I. would as soon strike a puppy." "Well, then, you see," said the reassured overseer, " last night atweighin' time, this chap hadn't done nothin', as usual. Whurp- pin' didn't do no manner of good, for I'd whurpped him every night for a month, and he was always behindhand jest the same. So, last night I sent the other hands to the quarter, and jest told him he had to pick his task, ef it took him till daylight. The stubborn cuss laid down on the ground right afore my eyes, and said he couldn't git up, that he was a-dyin', and that sort of stuff. So I jest histed him with a kick, and sent him out here to go to pickin'. Arter I got things all fixed up around the gin, I come out here to see what he was a-doin', and the darned cuss was a-layin' down between two rows, a-groanin' like he had the high- strikes. I jest histed him agin with another kick-and," catching ,4, VERY SOUTHERN. 469 his breath--' and then I went to bed. This mornin', when we come out to work, he was a-layin' thar dead, and I thought I'd Jest let him lay till some of you found out about it." ",You cowardly sneal, " bawled Mr. Claiborne, " why don't you acknowledge, like a man, that you killed him?" "Me hilled him?" asked the overseer in alarm. I'll leave it to this gentleman, here, ef I acknowledged to dillin' of him." "Stop your lying clatter," yelled Mr. Claiborne. "What did you hit him with? A club? Where's the club you killed him with? I want it." cThe club I killed him with? I tell you there aint no setch club. I'll leave it to this gentleman, ef "-- "Here's the club, moster," said a spunky voice, and a tough oak stick, bespattered with blood, was handed forward. In the speaker Auswurf recognized the mere shadow-nothing mote- of Jerry's wife, his mother's humble but true-hearted friend, Cleo- patra ; but she did not recognize him in his changed condition. Of course she had not seen her husband, to learn from him that Auswurf was at Greenwood, and a field hand knew very little in- deed as to who came and went at the great house. Mr. Claiborne again became frantic with rage the moment he Eaw the murderous stick. "I'll have you hung, you murdering son of a b ---!" he cried; "I'm determined I'll have you hung for knocking my niggers over like hogs. I'll show you whose niggers it is that you are acting so large with." "Oh! if you go at that," replied the overseer, with a horrible grimace, "I'd like to see you git another overseer in a hurry. Bf you hang a feller for killin' of a poor, darned, sickly pup like him, I reckon you'll have to do your own overseein' putty much." The overseer had the best of the argument; Mr. Claiborne saw that-plainly enough; besides, it would not do, he thought, to argue the matter so fiercely there, in the presence of the hands. So, turning to these, who were all standing still in their rows'at a little distance, afraid to leave them and gather around the spot they were all looking at, making a pretence, too, of going on with their work, yet doing nothing-it was a comical sight, but a sad one at last-he cried out : "Ho, there, all of you, come here, and take a look at this dead fellow before he is buried." Eagerly availing themselves of the coveted permission, they came swarming forward, .a hundred or more, of all ages, sexes page: 470-471[View Page 470-471] and sizes, straggling across the rows, parting the stalks of cot-. ton, and peeping about from side to side, as though they i wished to see the corpse but were afraid to look at it. They : all uncovered their heads as they came near. They were, in- 'S deed, a motley group, and one which it was very painful to look ulpon. There were males more like orang-outangs than men,i, ill-shaped, long-armed, low-browed, and grisly, with neglected beard; there were females who would have disgusted you with the very name of woman, filthy and hideous, and wrapped in . soil-colored rags which had once been gowns of coarse white iAt domestic. "Gather around here, all of you," said Mr. Claiborne, "and take a good look at this dead nigger. The overseer killed himr because he wouldn't work, and he'll kill the last one of you if ; you don't work. Mr. Blackburn's time is out to-day; but I am going to get another overseer who will be a long sight tighter than he has ever been. I am going to get an overseeer who, I expect, will kill every one of you, especially if you don't work. Overseers love to kill niggers; so look sharp. Pete, how ; many niggers is this that have been killed since I bought you?"' "God knows, massa; Pete don't," was the answer. Auswu'f ai looked whence the voice proceeded, and saw the completest nondescript he had ever beheld. The thing was of uncertain : age, but his uncovered wool and disgusting beard were streaked with gray; he was drawn nearly double with age or rhematism; his fingers almost touched the ground, and his chin approached : his knees; his eyes were bleared; slaver ,ran from his mouth in an uninterrupted stream; and he kept up a constant' motion of the lower jaw, with a whining "yeh -- yeh -- yeh." I "Well," said Mr. Claiborme,!"you had better get rid of that rheumatism in short order or your turn will come next. The over- seer killed this fellow because he had the consumption. Go backe4 to your work now, all of you, and pick as if the very devil was at your heels. " He then turned to the overseer, and said: "Blackburn, you I killed this nigger, and now you have got to bury him with yotar own hands. I intend to stand over you with the -same club that you killed him with, and if you slight the job I will beat youre brains oat at once." ' Auswnurf slipped away to his room, leaving them there. In an VERY SOUTHERN. 17 - hour, Mr. Claiborne and the overseer came into the west hall to- gether. Auswurf heard them counting money, and then Ir. Claiborne said: "Eere is what I owe you, Blackbuxn. Take it and clear out, and never let me lay eyes on you again." Then the overseer went out. Phin was holding his horse for him at the west gallery steps. The overseer strapped his lit behind the saddle, mounted, and rode away. Auswurf ate no breakfast at all that morning; but presently, for the want of anything else to do, and as the only morsel with which he could respite the devouring fang of ennui, he left his room, and walked down to the schoolhouse. He now be- gan to feel very weak and faint, and overcome by even that short walk, sat down on the doorstep to rest. Never before in all his life, widely as he had wandered over the world, had his eye beheld a scene of such wild and melancholy beauty, and power to break the heart, as passed before it at that moment - that grand, incomparable December-work on that far Southern plantation. Whirlwinds of yellow, red and russet leaves rushed through the tree tops or fell to the earth in seas, and rolled away in mighty waves into the depths of the- woods. Frag- mentary clouds, heavy, white-winged, dark-breasted, floated in the sky, obscuring the sun, dashing their great shadows madly and in heaps against the earth, and lending a more funereal hue to the decaying world, while the winds sobbed convulsively, and the dying trees rocked as if in agony, and with every spasm the leaves came raining down in large showers on those that had fallen before, and were swept away in clouds by the wind. It was as though a goddess, smitten with death, should sit beside her own bier in drapery that gave power and-wildness to her fad- ing beauty, and chant her own dirge, breaking at intervals into wails of despair at her own sad fate. It was like the last song of Corinne. It was Nature, his omnipotent mother, lamenting her own decay and his. And-to him it seemed not the least melan- choly feature of that melancholy scene, that whenever the heart- of dying Nature was suddenly wrong with sharp convulsions, the widowed sun hid his face, and when the paroxysm was past again withdrew the veil, as if he could not endure to behold the death-spasms of th$ beauty which he had nursed and kindled, yet could not long look away from his dying bride. "O Uniiverse!" cried the anguished and dying boy, "thou art page: 472-473[View Page 472-473] 472 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. an Infinite Pang, a 1Maelstrom of Decay. Thy wrecked and dy. ' ing child stands to-day by a larger' grave than his own, looking S down into its darkness. There all the stars of heaven are sink- i is ing; there ghastly comets and pale meteors rush on my dying i^ sight. Kings, conqueror s and prelates, crowns, swords and mitres - are ,falling from the quaking brink. Even maternal Nature is ; writhing on the crumbling edge, and going down with groans and : :- mighty throes * M * ^ Break, break, strong heart ; thy hour has come. Borne on by thy own growth, thou hast reached :V -the last great ascent which thou must make or perish. Long adjourned by my strength, it now confronts my weakness. Yet I ^ am content with my weakness, for 'what mockery were unman strength here. Holy weakness, sensitive and tearful, thou alone canst serve me now. The widow toiling for her orphan's bread, : the beggared student searching for his spirit's need, the broken- hearted, rejected and lowly everywhere are greater than kings. Philosophy, I loathe thy very name. I no longer possess, no : longer care for any truth which is not a heart-throb, and which ; does not love and pity. High-piled abstractions that rule the world, empty cheats, you have never tricked me, and here again - to-day, with my dying breath, I give you up forever. These fall- : ing leaves and wailing winds, -your chained slave, this expiring world preach surer troth than all your pompous vagaries. * * * * O S0 iva, there is no god like thee. Rain on -my head, dead leaves; cover me over even as my heart is covered with its own dead foliage. Alan's faiths and loves and hopes all fade and fall like you, and there is no destroyer to equal man. He con- sumes the very earth itself, and where civilization has passed, a desert- remains. What will be the end? I read it here--that ) while physical nature preserves this touching propriety of grief, there is also aspirit-sun to look with pity on dying man-- I: nay, even on a poor wasted boy like me, as, after my bitter strug- gle, I sink in Death. No, Father, let the world stand afar off and believe that thou dost exist; the lowliest of thy babes knows Thee, and lives only in Thee. Soon I shall be in the unknown -- what. shall I find there? I know that my being is persistent and indestructible, and that there is a home and a rest for me there. I know not clearly what it is ; it concerns me not to know; it is enough to know that there destiny flows from character as it does not in this world, and that it is advantage to any man )"I VERY SOUniHEN. 473 to be called to that better mode and leave the earthly destiny unac- complished; hard to feel the invading chill of death creep nearer and nearer the vital point, when the agonized spirit feels that her work is not done. How she flies from point to point in anguish to see what progress the enemy is making, and when all the outposts have been carried, she sits down in the citadel and wrings her hands, for the end draweth nigh." Then he got up and staggered into the schoolhouse; but he immediately raised one of the windows and looked out again into the melancholy woods. There still was Jerry, chained to his appointed task, the leaves falling thick and fast over his bare head and broad shoulders, and the sound of his axe booming hol- low and mournful above the sighs of the wind. The- sight was more terrible to look out at than it had seemed out there in the sea of decay. "Such is this world," he said aloud, as he looked upon this spectacle ; " all is injustice, oppression and woe. Will a better day ever come? The thrilling hope of it is gone from me forever; dead, with the boyish enthusiasm that gave it birth; yet the greater conviction born of the hope abides. It is only the heart-broken that see life and this world as they really are. How would this scene affect the prosperous and happy? How can I know--I, who know nothing of the experiences of the prosperous and happy? But it could affect them only partially, inadequately, as it might an unborn bird in the shell. Suffering is the second sigliht of the soul. It is only the iron rams of pain crashing into the soul, that can batter down the lath and plaster of commonplace life, and tear open a chasm for the true mean- ing of life and nature to come in through splinters and frag- ments. O Father, my own life is all torn and crushed away! mill not Thy heavenly peace come to me now?" He heard a step behind him; he turned and saw Urania. She was evidently delirious, and had escaped from her room dur- ing the momentary absence of all her attendants. She was dressed in a white wrapper; her loose hair fell in floods around her person; her eyes had a wild and flighty stare. She had torn off the bandage from a wound which the lancet had left in her temple, and a purple stream was flowing down her colorless cheek, and trickling over her white robe. She went straight up to Auswurf, and laid her hand upon his shoulder. "Did I say I wickedly and selfishy rejoiced at the prospect of page: 474-475[View Page 474-475] your dying with me, Selri?" she aslked, with a pathos of self-re. proach that almost drove him mad. "It is not so; my own selfish heart made me utter an untruth. Oh! do notdie; you must notdie. The thought is kiilling me, Selric, killing me, piecemeal. I thought it was your ghost I sawin the storm, and I began to die from that E hour. I was sick before, but not like this, Selric-no, no, not ' like this, It was nothing to have my own heart broken, so long : /as I thought you were well and happy. I know it was you that saved me, Selric, but I'll not tell any person; for I know that you don't wrant it mentioned. But you have been cruel to me, Selric, since we met here. But- I'll not blame you; no, no, I could never blame you for anything. O, God, why does he look at me this way, with such a deathke face, and eyes that look like spirits? This is Seliic, and he is dying. Give me a dagger- quick, quick!! I will open my own heart, and pour the useless tides of my life into his breast. Out him not down, O Death! Spare him, and accept me as a victim in his stead. Live, Selric, still 'live; live to do your holy work on earth, and then come to poor Urania, in heaven." "Urania, Urania,' he said, in awful calmness, laying his hand on her shoulder, and shaking it, "do you hear me? Can you understLand mle? It is Auswurf that is speaking to you; look at me, Urania, and collect your scattered and delirious fancies. You are sick, Urania, very, very sick." "Yes," she interrupted, "I am sick--sick--oh, so sick!" "Then return to your room at once, Urania. You understand me now, do you not? Return to youre sick-bed at once, or this may kill you." - "No, I will not return "-struggling powerfully to recover her wandering reason-" until you promise me that you will not die. This is my fault; 'tis I that have brought you to this, Selric. It was not wordy argument you needed to heal your sorrow and desolation; it was the proof of a life; and I ought to have come i to you in the boldness of innocent love, and said: - 'No power in all the universe shall ever separate me from thee.' But I did not I; do that, and mine was a fault compared with which all other guilt in woman is moral beauty. So leave me to myself, Seleic, i and let me sink into seas of endless night, while you mount be- Ai yond the stars, and abandon me forever." IJ Then, just as her distressed and fevered mind seemed to be on VERY SOUTREliN. 475 the eve of fluttering back into its proper consciousness, her senses forsook her, and she fell swooning to the floor. Auswurf bent down and partly raised her, so that her head rested on his bosom, and moaned again and again: "O, Urania, for tu-hy salke, would that I had never been born!"Presently, he heard a confusion of footsteps and voices, and Urania was raised and borne away, but he did not know aud could not see who did it. With a mighty effort, he straggled to his feet, aned leaned against the wall to keep from falling. He heard some one speaking to him, and look- ing again and again, with all the power of his dizzy and reeling eyes, he saw that Mrs. Claiborne was standing before ILim, pale as ashes, and ghastly from excitement, talking to him. Claiborne, Cheveril, Dr. Greed, Snort, the family physician, and several other persons were present. "Do you hear?" whispered Mrs. Claibonme. "Do you hear now? I see you did not hear before. I said the world was too small for both you and me. I said that you were destroying the one hope of my heart. Do you hear? I said that if I had no son who, sick of his own shame, would rid me of you, I would kill you with my own hand." "Then crush me at once as I lean here," said Ausw-uf. "Wo- man as you are, you will have an easy revenge ; I have but one hand, and I will not lift that to resist you." "No, no, blood! I want to see your blood flow," cried Mrs. Claiborne. "Oh, that I should see the day when I have no son that will espouse my quarrel and his own, and spill your blood." "Say no more,!" commanded Claiborne, pale as death, and speaking for the first time. "Your words and conduct commit my honor. But, Auswurf, bright, unhappy seraph, I cannot murder you in cold blood. Will you meet me in the usual way?" "If you have a pistol that will do the work, it would be better for us to step outside here now, and end it." "No, I cannot kill you, Auswurf, even at my mother's com- mand, unless the murcler be conducted regularly." "You, , gentleman, are going to fight regularly with a school- teacher," sneered one of the guests. "I have not forgotten that," saidl Mrs. Claiborne, with strange exultation for a woman. "I know that he is my son's equal." She did not doubt that Manlius would easily kill the sick, broken- armed boy; but she would not have had him kill him in the page: 476-477[View Page 476-477] 476 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "gentlemanly" way, if he had not been his equal. You may ' beat your inferior's brains out with a bludgeon, and still be very chivalrous ; but to shoot him in the " social " way, is utterly dis- graceful. "You may shoot at me," said Auswurf, "on three conditions. First, the cause of the quarrel is never to be made public ; second, . the weapons used shall be revolvers, and the firing not to be stopped, aftmer the word is given, until one or the other falls; third, no surgeons shall be taken along, so that whoever is hit may not be kept from death." Claiborne assented to the conditions; and then the whole party turned away, and left Auswurf there all alone in the schoolhouse. After they had gone, Auswurf started for his room. He encount- ered Mr. Claiborne in the yard, blissfully ignorant, as usual, of the scenes which had just occurred. "Ho, ho, my boy," he cried-how harshy his cheery voice grated on the ear!--"I have been looking for you for half an hour. I have ordered out my two-horse buggy and dapple ponies for you and me, and they will be here in two minutes. Get ready at once, -and we will be in town before you can wink your pretty eye." CHAPTER IX. NEMESIS USES THE "BTULE OF RIGHT 5 FOR ONCE. IN less than an hour they were all at the county-town, a neat little city of two or three thousand inhabitants, built some miles inland from the river, and connected with it by a short railroad. The wide streets, thiclly lined with trees, the low, broad, white houses, and ample grounds, proclaimed the genuine Southern town. As the trial of Phipps was to proceed at once, Mr. Claiborne and Auswurf went directly to the court-house. The darkeyed little Judge, lame of a leg, as a large proportion of the American judiciary seem to be, soon called the case of the Commonwealth vs. Philpot C. Phipps, and directed the sheriff to bring in the prisoner. Phipps was brought in accordingly, and took a seat within the bar. He betrayed less concern than the most indiffer- i ent spectator, and the first thing he did, after getting a seat, was NEMESIS USES "'THE RULE OF RIGHT"FOR ONCE. 4" to turn around and send his cold little gray eyes wandering around the court-room to see who was there. "Which is the prisoner?" asked the Judge, confused by Phipps's fine clothes and perfect nonchalance. "I am the prisoner, if it please your Honor," said Phipps, ris- ing and making a profound bow. "I Ah!" said the Judge, with a drawl of surprise. Then he add- ed, "There is no counsel marked for you on the docket ; shall the Court appoint counsel for you?" "Write Philpot C. Phipps pro se," replied the prisoner. "Had you not better have an attorney?" asked the Court, hu- manely. "Before the trial is over your Honor(will discover that I am an attorney," returned Phipps, coolly. The Judge wrote down Phipps's name as counsel for himself. At that moment, Mrs. Greed, supported by her, husband's arm, in the first sympathetic regard Auswarf had ever seen him show her, entered the court-room, and sat down on a bench outside the bar. Never before had Auswurf beheld her laboring under such intense and awful excitement; her eyes were dilated, her face was colorless, and the wildest, most uncontrollable terror depicted on it. "Has the accused any objection to the jury?" asked the pro- secuting attorney. "They look like a jury that will convict on the slightest provo- cation," said Phipps, with characteristic impudence. "Therefore, I accept the jury." That sealed his doom. There are few things on earth that equal your "impartial jury," for pique, spite, and petty consciousness. "Swear the witnesses for the prosecution," said the Judge to the clerk. Mr. Claiborne, Belisarius, and Auswurf went forward and were sworn. "If it please your Honor," said Phipps, "I want the witness Auswurf excluded from the court-room while the others testify. I believe he would perjure himself to do me an injury." "He is a liar," yelled M1r. Claiborne; " the boy-is as true a lad as ever lived." The dark-eyed Judge, who kiew Mr. Claiborne's position and influence, and was not above human weakness, only smiled at this hot outhurst-"the pain and penalty of fine and imprison- page: 478-479[View Page 478-479] 478 THE STOrY OF AN OUTCAST. ment" being held in reserve for poor white trash-and said to the X prisoner: "You must show cause, by affidavit, for such a rule." : "It makes no difference about the rule," said Phipps. "'I I withdraw the application." He had already accomplished his purt- ^ pose. Five hundred supicious eyes were fixed on Auswurf, the e '^ principal witness against him.? -; "You must not attempt to trifle with the Court," said the : Judge. , "Your Honor will remember," returned Phipps, respectfully, : "that I appear here as both counsel and accused, and I claim all the privileges that right, courtesy or sympathy can bestow on either." i - -: Mr. Claiborne was now called to the stand, and wilh many ex- pletives, at which the dark-eyed Judge only smiled good-humor- edly, told how Phipps had obtained money, a horse, and a letter of credit from him under false pretences. "-And," concluded he, : atlength, "Ihope you jurymen will put the lying, slanderous thief in the penitentiary for life; because"--. "Is your Honor going to let the witness address the jury against me?" interrupted Phipps. ti "Stop, Mr. Claiborne," enjoined the Court, very mildly. I "Well, I'll stop," said Mr. Claiborne, "but I say, again, you : ought to send him to the penitentiary for life, and it's a God's pity the law won't let you hang him." "You can take the witness," said the prosecuting attorney. "." 'G Let him go; let him go, by all means," said Phipps. "He has only published his own shame as a whiskey-swigging old dun- derhead, and at the same time testified to my shrewdness; I have enjoyed the recital; let him go." ,: Belisarius and Auswmrf followed with their testimony. Phipps belabored poor Belisarius unmercifully, making him tell about the promised gift of puppies, and a great many other things that - made him look ridiculous.- He tried to be very severe on Auswurf also, but the calm, clear, direct and overwhelming testimony of 5{ the latter soon silenced his spiteful sallies, and when Auswurf had,; done, Phipps only cried impatiently, "Let him go." The prosecuting attorney said the Commonwealth rested the case there, and the Court asked Phipps if he had any witnesses. "Yes," said Phipps ; "my time has come, now. Have Rev. and i Hon. Theospolophilus Greed sworn." The Doctor strode mood- NEMESIS USES Id THE RtULE OF RIGHT"FOR ONCE. 479 ily into the bar, and was sworn. "Witness, do you know me?" asked Phipps, thrusting forward his thin face. "Yes, I know you," replied the Doctor, with a voice and man- ner strangely in contrast with his former boldness and recklessness. The demon which he had once aroused to torture his miserable wife, had now laid hold on him. "Then who am I?" ;"I have often said you were descended from the devil, and -I believe it." "Then, will you be kind enough to tell the jury what relation- ship subsists between us,?" "No, I will not." ,' Would your answer expose you- to a criminal prosecution?" "No." "Then you've got no right to withhold it." The prosecuting attorney then objected to the question as irrel- evant, and the Court instantly sustained the objection. "The question is not irrelevant, your Honor," replied Phipps, "as I could quickly show; but I withdraw it for the present to put it to the next witness. I should not have put it to this witness at all, if he had not been so swrift to say I was descended from the devil; I merely wanted to show than if I was, be was pretty close kin to me. You shall have the question answered in good time, gentlemen of the jury ; and then you will see the Senator's reason for refusing to answer it." The word Senator was fairly hissed from between his teeth. "Witness," he continued, "will you tell the jury what my motive was for committing the crime for which I am now on trial?" "Avarie. and malice," replied the Doctor, eagerly. "Promptly and truly spoken," said Phipps. "You are a swift witness, but you will find that I can be as swift as you. State to the jury what particular cause excited my avarice and malice in this instance." "I cannot answer that question," said nthe Doctor, with hurry and contusion, "without committing myself." "In that case," cried Phipps, " it would be very improper in me to press the question. Witness, when did you see me last be- fore to-day?" "In ----, a month ago." "Wlat conversation passed between us on that occasion?" page: 480-481[View Page 480-481] XVV1II ST ORVKY OF AN OUTCAST. The prosecuting attorney objected to this whole examination as irrelevant, impertinent, and worse. "I With all due deference to X the young practitioner," returned Phipps, confidently, "I am pre sumed to know best how to examine my own witnesses. The rules give me a large discretion, and I assure the Court it will soon ,? appear that those questions are not irrelevant." Phipps's shrewd ' ness, self-possession, and confidence had already acquired for him full control of the case. It was very clear that he knew precisely . what he was about, and as every accused person is presumed to -,:' aim at acquittal, the Court began to think there was some curious ^ mistake, or deep-la u conspiracy in the matter, which Phipps was :i:i trying to straighten out, and, therefore, did not feel disposed to / deny him anything. So he announced at once, from the best of X motives, that he should allow the accused a very large latitude in l getting the defence before the jury, and that if irrelevant testi- - mony should be elicited, he would instruct the jury to disregard it in making up their verdict. "Then, witness," repeated Phipps, sharply, "tell the jury what passed between us at our last conversation." "I will not do so." "How is this, sir?" cried Phipps, in a shrill key. "Why do ^t you refuse, sir? Would your answer subject you to a criminal [ prosecution?" "It would," answered the Doctor, his spirit giving way beneath his load of shame. The excitement of the spectators now passed all bounds. t ' : "Oh! then," chuckled Phipps, "it would be very wrong for ' the like of me to press the question. It would be very wrong for the like of me to bring disgrace and shame on a holy priest and 1 noble Senator. You would not relish going to the penitentiary along with your dear Philip, would you, Doctor? You aspire to serve the dear people in a different capacity. But I tell you, ye fools who will no doubt let him go back home in a sound skin to X turn traitor and spy against you, that, if he had his dues he would go to your State Capital chained leg and leg with me." "It is false!" cried the Doctor, turning deathly pale. "Doctor," sneered Phipps, " you are not very afeotionate to i Four dear Philip. But answer me this question before I let you :o.- Are'you the husband, the lawful, wedded husband, of the fIrs. Greed who has been summoned as a witness in this case?" NEMESIS USES u THE RULE OF RIGHT FOR ONCE. 481 "Yes, she is the wife of my bosom," returned the Doctor. "And a sweet, sweet flower is she, " cried Phipps, ' loyal, loving, wifely, you gray-bearded old fool of an adulterer, and a sweet co- alition has been your marriage. But stand aside, sir, stand aside; I am done with you." Having now worked the court and the spectators up to that pitch of excitement where every word would be waited for impatiently, and where Snort's stupidity would excite the utmost contempt and annoyance, Phipps had that gentleman called to the stand. He then badgered him ummercifully for a while, causing him to show very plainly that he had lived all his life with Phipps and Mrs. Greed directly under his nose without knowing anything about them. He then asked him about the contract between him and the Doctor in regard to the sale of Urania, and Snort at once blurted out the whole - story before anybody could prevent him. 'That will do," said Phipps, coolly. '"You can retire, Mr. Snort; you can retire, sir." "Mrs. Greed!" called Phipps eagerly; "let us have her, now. My fingers itch to get hold of that witness." Mrs. Greed arose from her seat in such agitation that she could scarcely support her frame; her husband offered to assist her, but in the siclmess of her iron soul she disdained his help, and went forward to the stand alone. A chair was placed for her to sit down in, but she declined it and remained standing, thewhiteness of her face, the rigidity of her strong features, and the dilatation of her eyes making it painful to look at-her. The clerk requested her to hold up her hand and be sworn. "It is unnecessary,"-she said, I will tell it all witout being swmor." The milder for of affirmation was then administered, and she turned her face to Phipps and said, "GCome to the decisive point at once; I shall deny nothing; it is useless to stand on trifles." - 'I shall get along fast enough for you, I fancy; I shall not abridge my pleasures. Witness," he demanded," do you know me?" "I do." "ovow long have you known me?" "Thirty-two years." "It; appears then," he cried, with a coarse, 'msnlting laugh, "that you formed my acquaintance at an early period of my eventful history. Pray, have you known me from infancy?" "I have." 21. . page: 482-483[View Page 482-483] 482 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "Perchance, were even present at my birth?" I '"I was." ; "Were you a spectator or an actor on that interesting occasion?" "Spare your low ribaldry, demon; this is a court of justice, of retribution, and it is out of place here." "Witness, what is my name?" "Your real name is ----." The eager crowd pressed forward to hear the name; even the Judge inclined his head. The witness's dead drooped, her great staring eyes sought the floor, and a sigh broke from her lips; and with a terrible struggle she pronounced the name, but it was inaudible to others. "Speak louder," re- quested the foreman ; " we did not hear the name." Mrs. Greed lifted up her great, fixed eyes and white face, and proceeded firmly: "His real name is---; but at that moment she caught sight of Manlius Claiborne's face and stopped. There was in her look the conffirmation of a long-entertained suspicion, which fair- ly froze the proud blood in Claiborne's heart. "Idiot," he cried to the prosecuting attorney, '" do you sit ? there and let him ask such questions of this lady, my Iinswoan : and guest?" The prosecuting attorney, awaking from his trance, sprang to his feet and gasped: "I object to the question; it is irrelevant." I : Then a fairly demoniac grin of triumph gleamed from Phipps's face, and a chuckle broke from his thin lips. Claiborne's inter- ference had placed them all precisely where he wanted them, and with a single movement of his little finger he could crush them all beneath an avalanche of shame. R ising, he cast on the op- posing attorney a look which sent that gentleman's heart into his boots, and then addressed the Court : "We admire the spaniel when he barks to keep danger at a distance from his master. 1 Sometimes,. as in this case, the brute's sagacity is wonderful; but sometimes, as also in this case, -the faithful creature spends his breath in vain. The question I asked is proper, because I wish to show that the name under which I am indicted is a misnomer." I The prosecuting attorney replied, that the question was unneces- Sary, as under the Code of the State a misnomer did not vitiate I the indictment; and then he read fromn a dusty old book some thing which had no bearing on the case. Phipps at once replied: 'I will teach the young practitioner a lesson which will cause him to remember me with gratitude the rest of his days. The old X NEMESIS USES ' THE RULE OF RIGHT' FOR ONCE. 483 books like that from which, in the muddy fervor of his devotion to the behests of his master, he has just read, are commendable studies for enthusiastic and imaginative youth. They expand the mind, fill it with stores of shining erudition, impart roundness, finish, polish to attainment. But let my young friend know that there are some modern books, also, which deserve his attention. The Code of the State, to which he has already remotely alluded, is an instance; I give him the information free of charge-but it is a fact that the Code of the State is an example perfectly in point. It provides that a misnomer shall not vitiate an indictment; but, as a corollary to this and a necessary safeguard, it gives the ac- cused the. right to prove his real name and have it inserted in the indictment. Let not our young friend, in his mistaken zeal for his master, suppose that, because I am a stranger in your State, I was fool enough to enter upon this business without first looking into your laws." "The question must be answered," decided the Court. "Of course it must," added Phipps. "So, go on, witness. And mind you, witness, no more airs--no more airs, if you please, witness; else, I shall have to call Jane Phipps to relieve you of the story." "You lie; you always were a liar; Jane Phipps is not here." "Jane Phipps's self shall prove it," said Phipps At the words, she who was formerly Bliss Jane stepped forward out of the crowd, a trifle older than formerly, but little changed in appearance. "Back! back!" cdried Mrs. Greed, with a wave of the hand. "Your tongue, at least, shall not gloat over my shame." "Retire, Jane," said Phipps, coolly; "I see we shall -not need you. Witness, I ask you, and the Court has ordered you, to tell my real name." . Then she again turned her terrible face full on him, and he quailed beneath her look of mingled ice and fire. She raised her hand as was her habit, and pointed at him with the extended forefinger of her right hand and said : "You ask me to tell again, so that all the world shall hear, the words which just now died in my throat? Your real name is Philip Claiborne; you are my bastard son. Your father was a villain before you, and you are his own son. I hated you from your birth; I hate you now. You have well com- pleted what your false father began; he took advantage of a fool's page: 484-485[View Page 484-485] 484 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. i: heart to ruin her; you, at once fool and devil, sprung from him I and me, have used your father's crime as a means to rob me of all % -tlat he left me. For the disgrace of my husband and relations I care nothing; your malice avenges me for the years of neglect and secret scorn I have endured from them. But, fiend that you are, heaven has used you to punish me as well as them. I brought you into the world in sin and shame, and this is my recompense. Have I answered you?" And then her scornful index finger lropped. These scathing words seemed to flay Phipps's very soul; amaze- ment for a moment rendered his thin, impish visage absolutely hideous. But his revenge was too sweet, his triumph too great, for him to think long of anything but them. Instantly recover- filg his self-control, he said bitterly: "Bravely and truly spoken, witness. One thing more. If it were my purpose to wear the patrician name of. Claiborne, I should not ask you the question I shall put next.- But I have no ambition to wear a name which will be henceforth forever a stink in the land. Therefore, tell me, witness, of my noble lineage. This Manlius Claiborne here, this gifted anl aspiring statesman, who just now put on heroics to- wards me, but who will never make that mistake again, is he my : first cousin? That drunken old dotard there, is he my uncle, my dear father's brother? In calling me by the aristocratic name of Claiborne, do you forget that as filius nmillius I am entitled to only my mother's name? How is all this, witness? ,Enlighten, not X: the Court indeed, not the jury indeed, but that band of gossips -out there who stand eager to gather all the details of your shame, and of the eternal damnation of the house of Claiborne, that they may spread them to the four -winds of heaven." At any previous stage of the proceedings, this'question would have been objected to, and promptly overruled; but it was too late now; Phipps had got everything his own way; besides, it was far better now to let even the very worst come, rather than leave anything to conjecture and the tongue of slander. "My own name was Claiborne, and your villain of a father was my first cousin, the brother of Manlius Claiborne's father. " Then she swept down from the. stand, and out of the house. Phipps sank back upon his seat and fetched a gasp of relief. "So, she's ; gone," he said; ' well, that's all right. I had another. question ^ to ask her, but never mind. " t . .. NEMESIS USES "THE RJULE OF RIGHT"FOR ONCE. 485 The evidence being now all in, the prosecuting attorney arose and addressed the jury in a few incoherent sentences. He was completely dazed by the unparalleled scene which had just been enacted, and by the apprehension of political and professional ruin in consequence of the inefficiency he had displayed. He lnew he had mortally offended Manlius Claiborne forever, and that sealed his own doom as an aspirant. After painfully floundering about for a few minutes, he sat down, saying that the evidence against Phipps was ovcrwhelming, and that not one particle of it had even been questioned. Then Phipps rose to make his speech. There was no confusion or hesitation about him ; he was eager to talk, and knew precisely what he wanted to say. A gleam of triumphant malignity played in his baleful little gray eyes. He said: "The attorney has told you that the evidence against me is conclusive, and that I have not rebutted it. I do not deny the fact. I admit that you must find me guilty. I would not have you return a different verdict. The hour that sees Philip Claiborne a convicted felon will be to me an hour of triumph, a consummation devoutly to be wished. The name of Claiborne is on the scroll of Senators; I will put it on the roll of convicts. I will balance honor with shame. For every plaudit I will bring a gibe. I will hnmble the pride that has imputed illegitimacy to me as a crime. Whose fault is it that I am to-day not as honorable and respectable as the best of them? Was it my crime that a daughter of the proud house of Claiborne, seduced by her own cousin-faugh!--became a mother before she was a wife? Undone by her own evil passions, and the- machina- tions of her kinsman, she transferred to me, the innocent fruit of her guilt, the hatred which she should have reserved for herself. I committed no crime. I alone was the injured party; yet, till now, I alone have suffered. She was an unnatural mother before I was an unnatural son. Her only care was to conceal her own shame from the world. Me, as she has told you to-day, she hated for her own crime. She turned me adrift, that my presence might not be a badge of dishonor to her. She hired a dependant to sac- rifice name and honor, to acknowledge and rear me as her own child. She scrupled not to wrong a helpless and sinless babe, and to ruin a pure girl, in order to- preserve unstained the proud name of Claiborne. She and her haughty family left me to maike my way unaided. I was as good as they; I too was a CLabomne. In page: 486-487[View Page 486-487] 486 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. natural parts, I was the equal of the proudest scion of the stock. i I had ambition, too, but what did they care? They cast me off and promised themselves daily the news of my death, because one of themselves had outraged decency and virtue. But I would not die to gratify them. They stunted and dwarfed me by deliberate system. Having ejected me from a share in the family name and influence, they conspired against my intellect and my soul. They made me the companion of the vile, that I too might become vile. They intended that I should drudge out my days as a scullion; but I had that in me which could not be satisfied with such a lot. I struggled up out of the dwarfhood to which they were consign. ing me. I made my own way, through every villainous pursuit, at last to the bar and to a practice. Then a change took place in . their policy. They said, ' The bastard may be made useful; he is shrewd, he is depraved ; we will use him.' But, gentlemen, they used me once too often, and thence come the proceedings -of this day. They have sown the wind; to-day they reap the whirlwind. Had they done their duty by me, they had never seen this bitter hour. They have made me what I am. They have bred wolf's teeth in my mouth, and to-day I turn and rend them. They have mixed the poisoned chalice for me; commend it firmly -to their own lips, gentlemen; make them drain its very lees; I shall smile to see them swallow the draught which they themselves have pre- pared. I, for one, shall hail your verdict with joy. You need not leave the box; you can have but one opinion. You must find me guilty; I confess the crime. Lay your heads together and pro- nounce my doom; I am impatient for the sentence. The sword of justice will be likewise the brand of revenge; the stroke will be more fatal to my foes than to me.' To-day, even at this moment, a stigma is settling on the escutcheon of the house of Claiborne, which torrents of even their own proud blood cannot efface." Then he sank back into his seat, pale and limber, heedless for a moment of the court, and the crowd, and all the world. The law of the State not only made the jury the arbiters of !' guilt or innocence, but laid on them the further duty of fixing the { penalty, within certain limits. The-Judge very briefly instructed them: "The only point on which I need say a word, is as to the rules which should guide you in fixing the term for which the ; prisoner shall be confined in the penitentiary. In deciding that i important question, you will consider the depravity the prisoner j 1e HOW THE ANCIENT DEMOCRACIES WERE GOVERNED. 487 has evinced, his wanton malice, his reckless effrontery, and the fiendish spirit of revenge which has induced him to involve a no- ble and honored name in the infamy which his evil passions have brought upon himself." Without leaving their seats, the jury fixed Phipps's term of imprisonment at the extreme limit allowed by the statute. Phipps received the verdict with manifest joy. ,My boy," said Mr. Claiborne to Auswurf, "let us get out of here quick. It seems to me that there is a whole legion of devils in this room, spouting fire and brimstone, and kicking at each other with their cloven hoofs. This is a bad day's work; my brother Ned was always a wild boy, but to disgrace his own blood -his own blood-the puppy! I am ashamed of my own name." As the sheriff was leading Phipps back to his cell,. the latter paused at Auswurf's elbow and said: "Auswurf, I want you to come to my cell to-night. I have done you more harm in my time than you are aware of; I propose now to do you good." The Court then obligingly adjourned over to the next morning, for the convenience of the great convention, which was to hold its session in the court-room that afternoon. CHAPTER X. HOW THE ANCIENT DEMOCRACIES WERE GOVEINED. AiTER dinner the convention met in the hall which the Court had graciously vacated for its use. The meeting had been anti- cipated witlh intense interest throughout the State, and the action it should take was regarded as likely to prove decisive of the course of the State in the near future. It was hield at Clai- borne's home by design, as the leaders of the extreme Southern wing were determined to make him commit himself in favor of their policy. Besides, the sitting of the Court there just at that time, afforded a favorable opportunity for gathering a large crowd. Several Generals, many Judges, dozens of Colonels, a battalion of Majors, a formidable array of Doctors, and a perfect shoal of smaller fry were present. As the delegates gathered in the hall, the singular trial of the morning was the theme of every tongue, Claiborne's enemies taking advantage of its disclosures to ,'i page: 488-489[View Page 488-489] cast obloquy on himn and his family. It was universally admitted that if the seducer had sought a victim outside of his own family, his crime would have been only a spirited adventure; but "lhis own blood," pshaw ! that was declared to be disgracef'l, not only to himself, but to every one that wore his name. The convention was organized by electing the most distin. guished "General" of the adjacent counties as President. A fi. ious contest vwas then made as to the manner in -which the Committee on Resolufions should be appointed. It wvas evident that there was a deep current of feeling against the revolution. ary programnme-Auswlnrf wvas astonished to see how strong it was-but it was afraid to show itself openly, and to take the only position it could possibly hold. It Was plain that whlichever party got the Committee on Resolutions, would, through the influ- ence of party drill, control thie convention. The extremists, thoroughly alert, Ilad put up their man for President, and elected him unanimously, by taking the initiative and forestalling oppo- sition. The opposite party at once saw that, if the Committee on Resolutions should be appointed in the regular way, by the Chair, they were lost. So they eontended that, as the occasion was an tinusual one, precedent ought to be disregarded, and a member of the committee be elected by thle delegates from each county, Who knew the wishes of their people, etc., etc. Blut their half-hearted and disingenuous opposition was quickly and effectually defeated, and the appointing of the committee left with the Chair. The composition of the committee was a "thor- ough piece of wvork. It wonl't do, you know, to have squabbling in the committee-room, or a minority report. After the eommittee retired, speeches were called for, to occupy the time. It had been given out, for weeks before Claiborne's return, that the great feature of the convention would be a speecn of counsel and information from his admired lips. This announce- ment had been made without his knowledge or consent, and lhe nlow actually reJoiced at the events of the morning -which had given him so good an excuse for declining to speak. He didhnoe enter the hall until after the fight over the Committee on Platform had takenl place. He then came in, looking very pale and troubled, and inquired of some one near the door how matters stood. On being informed, he answered, "Ve.1y well," with a heartiness which led every one to suppose he approved what had been done. HOW THE ANCIENT DEMOCRACIES WERE GOVE;iRNED. IOU The moment his presence was observed, the old admiration for him, temporarily damped, burst forth, and, amid storms of ap- plause, he was called upon for a speech. He made his way to the chairmfan's stand, and in a few words said the events of the morn- ing would be accepted as an excuse for his not making them a speech; he had been informed of the proceedings of the conven- tion before his entrance; he presumed no one doubted what the recommendations of the committee would be, and the influence of that day's action on the future; he was, perhaps, greatly changed and sobered in opinion from what he once was, but he wanted them, and all the people of his State, to know that he loved them that day more sincerely than ever before, and that he wished- nothing sognuch as that he might at that moment die for them. Then came down from the stand more 'firmly planted in their help than ever before, and at once withdrew from the hall. At the moment the Committee' on Resolutions returned into the hall. Their incubation had been amazingly brief, considers ng the magnitude of the questions involved; but their resolu- tions had all been cut and cdied in advance, and sent down from head-quarters, and they really had nothing at all to do-not even the clerical work of writing down their resolves. The political pontiffs of the State had been at work for weeks, plotting, plan- ling, searching, writing, interlining, paring, in order to fix up a string of resolutions that would conciliate all the old parties, and make all of their members believe that consistency and party allegiance required them now to follow the strange gods of secession; and the paper which the committee carried with them to their room was the concentrated wisdom of all the sages of the new party. This paper the committee presently carried back solemnly into the hall, headed by Colonel Fum, a suffi- ciently pompous individual, their chairman and mouthpiece. Colonel Fum approached the President's stand, and, as soon as the stir which the entry of the committee had created subsided, proceeded to read the paper. The first resolution was a eulogy on "the Democratic party," which had long been largely in the ascendant in the State, and particularly in that portion of it, ac- companied with copious quotations from its State and National 'Platforms." This resolution was received with-vociferous cheers by the "Democratic" portion of the assembly, and by a very page: 490-491[View Page 490-491] "O THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. ; decided chorus of hisses from the un-Demrocratic portion. Col. onel Fum, nothing' abashed by the sibillation, read on serenely. !l The next resolution was a somewhat milder eulogy on the old Whig party, with quotations from its "platforms." The hissers now i yelled, and the Democrats held down their heads, as if that w :as not precisely what they bargained for. The next resolution was : a very faint eulogy on the "Great American Party," with quota- tions from its platforms." The Whigs and Democrats frowned, - while two or three bid Know Nothings kicked the heels of their : boots, and shouted their old war-cry of Sam and the Goose. Having thus gathered all the fowls of the air into their net, tho committee proceeded to wring theiirpecks in -superb style. They discharged a quick succession of thunder-claps which riddled and annihilated every principle for which the old parties had con- tended, yet claimed all the time to be launched in their name. These were followed by broadsides of denunciation against the Federal government, and each peal, as it crashed forth, was fol- lowed by shouts and yells of delight and applause. Finally, Colonel Fum, quite overcome now by his emotions, spluttered forth a re- solve which committed the State to the uncertain chances of rev- olution, alone and unaided. At first, for a single instant, the fate of this resolution was doubtful; there was a moment of hes- itation, as if more had been said than the assembly was quite pro- pared for. It was really an awful moment, one which Auswurf never forgot to his last breath. The faint-hearted loyalists, encour- aged- by this hesitation, vented a few feeble hisses and cries of dissatisfaction. This weak action decided at once the success of the resolution. Its friends rushed to the rescue with a yell of approval, which not only drowned out all signs of opposition, but swept away the whole convention in- a perfect torrent of frenzy. The adoption of the platform was at once moved and seconded, when an old-line Whig, piqued at the palpable preference given to the rival party in the resolutions, arose and demanded a division of the question, so that each resolution might be voted on separately; and he proceeded to give his reasons in terms which t at once kindled to fever heat the political animosities of the past. Instantly, the convention was all ablaze; furious invectives and recrimination were sliing round like thunderbolts; it seemed that " HOW THE ANCIENT DEMOCRACIES WERE GOVERNED. 491 the convention would go to pieces in a row before the resolutions could be adopted, and that thus the petty partisan squabbles and jealousies of the past were about to accomplish what larger motives could not do. The moment was critical; the older and cooler heads were about to send for Claiborne to come and restore order, when relief came from an unexpected quarter. Those who had been opposed to the revolutionary programme, were now in mortal terror lest the resolutions should be voted on separately; for, if they were, then they would be compelled to vote distinctly against the last of the series, in which event they 'would be marked men for life, or else they would have to vote in favor of it, which they did not like to do. They, therefore, wanted the whole thing over at one gulp and with a big noise, so that everybody could shout out something, no matter what, and nobody know what his neighbor had said; whether he had voted aye or merely damned the whole concern in a loud voice. Therefore Colonel Twiddle, their recognized leader, arose and made a very mild speech, in which, like certain eminent states- men after him, he confined himself to deprecating everything that was calculated to make a disturbance or hurt anybody's feelings. He suggested that it had been the unvarying usage of all the I great political parties of the past" to adopt the platform as it came from the committee, as a whole, and without debate. This course had been necessary to preserve the harmony of the parties and keep down bickering and bad feeling. He said that all there present were bound by the usages of their respective parties, and he, therefore, called upon the Chair to decide the demand for a division of the question outof order, and to put the main question at once. This hint, coming from such a source, carried enough weight to settle the matter at once. The chairman decided that the whole platform maust go down at one swallow. The announcement was, received with great applause, everybody, whether muddlers or muddled, now being in favor of this method of- getting out of a muddle which was beginning to be a bore to all. The main question was then put, and carried with a tremen- dous shout. Some who voted Aye voted for one thng, and some for another; some for the eulogy on the "Democratic" party, some for the eulogy on the Whig party, and two or three for the faint-praise damnation of the c"Great American Party." There was something or other stuck somewhere in the platform that A\. , page: 492-493[View Page 492-493] each person wanted to vote for; so they all voted Aye. The Chair then called for the negative vote, but there was not even a whisper to be heard. Then an excited gentleman leaped upon a bench and proposed three cheers for the last resolution; three yells went up to heaven to tell them up there what these states- men had just been doing. Then, in the midst of the greatest excite- ment, vociferous calls were made on Colonel Twiddle for a speech. Thereupon, that gentleman arose and told the conven- tion, in strains of astonishing rhetoric, that he was ready to march shoulder to shoulder with them, and spill his last drop of blood in defence of the platform which they had just adopted. He, informed them, at great length, and with lavish expenditure of wind, that their fathers had fought, bled, died, and done various other things; and at last he utterly evaporated in a fog of ver- bosity which was the perfection of eloquence, and sat down the greatest man in the convention by a long odds-and the best pleased, too, with the events of that day. Three cheers were given for Colonel Twiddle and his eloquent address. They had the effect of bringing that gentleman to his feet again. He had not expected, he said, when he made his few simple remarks, to be honored by such an expression as this. He might have been eloquent; the great Tully had been accustomed to panegyrize, himself; but he, Colonel T. thought that whatever a man's own consciousness miglht be, he had better leave the expression of admiration to his fellow citizens; only he thanked heaven that he lived where eloquence was appreciated. That, reader, was the whole contest that took place over those terrible resolutions. An infinite amount of speechifying was then done; the opposition all fell gracefully into line, and declared their intention to stand by the platform thenceforward; and all pandemonium fell to laughing' at the monstrous and ridic- ulous predictions that were made. Wisdom had no tongue there to speak for her ; and a noble but sadly cheated and politician- ridden people were spurred on to utter ruin, without a warning or a suspicion of the fate that awaited them. C1APTE 'XI. WTAT BECAME orF ASWURtF'S MANUSCRIPT. AI= the convention adjourned, Ausur told Mr. Claiborne that importtne business -woul detain him in the little city that that i tan bsiness night; so Mr. C. telnctltftly &eyove home vithlout him; after a vem vigorous attempt to take him along. Auswurf ook ta at the one hotel-a most miserable a ffalir--wnrich the little city afforded, and then,.in compliance with Phipps's previous request, proceeed to that gentleman's cell. By this time, it was quite dark; the sky had become overcast ith cldonds at sunset, and a cold rain was falling. The jailer, already become more lile Phippss p rlisoner than Phipps was like his, at once admitted Auswurf, in accordance with Phips's pevious instructions. Phipps was walingthe -floor, impatient for Auswurf's coming; and a nasty tallow candle was sputtering on a coarse pine table. "I told you, Ausurf," PhiCpls began at once, " that I wanted to do you a favor. BRt I befriend you only because in doing so I can lay the capstone on the fablic of my revenge. I am sorry that circumstances compel me to bfienl you; I am sorry tamt, to Wlring the last drop of sweetness o0u of ma y triumph, I am co- pelled to promote your interests, instead of crushing you along wivh the rest of them ; but revenge is sweet, and I will have all of it that I can get. " ", Let us have no explanations, incorrigible yet pitiable villain, returned Auswurf. "If you want me to listen to you, go on and tell me what you have to say, and I rill make up my mind what to do about it, when I hear it." "I have no statements to maike," replied Pipps, acting the shrewd lawyer to the last; "blut I have a little story--a mere matter of fancy, you lnow-here in manuscript, which you may read over and tell me what you think of it." He then tool from his pocket a package of manuscript, which Ausvurf opened and read as follows "STORY OF THE LOnD OF A STATELY MAVsON, A I)SIeXsED ATTORNEY ALiAS THID PARTY, A BAmOOZLEE, A JUWENIIN MEN- DoCANT, A Feme-Sole AND OTHER PARTIES. "ONE bright September morning, in the year of grace one thousand eight hundclred and sixty, while you, ,Selric AUswurf, page: 494-495[View Page 494-495] were cooped up in a garret with dead men's bones and dead men's books, straining every nerve over what never profited you, an elderly gentleman, a German, whom swe will call Herr Aufklaurer, walked into a jeweller's shop in the goodly city of Y-- . His object was to have some slight repairs done to his watch, which had been injured by a fall. He produced the watch, and laid it in the jeweller's hand; and the latter, struck by its beauty, and great value, examined it with curious eyes. Presently a device on one of the cases caught his eye, and he said : ' Ah, singular, isn't it ?- but I remember to have seen this same device once before on a brooch, the most valuable one I ever saw.' " 'A brooch, did you say ?' inquired the German gentleman, in great excitement. ' That device upon a diamond brooch ? When, where, how ? For God's sake, my dear sir, tell me all about it ?' " The jeweller explained that the brooch in question belonged to a lawyer of great eminence in his profession, Philpot C. Phipps by name, a gentleman of sterling integrity and great worth, who had left it there a short time back for repairs. The gentleman obtained the address of the distinguished attorney, flew to his office, told a startling tale which need not here be narrated, and overwhelmed the eminent lawyer with questions about the brooch and about two beggars to whom it had once belonged. He obtained no satisfactory answer from the distinguished lawyer, however; he offered a fabulous sum for the jewel, but the lawyer was too shrewd to part with it for any price; so the gentleman went away and left the lawyer to his reflections, which were, as usual, rather shrewd. But after having followed the trail of said beggars all over the world, and having found that they certainly had been there in the goodly city of Y--, Herr Aufklaurer was not disposed to leave in a hurry, and he spent day after day and night after night with many employees to help him, wandering about the city and the surrounding country inquiring after the objects of his search. At last, one-day, as luck would have it, he came across a monument in a graveyard which told him that the maternal mendicant was extinct. The name upon the tombstone was not the real name of the extinct maternal beggar, but one which the German gentle- man had already discovered that she had assumed. Flying to the nearest house, which we will suppose to be known by the name of Druid Hill, he blurted out his story, like a fool, to thelord of that stately mansion, and overwhelmed him with interrogatories. Of WHAT BECAME OF? AUSWURF'S MANUSCR8IPTr. %, course, the lord of the stately mansion could tell him nothing whatever, under all the circumstances. The German gentleman, however, invited himnself to remain at the mansion that night, in order that he might prosecute his inquiries in the neighborhood; and though the lord of the stately mansion would rather have had the devil in his house, he could not lick him out, for fear that he wouldgo and find outsomething. Sohetoothe old gentle- man in hand and set about bamboozling him, which was not hard to do. He professed the utmost solicitude for the success of the old gentleman's search, and while malding a great show of aiding him, shrewdly misled him all the time. The lord of the stately mansion had certain guests under his roof at that moment, who could talk of nothing else on earth save the juvenile mendicant whom the old bamboozlee would have given the world to find. One of said guests was a young chivalry who kept that juvenile beggar's name on his own tongue and everybody else's from morning till pnigh. Besides, under that same roof dwelt another person, afeme-sole. who would have been glad to go to perdition at any moment for the sake of said juvenile mendicant. So you may judge that the lord of the stately mansion had a lively time of it that evening in the parlor, to prevent any conversation between his bamboozlee and the young chivalry or the feme-sole. Thefetre-sole, especially, being in a ble wasTy herself, loved to pity other people. and seeing that the bamboozlee had a sorrow in fee-simple, was very troublesome. She wsould talk to the bam- boozlee, and forty times the bamboozlee's story was on his very lips, whenr the lord of the stately mansion managed, by some shrewd stroke, to break up the conversation. Managing matters thus, the lord of the stately mansion finally got the bamboozlee off to bed without a dvnouement. Then sending off hot-foot for the distinguished lawyer before mentioned, the two sat in coun- cil together for several hours. The result was that, by daylight the next morning, a stranger called at the stately mansion with a fine story for the bamboozlee, which sent him a thousand miles away. .But what was the rapture of the lord of the stately man- sion, and the consternation of the distinguished attorney, who had plans of his own in that regard, when, a day or two after- wards, the juvenile mendicant also fled away, like a fool, as he "One bright moxuing in October, four or five weeks after the page: 496-497[View Page 496-497] "6 THE STORY OP AN OUTCAST. above events, the lord of the stately mansion and the distinguished attorney sat in the libraryof the stately mansion in earnest confer. ence. The eminent lawyer had been shrewd enough all the time to keep to himself both the extent of his knowledge and his own plans. The lord of the statelymansion supposed that the eminent lawyer knew nothing of the case but what he had told him, and that he was working hand in glove with him, whereas the distin. gqished attorney only intended to worm as much money out of the lord of the stately mansion as he could, and then carry out his own designs, which he judged would prove profitable. "'So the distinguished lawyer asked that morning, innocently: Why don't you come to an understanding with the bamboozlee to find the juvenile mendicant for him on profitable terms?' a"For two or three good reasons,' replied the lord of the stately mansion. In the first place, the young devil, the moment he was found, would certainly prevent his old fool of an uncle from pay- ing me a cent. In the second place, if he were to come back here now, richer than Crossus, and with all this wagon-load of Dutch titles, he would certainly break up at once a profitable little scheme of mine, by which I shahl make three hundred thousand dollars. But hark you, eminent lawyer, the young devil has gone off to finish up a crazy book of some kind. If he should publish it, old Bamboozlee might hear of it, and then everything is ruined. You must follow him, distinguished attorney, you must followhim, and prevent his publishing that thing. If we can break him up, and gnnd him down a little while longer, he will die as his fool mother did, and then we shall be rid of him. Follow him, and burn up that concern the moment he gets it done; let him work himself to death over it, and then' burn it up for him, and I will i pay you twenty-five hundred dollars in gold.' "The distinguished attorney had reasons of his own for wanting to keep the juvenile mendicant in sight; so he closed vith the proposition, took five hundred dollars in advance, and agreed to set out at once. The question then arose as to, what route should I be taken, and this question was being discussed with a keenness that would have done honor to any detective service on earth, when there came a loud knock at the door of the stately mansion A A servant, whom we swill suppose to be named Tobe, went to the door, and admitted a very portly, self-important personage. 'Boy,' Ei said the personage, giving the servant a levy, 'here is money for - AX?! I WHAT BECAME OF AUSWURF'S MANUSCRIPT. 497 you. YorL master is an old friend of mine. and I want to slip in on him, and surprise him. Where is he?' So the servant, with a sneer at the levy, conducted the personage to the library, and in the personage stalked majestically, with his beaver on one hand like a muff, while with the fingers of the other he drummed on its crown a march to which his own stately locomotion kept time. The lord of the stately mansion sprang up in a fury at the un- timely interruption, and demanded: ' Who are you, sir, that come marching in here in this manner, unannounced?' "'I Mee? Who am I?' asked the personage in great surprise. 'The idea of your pretending not to know me! I am Snort, Hip- pocrates Snort, melicince. doctor, your quondam chum, and whilom Auditor of State at Fatfeeap9lis.' "' Oh! it's Snort, is it?' returned the lord of the stately man- sion. ' How ae you, Snort? Take a chair, Snort. Resume your seat, Third Party'--as the distinguished attorney arose to leave--- ' and when Snort is yone, we will go on with our business.' The Third Party--for the distinguished attormey; named Phipps, dis- appears henceforth from this story-was glad to hear this"com- mand; for he was sharp enough to know that it signified, that he would soon have a hook in the nose of the lord of the statelyman- sion, and be able to lead. him at will. "The personage was delighted to see his old friend, and had a thousand pleasant reminiscences of college days to discuss. But the lord of the stately mansion did not have-so retentive a mem- ory, nor such acute sensibilities as the personage. One half of the reminiscences he could not recall; the other half he petulantly denominated bores. Still the personage would not take the hint, but talked on with immense satisfaction to himself. He told his friend how fondly he had remembered him through many years, how he had heard of him occasionally, how he had long intended to visit him, and much else in which the personage was the prin- cipal object of interest, and his friend played second fiddle. The lord of the stately mansion was naturally a compound of cynic and stoic, and it was difficult to tell which element would prove the stronger on this occasion. At one instant, he seemed determined to kick the personage out of the house ; the next, he endured the infliction with the calm fortitude of an Indian. "' Bytlhe way,' continued the personage patronizingly, 'the last account I had of you was from one of the most singular boys in page: 498-499[View Page 498-499] 4;98 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. the world. Workhorse-no, Horsework ; did you ever know a boy I by the name of Horsework?' 'No.' , "'Well, 'tis strange. The boy certainly knew you well; but when I asked him about my nephew Sylvester and a certain other member of your family, he stammered, and looked confused, and could scarcely say a word.' 'An idea struck the lord of the stately mansion. 'When and where did you meet this boy?' he asked, suddenly taking great interest in the subject. "' I saw him four weeks ago, as I was on my way to Fort Z .' The lord of the stately mansion winked at the person whom he had called Third Party. "' What was there about him that was remarkable?' asked the lord of the stately mansion. "'A devilish lot of things,' returned the personage; 'every- thing about him was remarkable. You never saw such a face, and besides, he had a sick, broken-down look that wouldn't let you take your eyes off him. For ever so many days and nights he sat still in the corner of the coach and never opened his mouthl; but one day, in order to impress him, you know, I got to talking at him about freedom, progress, civilization and all those high- flown things--.' "' What! you, my blessed old numbskull?' ejaculated the lord of the mansion, jovially. "'Well, you see, Greed,' laughed the personage, ' the boy never was a classmate of mine as you have been, and though you know very well that I know nothing about these fine things, I thought the boy would think me a very great and learned man indeed. But, blast him, he only started up all at once with a great light streaming out of his eyes, and in half a dozen stinging, contemptuous sentences told me more about all those high-flown things that I had been blundering over, than I ever knew in all my life before. Then he became for the rest of the journey as si- lent as ever. Besides, he had on his breast the strangest mark I ever saw-the figure of a coffin, sir, and horribly natural, just over his heart." "'How did it happen that you saw the mark?' asked the lord of the stately mansion. "'When we got to Fort Z--, he was nearly dead, and I made a diagnosis of his case.' WAHT BECAME OF AUSWUR' S MANUSCRIPT. 499 "' Ah!--and what was your opinion of it?' "'That he is a dead man, sir ; thinks too much, sir, thinks too much ; he nmay hold out several months longer, but he is doomed, sir, doomed.' The lord of the stately mansion winked again at the Third Party. "(But,' said he blandly to the personage, 'in a case like that you describe does not the will exercise very considerable influ- ence in prolonging life? And if the boy you mention had a will like the very devil himself, and should be determined to hold up and fight it out to the last inch, would not that determination it- self have a tendency to keep breath in him?' ' 'Unque stionably, unquestibly,ly,' replied the personage. 'The case is peculiarly like the one you suppose. -But if the boy should give way in spirit, and sink into despair, he would die at ollnce. "' Snort, my old friend,' cried the lord of the stately mansion, with new-born cordiality, ' I am delighted to see you, and that's a fact. You intend, of course, to spend some days with me. But this boy that you speak of--what became of him? "' I left him at Fort Z--.' "' Did he intend to stay there?' "I don't know. But what has interested you in him so much, all at once? At first, you would scarcely listen at all.' "' My curiosity is the reflection of my friend's,' replied the lord of the stately, mansion. ' You left him at Fort Z -- , you say?' "' Yes.' "' Well, Third Party,' said the lord of the stately mansion, in the blandest of humors, 'you can go now, and I will call to see you this evening when I go to the city.' !"So the Third Party went back to the city, and that evening the lord of the stately mansion called to see him according to ap- pointment. The lord of the stately mansion, now that the diffi-. culty of fincling the whereabouts of the juvenile mendicant was so greatly diminished, began to repent most sincerely of the mag- nificent promises he had made to the Third Party, and opened a shrewd negotiation for a reduction of the amount of the consider- ation before agreed .upon. ' Why, Third Party,' said he, 'every difficulty is now smoothed away. That pompous old fool's society is a terrible dispensation of Providence, yet I piously submit to it page: 500-501[View Page 500-501] 500 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. under the circumstances. All you now have to do is to go to Port ,i Z--, watch your chance, pick up the mess of staff just as the young' Satan gets it done-watch that point parficularly-,lburn it up at once, and come back home. A thousand dollars is enough for that, and more than enough--too much, fr too moo uch, if it were not for the duty of destroying the fellow's blasphemies before he can get them into print. But be sure you burn them at once, and I will pay you a thousand dollars for the job at all events.' "' The risk is too great to be run for the pittance you mention,' replied the Third Party. II will not do the job for less than the - suni first agreed on, and if you are the conscientious and holy divine I take you to be, you would gladly give half your fortune to rid the world of this juvenile mendicant's pestilent heresies.' i "'True, ny conscience would prompt me to do so, but prlu- dence must be consulted. Who can afford, even as a matter of duty, to pay twenty-five hundred dollars for the idle scribblings of a young demon i' "' And who can afford, even as a matter of duty, to steal them for less?' asked the Third Party. "' Third Party, you must remember that you have just been dis- barred the practice; further, that you are disgraced; further, that you are a bankrupt. You ought to jump at the chance of making a thlousand dollars. It will be many a day before you will have another thousand poked under your nose.' "'I am disbarred, 'tis true, and I am sorry for it; I am dis- graced, too, as the world goes, but for that neither you nor I care a damn ; so let it pass. As to the most serious matter; bankrupt- cy, you blunder like a lawyer's cub. There is a conclusive pre- sumption against my being a pauper. Lawyers are presumed to have cut their eye-teeth. They are presumed to take care of num- ber one in any emergency. Why should a lawyer in the collecting business break? Can you imagine?' "'Well, you are sharp.' "' I reckon I am, and I thank you for admitting the fact. That kind of a compliment I can appreciate. Besides, by recurring to first principles in that way, you promise to come out at the' big t end of the horn on this occasion. Granted that I am sharp. 4 Start with that postulate, and your conclusion will sound marvel- 1! lously like the ring of twenty-five hundred golden dollars.' : WHAT BECAME OF AUSWUEF'S MANTSORIPT. 501 "'Don't stand in yonu own light, Third Party. I am afraid I shall have to get somebody else to do this job.' "'Don't I know as well as you, that, you w9uld no more get anybody else to do this job, than you would stick your head in the fire? Don't I know that you are going to give me my own price for the business? Don't I know, too, that I am not going to be fool enough to work for your figures when I can get my own?" "'Well, Third Party,' said the lord of the stately mansion, at length, ' if you will persist in being unreasonable, I suppose I must stand up to my agreement. So you can set out at once. And mind you, Third Party, let him come just as near killing himself over that damnable concern as he is a-mind to. Let him finish it before you relieve him of it, and, if necessasy, wait for him to finish it; you won't have to wait long, and the blow wfil fall the heavier. And mind further, Third Party, that you burn the accursed thing the moment you lay hands on it.' "The Third Party did not intend to do the half of this; so he religiously promised many times over that he would do it all; and then he set out in search of the scribbler,?ze juvenile men- dicant, and tyavelled a great distance. He had no difficulty at all in finding the scribbler and spying out his habits, and discover- ing precisely what progress he had made with the damnable heresies. So one day when the scribbler walked out of his room, the Third Party walked in. As the Third Party walked out again, he said to himself : 'By the shade of Lyttleton, with Coke on top of him, these damnable heresies which I have got but- toned up here under my vest, are worth twenty-five hundred gold- en dollars to me.' "But there is where the Third Party was mistakens; for when he got back to the goodly city of Y--, and reported to the lord of the stately mansion that he had burnt up the damnable heresies, that gentleman swore he did not believe a word of it, and demanded proof. Proof the Third Party could not very well give, because, for reasons which seemed sufficient to him, he had not burnt up the damnable heresies, but had carefully pre- served them. The Third Party, as a last resort, told the lord of the stately mansion that, if he would pay him the thousand dol- lars he had before mentioned, it would be accepted in quittance of the entire claim; but the lord of the stately mansion only laughed in his face, and offered him five dollars. Then the Third page: 502-503[View Page 502-503] 502 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. J Party, having borne the last insult and outrage to which he was I willing to submit, swore in his soul that he would have ven- . geance. He, therefore, tried to find the bamboozlee, but the ! lord of the mansion had taken his steps so shrewdly that the Third Party could not find that person. Then the Third [ Party made up his mind to tell the whole story to the young chivalry, and the femne-sole; but before he could find op. portunity to do so, the lord of the stately mansion had started off with them for a distant part of the country. Thus baffled, and enraged beyond endurance, the Third Party deepened his pur- pose of vengeance to include all his wrongs, and taking one Jane Phipps with him, started in pursuit. Al-riving at the scene of action, and reconnoitering the ground, he concluded that the chances of making a big haul in a certain 'way were so fair that s he would make said haul first, and take vengeance afterwards. Our story hastens to its close. For reasons not necessary to be stated, the Third Party did not quite make the haul aforesaid, but he has had vengeance to some extent. Like Samson he has pulled down the temple where the Philistines were fiddling. But he is not satisfied; he wishes to grind Greed into atoms. He might prosecute said Greed for murder,/ but cannot do so with- out convicting Jane Phipps of perjury, which he does not care to do, because to send her to the penitentiary would be inconve- nient to the young statesmen of the family of Phipps. But, you, Selric Auurf, can crush him forever, and by doing so can ob- tain for yourself boundless wealth and endless honors, your law- ful inheritance. Go and face him, and demand that he tell you the whereabouts of your uncle; publish him to the world as a scoundrel and a swindler; break up his schemes, marry his ward, and let him die of his own disgrace." Auswurf read the paper to its close without moving a muscle, or betraying the least emotion, then quietly laid it on the table, and looked Phipps silently in the face. "That," said Phipps, with coolest impudence, "is merely a little exercise of the fancy, with which I have beguiled my im- prisonment. You did not know, perhaps, that I possessed liter- ary tastes. Well, I am considerably changed now from what I was when you first saw me-more cultivated, more polished, more worthy of my patrician blood. Knowing you to be some- thing of a critic, I thought I should like to have your opinion of this little performance.,' WHAT BECAME OF AUSWURFS MANUSCRIPT. 03 Well," said Auswurf, " your little performance, as you call it, is full of character, which, you know, is saying a great deal. But I noticed that, towards the close, you mentioned the names of ac- tual persons, and made open allusions to them. - That I consier a great blot on your performance; for personalities are greatly out of taste in literature." "Well I'll be switched," cried Phipps, "if you don't receive the announcement of ymor being a millionnaire and a nobleman as coolly as if you heard better news every day What do you mean Aint you going to tear Greed to pieces for keeping your uncle "If I intended tdo anything of the kind," replie Auswurf, quietly, "I would begin on yon." "Well, let all that go, then," snapped Phipps, spitefully, "and all that I expected to get for putting you on your uncle's track. It will be some time before you findhim, though; that's one com- fort. But there is another point to be mentioned. The damnable heresies alluded to in the story, have, by a series of chances, come into my possession, and they are now for sale. Do the thing that is handsome, and I will tell you where to go and get them." "I decline to treat. The manuscript was mine, and you stole it. If I wanted it, and you were free, I would simply take it from you. But I don't wantthat manuscript, and I sincerely thank you for stealing it." "Ah, you are shrewd," replied Phipps, admiringly; "you are shrewd for a bookworm. You are playing Uvsa Major in the stock- market. But you can't come that dodge on 'me. My mind is Made up to take just what old Greed f'ist offered me for the thing, and I will not take a cent less." "If your mind is finally made up to that effect," said ,Auswurf, "all that you have to do is to keep it made up. Understand me. Sneering is a pitiful business, at best, and is cultivated as a grace only by the smaller sort of demons. Frend as I know you to be, and heartily as I rejoice to see you here at last, I have no unkind, still more, no insulting word to say to you. Distingiished attor- ney, good-night." He then went out of the cell into the street. page: 504-505[View Page 504-505] 504 THE STOY OF AN OUTCAST. CHAPTER XII. MOBBING AN ABOLITIONIST. THEo rain was streaming from the slky in torrents, and Auswurf thought that never but once before in all his life had he seen so dismal a night. The gutters were full of foul, dark, rushing water, and the brick pavement sank unlder the feet in the lightand spongy soil, at every step. A few paces from the jail stood the court-house, and as Auswnrf's way lay directly past it, hle was driven to go in there and wait on the portico till the rainl should slack. As he approached he saw a dim light flickeling out through some of the windows, and on reaching the portico he discovered that the hall, ^where the court had sat and the convention been held, was occupied by an as- semblage more grotesque and fantastic than imagination can dle pict. It was evidently a gathering of the brotherhood of raga- muffins, a society which then had, and possibly still has, existence in some parts of the country. Every quaint and whimsical variety of dress and mask that can be conceived was there. The meeting was evidently a secret one ; for but one miserable tallow candle was burning, and the tatterdemalions were all very quiet. They were waiting for the rain to cease before setting about the accom- plishment of their purpose: and meanwhile it was considered in- portant to their success that they should be quite still. As Auswurf stood there on the portico, wondering what this fan- tastic concourse could mean, two persons left the hall where the ragamuffins were assembled, and came out on the portico; and then above the plash of the rain, and the roar of the gorged gut- ters, he bhard words which made his heart stand still. .: "You have got to go through with it, Major Claiborne, " said a voice which Auswurf at once recognized as that of an eminent politician whom he had met at Greenwood on his first day there. "There is no possible escape from it now. Your remarlrable alp- peal in behalf of the little Abolitionist, and the startling expres- : sions you ubed in speaking of him, render it absolutely necessary - for you to join in mobbing the olher, in order to, escape suspicion of personal unsoundness. Snort's testimony against tihe young one was utterly damning, and so was my own, the moment I was X reminded that he was the same maniac who was at Druid Hill last ,. ' "'i !*!; MOBBING AN ABOLITIONIST. 505 ? summer; but the society yielded to your personal entreaties and agreed not to molest him. But you are little aware of the whis- pers that were started around the room by those who would gladly have used the events of this morning to your injury. The plain - truth is, that, unless you conclusively wash out the memory of this day, and especially of the last hour, in blood, your doom as a public man is sealed." "But why should I save the politician, only to doom the man to ruin and eternal shame?" "Tut, tut, Major, you surely are not going to turn into that sort of soft squab. Where is that splendid nerve which has ex- cited the admiration of the whole country in the past?" "You had better ask me, Senator, where is my sense of honor. I utterly despise myself for even listening to your base sugges- tions, and despise myself still more for being unable to resist them. By the eternal God, I have a mind to act the man once more, recall my vanished self-respect, and go in there and tell them to their teeth that I dare them to lay a finger on that man." "You have a mincl to act the simpleton," returned the other, sharply, " and to ruin yourself, which I am determined you shall not do. From motives of patriotism, if from no others, you have got to do something to retain your hold on the common people, which there is now danger of your losing." Jealousy is- heaping up an avalanche against you, which will sweep you away unless you prevent its fall or break its force." "I feel the force of what you urge more deeply, perhaps, than you suspect, and I would gladly sacrifice my own life to -retain my hold upon the people for their sake. But this expedient is inexpressibly vile, and I loathe the very thought of it." "By the time you are as old a politician as I am, you will learn to laugh at such squeamishness as this. You caniot be a Puritan in politics; you cannot be a Puritan in politics, sir." ' But I think I might at least be a gentleman, and such, till now, I have been. Would that I had known years ago, when I was a high-hearted boy, that this bitter day was coming-that in en- tering the dancing-hall of the infernal Terpsichore of treason I should have to leave every principle of honor and honesty in the cloak-room. Would that I had known I should have to engage in trickery, chicanery, infamous plots and mobs in order to ac- 22 page: 506-507[View Page 506-507] 506 THE STORY OF AN- OUTCAST. complish the ruin of my own people. Would I had known all this. I would have entered the church or committed suicide." "What ails you to-night, MaJor Claiborne?" cried the other, in amazement. You are -not yourself; I never saw you in such a mood as this before. " "What ails me? That is a very serious question. WhVt ails me? A rankling sorrow, which, if I were to talk to you forever I could not make you understand. At any other time, the con siderations which you and my own perception have urged, could drive my baser nature through this dirty business better than to. light. You remember, for you heard them, the predictions of the -glorious boy for whbm I made that appeal to-night." "For heaven's sake, say nothing more of that dreaming fool," ejaculated the other, impatiently. "He is far wiser than either you or I, sir. I loved that boy, sir, as -my mother's haughty heart in my breast never loved be. fore., His spirit is king of mine, and his image in my heart preaches to me day and night. I saved his life to-night; but to- morrow one of us must die. How unconsciously, how terribly right my haughty mother is. I can no longer live in the same world with him. The very air smells to me of blood. Shall I fall by his hand? Heaven grant it. Shall I kill him? Then, when he is gone, his shade will haunt me for proving traitor to the consciousness which his hand imparted. Woulcl that I could tell him before we part forever how I execrate that scaffold -a 'platform, ' indeed--which I must have seemed to him to , approve to-day." "What, " cried the other fiercely, " are you, Mianlius Claiborne, already, and for such a reason, abandoning the associates to whom i you have committed yourself in bonds of honor forever?" "No,"' replied Claiborne, withnoble indignation, "Iamnotaban- doning them, I never shall abandon them Myhonorisplighted, as my sad sense of duty was before, and it shall never be sullied. But, sir, I am a ruined man; my heart is divided against itself. Millions have fought and died, sword in hand, for partial duty, with divided hearts; why not I as excusably as they? Whoever fought for perfect truth, or with a flawless conscience? To fight and fall is man's destiny; what better am I than other men? I : would rather not fight one whom I love, as I do that boy. But my honor is at stake. Honor delights in blood. The smallest I . MOBBING AN ABOLITIONIST. 507 stain upon her hand must be washed out in blood; there is no spot on honor so small but it requires at least all of one man's blood to cleanse it. Honor is a bloody queen; her sceptre is bathed in blood ; her throne stands in a stream of blood; her pur- ple robes are dyed with blood; her forehead bears a spot of blood; the rubies of her crown are clots of blood. Honor means blood." "Man, man, what sort of a fit is this? Rouse yourself, and lead this brotherhood against the old-Abolitionist to-night, and to-morrow you will laugh at the recollection of all this silly moralizing. " "To-night, to-morrow-what next? God-knows.. It was to- day that did the deed which will damn us with posterity. Did you note at what time the sun set this evening? It was only a winter sun and sank in clouds; yet never again will any sun as large and bright shine on us. And at what hour will to-morrow's diminished sun set? At eight o'clock ; perhaps an hour sooner or later. For on that to-morrow which treads so lightly on the heel of to-night, that boy may die instead of me, and the holy and cleansing light that might have fallen on this 'land be blot-, ted out forever." "Come, Manlius Claiborne; I will endure no longer hesitation. The rain is slacking ; the deed must be done, and- you must lead in it; be a man to-night, and let to-morrow take care of its sickly and worthless apprehensions." "Well, I am ready; come along. But, sir, it- is sickening to think of a man of your age and position being engaged in this sort of business. Withdraw from it at once; leaveit all to me. At all events, this victim is only a juiceless old skeleton of a peda- gogue, thank God." They then went back into the court-house, and Auswurf flew as if on winged feet towards a distant part of -the city. He knew at once who the victim was to be. He already knew that Professor Surd was teaching there, and would have come to see him earlier, but for the accident which prevented his riding on horseback. He had 'that day inquired where he lived, intending to call on him that night, and request him to be present at the murder on the morrow. Reaching the house where the Professor boarded, he saw a light burning in the second story, and not doubting that the scholar's room was there, ran hastily up stairs, and burst into the apartment. The Professor was sitting at a table, in gown and page: 508-509[View Page 508-509] slippers, reading. He sprang up in amazement on seeing Auswmurft burst into the room all white and breathless, and exclaimed - "Auswurf, Auswurf! what brings you here thus?" .. "To warn you of danger," cried Auswurf. "You will be mur- dered this night if you stay here. A mob is already gathered and ; on the way; in an instant they will be upon you; you must come out with me this moment, and escape." "I have long expected this," replied the Professor quietly; " but I have not run yet,'and I shall not run now. I have never yet turned my back on any foe, and I shall not do it for the first time in regard'to such a question. I too am a Southerner, the truest of \ them all. What man has a better lright to stay here than I? I will not degrade myself by abandoning both duty and my own clear right:" / ' "Then, sir," cried Ausw, with a thrill of his old battle-spirit, "I will stay, and die by your side. I shall be glad to end my life here, in just this way. But let us prepare for them quickly, for they will soon be here. Get out your arms, sir. Give me a knife, whose keen blade, populous with a score of ruffians' deaths, will not once miss aim, as my steady nerves launch it at the ; murderers. " '"Ihave no arms of the kind you mention," replied the Profes- sor quietly. "I need not tell you, Auswurf, that there are two kinds of heroism-one that acts, and one that suffers, and that of " the two the latter is the rarer and the nobler. Every true man is {. as ready for the one kind as the other, and always lets conscience (:(: and reason decide which he shall exercise. As I have said, I have long known that this was coming, and my mind is perfectly clear - that duty requires me to bear it bravely, without resistance. " Then, I will go atonce to the city authorities," criedAlAnswurf, ; "and appeal to them to prevent this outrage.:" ' "The 'city authorities are the abject slaves of the politicians who are at the bottomlof this affair, and would not dare to inter- ' - fere. You might as well ask the scullions of Jove's kitchen to intercept his bolts, or snap them in twain before they reach their mark." ^., "Then I will arouse the better class of citizens, and Call them to help me protect you." ii; The attempt would be useless, even if I could consent to itL The halls of Sodom are not more deeply sunk than the public con- ' X MOBBING AN ABOLITIONIST. 509 science is just now., The politicians have determined to sacrifice me in order to inflame the public mind, and the people who will be the ultimate victims of their ambitiofn are willing dupes and co-workers in their own ruin. Everybody in this doomed place is in the league against me. I will not insult the majesty of Truth by asking any other protection than her sacred mantle, nor will I meanly sneak out of danger." "Sir," cried Auswurf sharply, -"it would be well enough to re- member, too, while you are courting martyrdom, that patient sub- mission to insult and outrage is more apt to cast contempt upon a cause than otherwise. Among men who do not understand your motives, it begets a suspicion of meanness, which they invariably connect with the principles of the martyr. Martyrdom is of many kinds, equally fruitful and sublime when equallywell-judged ; and as a general rule, in this rough-and-tumble, wicked world, that martyrdom is most glorious and most beneficial where men, rather than yield to tyrants, die with arms in their hands, asserting their rights. The active sufferer is greatest, and passive self-sacrifice is noble only when it is the proper and wilful fruit of a course of action." "' My Quaker principles do not extend to cases where reason and duty command me to resist. But I thoroughly understand the present situation, Auswurf, and do not doubt what I ought to do ; and, therefore, I must be permitted to have my own way." At that moment a rush- of feet was heard in the hall and on the stairs, and it was evident that the mob was upon them. So quietly had they approached the house, that, even had their victim not been engaged, he could have had no warning of their coming. It was now the Professor's turn to be alarmed about Auswurf. Seiz- ing him by the arm, and- forcing him across the room, he com- manded: "Leave here, instantly; your only chance of escape now is by that window, and the roof of the kitchen below; throw this shawl over your head to hide your face, and go at once." And the Professor threw the shawl over Auswurf's head, and pushed him vigorously towards the window. "I am not going, sir," said Auswurf, " and there's the end of it. The first plot was to mob us both, and if you will stay here, I am not going to creep out of the peril, and leave you in it alone. But I tell you plainly that I prefer to die resisting, no matter how feebly." page: 510-511[View Page 510-511] 510 I THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. At that moment a dozen of the ruffians broke into the room with a yell; Auswurf gave one glance at them, and recognized the commanding figure that strode at their head; in another instant he had seized a heavy iron poker, the only weapon within reach, and extinguished the light, thinking he could deal his blows to better advantage in the dark. "What have you done, rash boy?" cried the Professor. ." They will think I am trying to skulk away in the dark;" and with astonishing quickness he relighted the lamp. The sudden putting out of the light had made the ruffians pause a moment for very blindness; by the first flash of the match with which the Professor relighted it, the tall figure that led the mob strode up to Auswurf, seized him with both hands, lifted him from the floor as if he had been a baby, and at once dashed him out the back window through sash and glass. Auswurf fell on the roof of the kitchen, and rolled down its steep sides to the ground; he fell heavily upon his crippled arm and broke it over again; but at least his life was saved, and the tall figure in the mask had known that this was the only way to save it; besides, he thouglit it better for Auswurf to even perish in the fall than to be murdered by the mob, or be killed in the duel to- morrow. As soon as Auswurf could regain his feet, he looked up through the broken window at the scene within the room. The Professor's tall form rose above the gang of ruffians, who had now gathered around him and were in the act of seizing him; his face, deathly pale and almost transfigured by resolute devotion, betrayed no agitation. In another instant, a dozen ruffians had pounced upon him with a yell, and were bearinghim cown stairs. Auswurf, almost frantic with his own pain, staggered forward to the street, to see what was coming next. The ruffians evidently had a good deal of grim humor in them.' They had got a dwarfish black pony and hitched him to a shabby little hearse, in-which they had placed a little black coffin, with the words,!"The Union," pasted on its side in large Roman letters; and they had seized a remarkably ugly and dirty negroboy and mounted him on the driver's seat. With an awful clatter of yells, shouts, screeches, groans and oaths, and a hid- eous din of kettles, tin pans, bells, horns and drums, they set the Professor astride the hearse, tore the clothing from his shoulders and back, and scourged him unmercifully with sticks and thongs as they moved off through the-town in a regular procession. Doors were thrown open, windows raised, shouts of laughter resounded MOBBING AN ABOLITIONIST. 5" from every house, and soon the streets were full of excited spec- tators, following along in the wake of the infernal procession, and screaming with delight. No one offered to interfere; if the police were present, as they must have been, they were patriotically oblivious of their duties-as they usually are on such occasions. In this way they went on to the suburbs of the little city, where flowed a large stream, now converted by the rain into an angry and boiling flood. The mob bore their victim down to the water's edge, and their leader commanded: ( Plunged him in, and may God have mercy on his soul." The command was at once obeyed, and in the twinkling of an eye the Professor was sucked under by a strong vortex that boiled just there, and then he was heaved up again and swept off down the stream. This mode of execution had been selected because some jolly ruffian in the troop had happened to suggest that it would be so funny to see the old one-armed Abo- litionist try to swim. A few paces below the spot where the Pro- fessor had been heaved in, the stream ran under a culvert made of heavy oak timbers; and the vent now beingtoo small for the torrents which had fallen, the stream surged and boiled: there like a mael- strom. The Professor was sucked down into this and disappeared; and when the yelling, hooting crowd looked for him to come forth on the lower side they were disappointed-he did no reappear; his body had probably lodged against the oak props and braces that sustained the wooden culvert, and been held fast there, whence it could not be taken till the stream should fall. So Wbe mob slowly dispersed, and went off in squads, hooting and yellirg, back into the town. But Auswurf remained, and making a careful examina- tion of the culvert after all were gone, he was satisfied that the Professor's body had been sucked through it, and whirled off down the stream. He, therefore, descended the stream in anxious search, guided by the whitish line which its muddy bosom made in the gloom, and groped along the bank. At last he found the body, thrown up half out of the water,- on the root of a syca- more tree close to the shore. He tried in vain, with his one arm and wasted strength, to bring it out on the bank. Scarcely knowing what to do next, he looked uip and saw a solitary figure standing on the bank not far off. Going up to it, and recogniz- ing it, he merely said: "Come with, me." The figure followed him to the spot where the Professor lay, and the two lifted him out upon the bank. It seemed at first that he was quite dead, page: 512-513[View Page 512-513] a0 aa U-x uOF AN OUTCAST. and Auswurf, who had seen love, hope, health, almost life decay before, thought that now his last whole-hearted friend, too, was . gone. But it was no time for despair; he took the shawl from his own shoulders and threw it over the Professor's form ; then directing the masked figure, who obeyed him implicitly in perfect silence, he had the body turned in such a position that the water flowed from the -lungs, then breathed into the nostrils, and , adopted every means of resuscitation he could think of. Presently he was rewarded by feeling a faint and languid pulse flutter into the arm; a soblike respiration returned, and a groan burst from the clammy lips. "Now," said Auswurf to the masked figure, "you had better leave us." He went at once. Then Auswurf, with dry sobs shaking his wasted and feeble frame, lifted up the Professor's head and kisssed him again and again most passionately, and cried: "O, my beloved preceptor, my noble, great-souled friend, may heaven forever bless you for returning to life and me!" Presently the Professor was fully restored to consciousness, and opened his eyes and spoke. He had received a, severe blow on the head in passing under the culvert, but nothing could be done to- wards dressing it there. The question at once arose, what they were to do; Auswurf had already decided it, and so he said "Please, sir, you must be guided entirely by me, just now, for a while. Now that the crisis which you felt you must face is past, you will of corse consent to make your escape from this horiible place. The best way, the only way to do that, is to return with ne to Greenwood, have your wounds dressed, obtain a disguise here, and then get away. Manlius Claiborne, noble but unhap. y man, will assist us. Besides, I have a reason of my own for ishing you to be there to-morrow." And then he explained, as Dr as he could do so, what this was. The Professor assented to Auswurf's plan. Then they made heir way through, back streets and alleys to the outskirts of the nvn, in the direction of Greenwood. Leaving the Professor iere, Auswurf went to the livery-stable where he and Mr. Clai- orne had that morning put up the dapple ponies, and telling ,the roprietor, who remembered him, that he wanted a horse' and aggy in order to return to Greenwood, obtained them without mfculty. He also borrowed a lantern to make his way through e dark woods safely. Returning then to the Professor, he took MOBBING AN ABOLITIONIST. 513 him in, and the two drove off towards Greenwood. In the first woods they came to, they stopped, and Auswurf dressed the Pro- fessor's wounds, tearing out the bosom of his own shirt to make bandages. As the light of the lantern gleamed on the pale, sick boy, for the first time, the former observed the condition of Aus- wurf's arm, and inquired about it. On being told the full story of the wounding and rewounding, he wept bitterly. "Well," said he, " like old campaigners, we will dress each other's wounds." And he reset and bound up Auswurf's arm almost as skilfully as a surgeon could have done it. As they were about getting into the buggy to drive on again, they saw, by the flickering light of the lantern, a man lying in the road a few yards in advance. His dress showed that he had been one of the mob of ragamuffins; his mask had fallen from its place, and lay beside him ; his face lay flat on the muddy earth, and he was literally plastered with mire from head-to foot. Going up to him they found that it was Snort, lying there in the lethar- gy of beastly drunkenness; he had fallen off his horse, and the animal had run away and left him. Deeply as he had injured them both, they could not think of leaving him there in the road in that infamous attire. They, therefore, with great difficulty, dragged him out a few feet into the bushes, and tore off his raga- muffin dress and threw it away. Then they resumed their way, Auswurf driving as rapidly as the miry condition of the road and his aching arm and swimming head would allow; but so slow was their progress that it was almost daylight when they came in sight of Greenwood. Then Auswurf, remembering that they had not yet agreed upon a name and a disguise for the Professor, said: "You must have a military name, and at least the rank of Major ; so we will call you Major Slasher. Manlius is now an officer of State troops, and can no doubt furnish you a uniform, or part of one. We will introduce you as an Inspector General of State troops, on a tour to look after the military organizations of the various counties. That will be a good blind, the best one possible." So it was settled. As they drove into the yard, the Professor said : "Auswurf, I long for a change of scene, and if I get away from here safe, I am going to Europe, for a while. I long to be- hold, and I know that it will do me good to behold, the lawns, furnaces and wharves of England the lochs and highlands of Scotland; the legend-haunted Rhine; France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, I long to see them all." page: 514-515[View Page 514-515] iedi: t THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. Auswurf caught his breath; the Professor's purposely enthu- siastic speech had told as he meant it should. "Auswurf, I am weak and sick, and shall need a companion; will you go with me?" "Ah, sir! would to heaven I could." "What is there to prevent you? Consider your health, how miserable it is now, and how the journey would improve it. Will you not go?" "No, sir." "Why not?" "Why don't the inmates of the poorhouse build palaces, dress in rich raiment, feast on rare food, marry princesses, have kings for playmates, and spend all their lives in a blaze of splendor?" "Auswurf, have you not saved my life? I am not poor, and, thanks to my foresight, all that I have in the world is far from here, and safe. Will you not let me express my love and gratitude to you? "The question is divisible. You owe me no gratitude; but you may show your love for me to any extent you wish, by not asking me to become a pensioner on your bounty. And, sir, you may show it, too, within the next few hours, by going out with me when I go to let that man shoot at me, and by fetching away my body, if he kills me, and having it decently buried." t Hush, Selric Auswurf. You shall not talk so. " Then Auswurf conducted Major Slasher into his room, and in- sisted on his going to bed and trying to sleep. The Professor re- luctantly did so, and after Auswurf saw him snugly tucked in, he came forth to find Phin and have the horse and buggy taken to the barn. CHAPTER xmTT. ONE-SIDED DUIEIjNG. As he stepped out into the yard, he heard an outhurst of shrieks, yells and groans in the direction of the negro-quarter. Going as fast as he could to the spot, he found Mr. Claiborne, Belisarius, Randolph, Thad, and the new overseer employed in Blackburn's place, with guns in their hands, engaged in driving all the field- ONE-SIDED- DURTTTNG. 515 hands, male and female, into a close cabin, and beating, kicking and cursing them as they crowded in. As Auswurf came near, Mr. Claiborne at once recognized him in the dawn, and said:, "I rejoice to see you back so early; but you look as though you had not slept a wink all night. I did wrong to leave you there in devildom; but for the matter of that we have had much the same thing here. -My niggers undertook to get up a rebellion last night. That villain, Phipps, made them believe that old Ossawattomie Brown was waiting for them with an army, up above Vicksburg; and so they were going to steal all my horses and mules and take themselves off. Jerry took the lead in the matter, because he hated the new overseer. But we have got them quelled now, and are just getting ready to whip the whole pack of them, andI am going to open the ball myself by dancing a cotillon with head- devil Jerry. Fetch him forward, overseer. " The overseer already had Jerry by-the collar, and dragged him forward at Mr. Claiborne's command. Belisarius, Randolph and Thad stood guard over the cabin to prevent any of the prisoners from escaping. In front of the prison stood a wide-spreading tree, over one of the boughs of which was thrown a sea-grass rope ending in a noose. Jerry's thumbs were passed through the loop and the rope drawn up until he was left with his toes barely touch- ing the ground; the loose end of the rope was then fastened, and his clothing summarily torn from his back and shoulders. Mr. Claiborne took a cowhide wrapped at the tip with wire, and began his bloody work. At every stroke the skin was cut off in slices, and not half a dozen blows had been struck before both master and slave were completely bespattered with gore. The wretched negro raved and howled like a wild beast, but still the merciless lash descended without abatement. At length, when utterly exhausted, Mr. Claiborne paused and said: "That will do for to-day; I'll put him to chopping now, and whip him again to-morrow." "I will never chop for you any more!" said Jerry. "We will see about that," said Mr. Claiborne. "Hand me my gun, overseer, and then undo his thumbs and let him down." This was done. "Now, you black devil, march to your work, and if you start to run I'll shoot you down at once." Jerry marched away through the woods, Mr. Claiborne carrying his gun cocked and at his shoulder, and Auswurf following after page: 516-517[View Page 516-517] V,, THiE rui'TlRY OF AN OUTCAST. them. When they reached Jerry's old place of labor, the slave, without waiting to be chained, took up the axe as if he were going submissively to work. He raised it in the air in his left hand, then hurled it down edge foremost into the log he had been work- ing on last; as it fell, he stooped and threw his right hand under it; the axe quivered and trembled in the wood as if horrified at what it had done; blood spurted out in half a dozen directions from the severed arteries, on the dead leaves; half a human hand flew off the log, and fell directly at Mr. Claiborne's feet; then Jerry raised the bleeding stump, and shook it menacingly at his master. Then, maddened by pain, or by the thought of his own mutilation, he resolved on a very different retaliation. Quick as lightning, he raised the bloody axe on high and sent it whizzing full at the breast of his master. Mr. Claiborne saw it coming in time to dodge out of its way, and it buried itself in the ground behind him. At the same instant, he fired in some confusion, and missed his aim. Jerry sprang forward, recovered his axe, and plunged into the woods, leaping from tree to tree to prevent Mr. Claiborne from pouring into him the charge of buckshot in the other barrel of his gun, and so disappeared. "The nigger-dogs, the nigger-dogs!" cried Mr. Claiborne. "After him with the nigger-dogs! Saladin went last night; Jerry has gone now; soon I shan't have a nigger's toe-nail left on my plantation. " Mr. Claiborne ran to get his horse and a pack of bloodhounds, in order to pursue Jerry. He left his solns and the overseer to con- tinue the whipping of the others, and sending Phin to ask two or three of the/eighboring planters to join him, started off after Jerry; while Auswurf, sick of the scene, returned towards the house. With every step he took, fresh shrieks and groans behind him told that the work was going bravely on. As he passed the open door of the schoolhouse, he heard low moans and sobs with- in. He at once went in to see who the weeper was, and saw in the still struggling and feeble dawn a female figure sitting on the floor, clasping the hand of a dead body that lay stretched out there. As he entered, the woman raised her face, and he saw that it was Yarico, Urania's maid. " O master," she sobbed, "Saladin is dead/" Then with the impulsiveness of her race, she wept hys- terically. It was, indeed Saladin, lying there cold and dead. She had closed his eyes, and bound a handkerchief around his jaws, and folded his hands across his breast. ONE-SIDED DUFTING. 517 "Poor boy!" cried Auswurf, pierced to the heart, "he is gone to a land where oppression can never reach him more. Yes, Sal- adin, God has set you free!" "O master," sobbed Yaxico, "I always knew that it would come to this! I tried to get him to give up his high thoughts, but it seemed like he could not. Last night, when the dreadful fuss waked us all up, I ran down to the quarter; for I knew Saladin was in it. When master and the rest came with their guns, Sala- din started to run past master, and master hit him with his gun. Saladin got over into the cotton-field and hd, and I followed him, for I was certain he was badly hurt. I hunted for him a long time, and found him at last, lying on the ground under the cotton- branches. He was so far gone that he could scarcely talk, but I helped him up, and got him this far, and he could not go any farther, but laid down on the floor here, and died. " "Poor, poor, Saladin i" sobbed Auswurf; "God has,-indeed, set you free." Then he went away, and left Yarico alone with her dead. o As he went towards the house, he saw Snort ascend the gallery steps, and enter the hall. He was of the -hue of ashes; his eyes were red and bloodshot, and he was besmeared with mud from head to heel. When Auswurf entered his room, the Professor was sleeping soundly; and so he sat down upon a chair to rest, and heard the following conversation between Snort and Claiborne in the hall: "Claiborne," said Snort, in a faltering voice, " you surely have got my costume. For God's sake, tell me that you took it off and brought it home only to try to frighten me, only to play a prac- tical joke on me." "Joke, you fool? Do I look like a man who is in a humor for joles?" "Then, all I know about it is that my costume is gone, taken, no doubt, by somebody who will have me indicted for Surd's murder. I arm ruined, Claiborne ; if Auswurf is not killed to-day, I know he will have me hung when we all go back North." "I sincerely hope so ; you richly deserve it." "Then you ought to be hung, too, for you led us in it." "You lie ; you know that it was your base slanders that touched the match to the magazine. For your own base reasons, fearing heaven might not let my bullet pierce its noblest seraph to-day, page: 518-519[View Page 518-519] u-xO THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. you tried to have Auswurf murdered too, under my apparent lead- ership; and in order to render it impossible for me to save him, you circulated the report that I was a convert of his. If I come out of this meeting alive, you have got to go into another such with me the moment you cease to be my guest." Then Snort withdrew, and Auswurf went out into the hall. "Send to my room," said he, " a uniform for a Major of State troops. Major Slasher, who is to be my friend to-day, needs it. You may send, too, shaving apparatus, and a wig, if you have such a thing." "There is one in Phipps's valise," replied Claiborne, without looking up. "You will remember my friend, Major Slasher, as an Inspector of State troops, and a former acquaintance of your own." "Of course; I know him well," said Claiborne bitterly, still not looking up. "But the risk he runs is great, and you must give me an excellent pretext for recognizing Major Slasher." In a few minutes, a servant brought the wig, shaving apparatus and uniform, carefully wrapped up. Auswarf then waked the Pro- fessor, and set about fixing his disguise. The little patches of red whiskers were shaved off; the bandages were removed from the head, court-plaster substituted, and then the bristly, unmistaka- ble hair was hidden under the romantic locks of "Mr. Tucker's" wig; last of all the uniform was donned. The disguise was per- fect; -notwithstanding the missing arm, the Professor's most inti- mate friend would not have seen in him anything but Major Slasher, Inspector General of State Troops. In a few minutes after the disguise was completed, they were called to breakfast. Auswurf had already told his pupils there would be no School that day; so none of them were present; and he and the Professor hastily dispatched a silent meal. After they got back to their room, the Professor asked: "Aus- wurf, is there anything you wish to say to me before we go out to this meeting?" "I have no business to arrange," said Auswurf; "I die as I have lived, a beggar; it is a bitter death, but not so bitter as the life. All that I shall need is burial, and any plain box will be good enough to coffin my pauper's clay. But there is one thing which it is proper for me to tell you. It is that I do not intend to return this unhappy man's fire." ONE-SIDED DUELING. 519 The Professor, in dismay, cried out against such incredible folly, as he styled it, and entered into a panic-stricken expostula- tion and argument against it, "My decision is not open tpr revis- ion," replied Auswurf, quietly. "Manlius has been brought to wish to shoot me, and he shall have the opportunity to do so. Your own course last night estops you from objecting to mine now. "Then I will not go out to see you murdered," said the Pro- fessor. "Tut, tut, sir," replied Auswurf. "You know very well there is nothing in the world that could keep you from going when you see, as you do now, that I am determined to go." Presently, they heard Claiborne, Cheveril, Snort, and the Con- gressional Nobody come into the hall together, and then Aus- wurf told the Professor to go out and arrange the details of the murder, and to insist on its taking place immediately. The Pro- fessor went into the hall. Claiborne, with every bloodvessel kept regular by his will, at once recognized Major Slasher, and intro- duced him to Cheveril, Snort, and the Congressional Nobody, who was to be his second. "Major, you must excuse the appear- ance of my friend Snort," said Claiborne, with malicious de- light; "he has been having rather a gay night of it, and has the inevitable pain in the head this morning." This allusion to the events of the night disturbed Snort so that he would not have recognized his own picture just then; and there was no malice in the rest to render them keen-eyed. The Professor re- turned to Auswurf in half an hour with information that all were ready to start for the ground. After the rest of the party were fairly off, Auswurf and the Professor got into their hired buggy and drove after them, with their tracks and previous directions for a guide. They drove out into the public road and along it for two or three miles, then turned off into the woods, and stopped just at the edge of a large swamp. The forest around they swamp was singularly open, and the place was somewhat famous as a duelling ground, art having assisted nature to clear it for that social use. The distance was measured off, and the positions marked, and then Auswurf and Claiborne threw for choice of positions. Auswurf won the choice, and at once chose the posi- tion farthest from the swamp, where most light fell, and where, consequently, it would be easiest for Claiborne to hit him. They page: 520-521[View Page 520-521] 520 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. took their places; the word was given; both parties fired; a bul- let whistled close by Auswurf's ear; another flew far over Clai- borne's head--he knew how far, the rest did not. Auswurf wanted no scene; he, therefore, had not withheld his fire, but had thrown it away. A cry of horror burst from Claiborne's lips. "Stop, stop!" he cried, while a spasm passed over his face; "he shall not make me murder him." "What's the matter?" cried the others. "Nothing is the matter," said Auswurf; "I am ready for another fire." "Fools!" shouted Claiborne, rushing to where Auswurf stood, and gathering the wasted boy in his arms. "Did you not see that he did not fire at me?" "Release me," commanded Auswurf, in agony; "don't you see that you are cruelly hurting my arm-breaking it afresh?" "O0, Auswurf," sobbed Claiborne, "will you not even let me press you to my heart before one of us must die?" "You may embrace me after I am dead; nor will your embrace be long delayed; and you will not hurt me then. Go back to your place." "Promise me that you will fire, and I will go." "Did I not fire before? But you would not have me let you throw away your life against the wreck of mine? By the terms, you are to fire five shots at me without stopping." "But how can I bear to shoot you down like a dog?" "By reflecting that I am a school-teacher. Go back to your place. You are making both yourself and me ridiculous. This is no child's play, but a terrible reality." "But if you throw away your shots, I have a right to throw away mine." "Yes, but you dare not do it. You know very well that one of us must be taken back to that house dead. I knew that before, but I read it in your face afresh this morning. You would not dare to go back there and report that I am still alive. So return to your place, and fire your remaining shots." At that instant they heard the baying of hounds, and the shouts of men coming very rapidly and directly towards them, and in another instant, Jerry, all covered with his own, blood, came bounding into that "social" arena. "Untimely devil," cried Claiborne, "what brings you here?" and then finding thus an ONE-SIDED DUITT4TNG. 521 outlet for all his wild, pent-up emotions, he raised his pistol, and dealt the intruder a powerful blow full in the face. The shock staggered the stalwart negro for a moment, but recovering his balance, he raised his axe from his shoulder, and buried it in Clai- borne's head. The latter fell to the earth dead, without a groan; Jerry plunged into the -swamp and disappeared. In another mo- ment, Mr. Claiborne and half a dozen neighboring planters came up with the dogs. The hounds stopped at Manlius's dead body, and began to lap his blood. Mr. Claiborne, with an Indian-like wail of anguish, inquired which way Jerry had gone, and spurred into the swamp after him. In a moment there came from the swamp the report of a gun, a scream of pain, a volley of curses, and a gurgling groan. Then Mr. Claiborne, himself and horse half drowned in mire and water, came out, dragging Jerry's body with him. He dragged it up the bank, and dropped it beside Manlius's corpse. Then only saying, "I will go and send a cart to haul them home," he rode away. And the dead negro and his young master were hauled home, side by side, in the same cart. Then the terrible tension of nerve and will which had sustained Auswurf till now, gave way, and he thought he too was dying. The Professor led him to the buggy and put him into it; then while the rest remained to await the removal-of Claiborne's body, the Professor and Auswurf drove slowly back to Greenwood. As they drove up the avenue towards the mansion, they met Mrs. Claiborne coming towards them on foot and alone, with measured pace. She wore neither bonnet nor cloak, and her face was terri- ble to behold. When she met Auswurf and the Professor, she laid her hand on the rein of the horse's bridle and stopped him in the road. Then she raised her unnatural eyes to Auswurf's face, and whispered hoarsely: "He is dead, and I am going to meet his corpse. Oh, he was a demigod, my glorious son! but he is dead now, and you are his murderer. I know your bullet did not strike him, but it is your fault that he is dead. Accursed be the day that you were born. Accursed be the day that brought you across his path and mine." Then she let go the rein, and passed on slowly down the avenue. The Professor took Auswurf out of the buggy and led him towards the house. Mr. Claiborne, having noticed Auswurf's condition, had already summoned Dr. Ricochet, and in company with him awaited the boy's arrival. The moment the physician page: 522-523[View Page 522-523] 522 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. saw the dying boy, he said : "Ittis scarcely possible that he will live a week. But if he will go back to the climate where he was raised, and to his friends, so that he can have a home, and pleas- ant company and rest, he may improve." "I have no home, no friends, no rest," replied Auswurf : " but I know I must go away. I can work no more in this world, and I long to go back to the place where I was born, and die there." Mr. Claiborne received this confirmation of his worst fears with grief that showed the hold the sick and penniless stranger had taken on his heart. 1"This is like tearing the old man's heart out!" he groaned. "M Iy son Manlius is dead, killed by the an- gels. I have just read his last letter, explaining it all to me. Why have I lived to see this day-? And Birdie, and my noble boy too, are both going away to leave the old man utterly desolate. I am an old man, and I have got used to seeing the young and beauti- ful- die ; but such loss as this, and for such reasons, is hard to bear. Yet I have that in my heart, my manly boy, which, instead of dis- tressing you afresh by these exhibitions of my own sorrow, would ' fain help you to bear your own heavy burden, if I could but speak f it." "Never give despair a tongue, sir," replied Auswurf. "Unlike smaller sorrows, it is not wasted by expression, but grows by every word it utters." "True, and I will heed your wise words. But I had hoped that you would stay here with me until our summer's work was done, and that in our rest the Great Overseer would give us the same cabin. But if we are to part forever in this world, let us lift up our hearts in faith, and pray, ' Our Father, let us meet in Thy rest., And I, for one, feel to-day like conforming my wicked life more to the life which I hope to attain in the Hereaftor." Auswurf could make no reply to that; he could only leave Mr. Claiborne's better nature to fight it out as best it could with the infernal powers that assailed it. But he started up from the bedJ where they had laid him, and said to the Professor: "My clothes are there in that bureau; will you not please pack them in my travelling-sack? That new one there, is mine. And, O sir, hurry, for heaven's sake, hurry! I am suffocating, dying, I am stifled by the atmosphere of the pit; a hue of death rests on everything I see. Hasten, oh, hasten; sir, and let us start."- Mr. Claiborne assisted the Professor, and the slender wardrobe ONE-SIDED DURETTG. 523 was quickly packed, Mr Claiborne calling attention to the fact that he had placed the amount he owed Auswurf in the travelling-sack. "Thank you, sir : and now let us start at once. You will have to carry me to the buggy. I have neither strength nor heart to lift even my hand up." They carried him out to the buggy, and put him in. Then Mr. Claiborne kissed him and said, through floods of impetuous tears: "God be with you, my noble boy." Auswurf returned his kiss and bade him farewell, then turned to take a last look at the man- sion which held Urania, and where Manlius Claiborne would soon lie stiff in death-at the solitary school-house, and at the sombre woods, and then they drove away. To him, even in his anguish, there was something from which he bwas sorrowful to part; in those very spots where he had endured most agony. "Hold me up," said he to the Professor, " and let me drive." "You are too weak to drive, and besides you have but one hand;" was the response. "I must drive, sir. There, let me have the lines, and hold me up. Now talk to me ; talk fast and loud ; I care not what you say, if you but talk fast and loud." The Professor tried to comply, but very soon had to take the reins out of the feeble and exhausted --hand by gentle force. "Well, take them," said Auswurf, as he yielded them up at last ; "it is of no use for me to try to think that I can drive." From Greenwood to the river there were two routes-one lead- ing to the little town at which the steamboat accident occurred, and the other by way of the county-seat and the short railroad. The Professor chose the latter route, because he thought it would be better for. Auswurf, and because in going it they could take home the hired horse and buggy. Accordingly, as they approached the little city, Auswurf again had something to think of in his dread lest, notwithstanding the perfection of his dis- guise, the Professor should be recognized. "At all events," said he, "we had better not enter the town together in this buggy. Do yot get out here, and pass around the place to the railroad station on the other side, and remain concealed till train time. I will drive to the stable and leave the buggy and horse, go to the hotel nominally for dinner, but really to find out how matters stand, and at four o'clock will meet you at the cars." "I But you are so ill that you cannot get along without me," nhiAnt rd t, hn PrnfPsnsor. page: 524-525[View Page 524-525] 524 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. "You forget that I have a righteous purpose to sustain me," said Auswurf. "I am stronger since I thought of it.'" The Professor then consented to the plan, and made his way to the station without difficulty. Auswurf, on reaching the hotel, found the affair of-last night-on every tongue, but luckily nobody: doubted that the Professor was still stuck fast under the culvert. Luckily for him, also, nobody suspected that he was the little Abolitionist whose case had been so fiercely discussed at the meeting the night before. He sat through dinner at the table d'htte with the wildest, most foolish and most wicked words that he had ever heard dinning in his ears. At the appointed hour, 'he joined the Professor at the station, and they proceeded in the cars, without molestation or suspicion, to the little village on the river. They went at once to the wharf-boat to wait for a packet. CHAPTER XIV. LAST STEP OF A .PROCESS. THE sun had now sunk, and the clear, moonless night had come on; the world was folded in silence; the calm stars glittered in the sky; below, the dark river rushed swiftly by. Auswurf begged the Professor to help him up the stairs which led to the upper deck of the old steamer which was now used as a wharf- boat, and the request was granted. When they reached the deck, Auswurf leaning heavily on the Professor, and almost entirely supported by him, said: "I wished to come up here, because I feel as if I were dying, and I want to die here, in sight of the stars. Let us walk back and forth along the deck, until my last breath. I who have been robbed of action in this world, feel that I should like to die moving about. " The Professor, unable to speak, thought only of obeying his wishes ; and almost literally carrying the poor boy's wastedC form in his arm, moved back and forth along the deck. "Look there sir!" said Auswurf, fixing his gaze on his own bright star in the western sky, as a pale, thin ghost might look at a seraph. "Oh, is it not beautiful? And it is my star, sir, never mine so much before "AST STEP OF A PROCESS. 525 as it is now. I am glad that it has come back to me at a time like this. Once I reproached it, andlaid my pains on it ; but nowI only bless it and my own pains forevermore. I have nothing left now, sir, but my pains ; but I know now that they and what is in them are all in all. How it pleases me," he continued with a wan smile, "to remember that an incomprehensible sympathy has been the corner-stone of all my life. Our being is larger than we dream of, and the highest human wisdom consists in obedience to its Delphian responses. Sweet star, dear star," he implored in tones of melting pathos, "kiss my wasted and dying brow once more with thy lips of light. I bare my head before thee; fling thy heavenly beams upon it. Thou hast at last kept all thy promises to me, sweet star. So thou hast only to kiss and crown me now with thy light, as I die. I am coming to your upper realm, dear witness. The struggle which thou hast inspired and directed is all over now, and I am going to lay my broken body down and join thee and the holy ones, in the land of victory. Very soon, sir, my spirit, now dragging here in chains at your side, will be a serene tenant of the ether, like that sweet, bright symbol. And when i am dead, I want you to go out often on such nights as this, and selecting some small, dim star in an obscure part of the universe, look at it and think that I am there, still a truth-seeker among the mysteries. Select a dim, small star, sir, for I should be unworthy of any other. Bat it is a blessed privilege to start low in the scale of being and experience and rise through all the grades." The last thought prepared him for the transition, which came at once in meekness and almost in tears. "But, look," he said, " oh, look at those dark, dark waves down there, boiling, toiling, trou- bling, rushing on, now sweeping back in eddies, fretting against and eating away the banks that keep them in, yet bearing on their bosom in their fretfulness the wealth of the world-a perfect pie- ture of the gloom-wrapped, mighty soul in this life. And human knowledge is but like that lantern there, which throws its rays out on the mystery. How inconsiderable a portion of the Life of Spirit is that which is dimly visible in human consciousness. It rushes swiftly by us in the darkness, and we cannot understand It. Our short lines cannot reach its depths, our feeble vision cannot stretch across its dark expanse. So we sit like children on the bank, asking : ' Whence comes It?--whither goes It?-what page: 526-527[View Page 526-527] 526 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. is It?-who can answer? What lies beyond consciousness? Where is t]he other shore? /Is Spirit one and illimitable, and Man the shoreward side of God?' Ah, sir, I think that, for the world's sake, I ought not to have died now; for I could give you light upon those questions if I could only speak. But the per- ception of the inexpressible takes away even the desire to speak. I am finding the treasure which I have sought on the brink of the grave, only to fall in and drag it with me. I am too feeble even, to grasp it firmly. I am entering on a larger view, a broader and richer field, a longer insight, just as my breath stops, just as my heart refuses to beat. "And alas, sir, at the very moment when my growth ceases, the shells which once protected it are turned to lances and pierce my spirit. I think I have been too proud, too defiant, yet living when I did, how could I help it? I have drawn too sharp a line around myself, in order that I might still grow. I should not have borne myself so proudly towards noble Claiborne's faults, and I should have been more meek and affectionate towards Urania's celestial spirit. The purpose of my isolation is served now, and if I lived, I might be meek to my brethren, and tell them I love them. There is no sweetness like that of a strong heart; and a sense of imperfection healed, of humility sublimed, of sins forgiv- en-this is the source of all the sweetness of strength. Nature can give us being, even spirit, build us up, cleanse us, have a mother's care for us, but she cannot forgive; and we want to be forgiven and loved; we want a clinging, tender, interpenetrating life-a conscious, loving, dear, dear Father, and if we could not have Him, the universe would be a lie, and immortality a cheat. Time and eternity are interlapping around me now; my con- sciousness strangely embraces both, and knits them in and in together, and I scarcely know whether I am here or there.' I feel myself living hereafter, a hero and a conqueror in those who shall be like me. Walk on, walk faster, sir, still bear me on, and let my feeble limbs believe they are walking." "No, Auswurf," faltered the Professor, " this sinking pulse, this icy coldness, this utter inability to support yourself-let us go down at once and summon a physician." "Do you think, sir, that the very last has come?" "I fear-it has." "Then I will die here, under the eye that witnessed my conse- "AST STiEP OF A PROCESS. 527 cration, saying to it, ' I could give thee nothing else, blight star, but I have given thee my life.' And I will move about, too, till my last breath. It is here and thus, not in a bed with nostrums ob- structing my last breath, that I will die. My body was always my spirit's slave, and could not have died till the spirit gave it God's command to die. I rejoice that I am conscious, alert, ac- tive master of myself now, so that I shall know the full experience of death in passing through the dark valley. Father, that doest all things well, alleviate not the pang for me by holding the cup of Lethe to lips that shrink not from the kiss of Death! but leave to thy poor student his consciousness in this experience, for which he would not take the universe in exchange. "Peace, blissful name, fast becoming a tear-washed reality to me, how little did I ever dream that I should find thee here. How wonderfully content I am. True, I, only a frail, erring boy, who die with no good deed to tell the Parent of all that I have done, I can only say to Him: 'Father, I have served thee in no other way than this, that I have loved Thee, and even when I did not know Thee, I yet loved Thy truth. I am feeble, weak and guilty, clothed in rags, and famishing; yet, dear Father, I do love Thee. It is better to have sinned, and been forgiven by Thee, than never to have sinned ; for blamelessness is but a sterile rock compared with the Eden of forgiveness; and our relations even with Thee would be frigid and lifeless, if we had no sins for Thee to pardon, no faults of misdirected nobleness for Thee to wipe away. 1 can conceive no other meaning for the word happiness, but to know that Thou lovest me, and hast forgiven me, and hast instructed and purified me by holy pain. Draw your arms tighter around me, sir; I feel as if I were sinking away out of life. I cannot even hold my face up to my star any longer. Hold me in such a posi- tion that my last, look may be at it." But it was not death ; it was only a long, long fit of cold un- consciousness that he sank into then. The first object he noticed when he began to recover, was a steamer a mile below, her lights slining out on the dark waters, her paddles beating steadily, and the noise of escaping steam grating on his ear. - The wharf-mas- ter swung a red lantern to and fro, and the ponderous, steam- driven mass slacked its steady stroke and came in slowly to the shore. The Professor had Auswurf carried on board and con- veyed to a state-room; and there he lay for the next four days, page: 528-529[View Page 528-529] literally balancing between life and death. How empty a cheat, how flat a farce, seemed this life then. - He wondered at himself for having ever cared for any of its worthless toys. His own passionate aspirations in the past seemed quite inexplicable to him, now. It seemed incredible that a sane man could have har- bored such importunate emotions. He only longed for home, and love, and rest, and for the grave in which alone he could find them. On the fifth day, they struck the edge of winter, and passed under the cover of her snowy wing. The air became cold and bracing; the whistling winds sang of health; fine snow rattled against the deck, and door and window. The change was of in- calculable benefit to the poor, pale boy. New life began to stir within him, and he got up on his feet again, and strengthened and improved from hour to hour. He arose one morning, and found that they were lying moored at their journey's end. A deep snow had fallen in the night, and as the sun shone on the northern hills glittering in their white robes, he thought he had never seen so thrilling an expression of the pare beauty of winter. The Professor again tried to prevail on Auswurf to go with him, but the attempt was quite vain, and they parted. CHAPTER XV. BEGINNING OF THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE. Auswukuu went directly on, to the little valley where he had been born. He had no home, indeed, in this world, nor where to lay his head, but of all places on the earth, that was nearest his heart. There his mother had borne him in her bosom ; there the X forces of his own being throbbed like an artery in Nature's bared wrist; there his infancy had been nurtured ; and there, like his mother, he longed to rest at last. Snow lay on the ground six inches deep, but he trudged on through it, and, at last, just after night had fairly gathered in, he reached the rim of hills, and looked down into th6e valley. How bleak and white it looked, lying there in stillness, under the snow. Then, as he re- BEGINNING OF THE BEAUTIF UL LIFE. 529 membered that he was returning to it an outcast and a beggar, that he was worse than a stranger there, in that spot which he loved best, and that possibly he could not even find a place to lie down and die in peace, he felt that if he owned but a single rood of land around the cabin where his mother had lived, with even so small a spot he would be happier than a king. Going to the nearest cottage, whose light glimmered out dimly on the snow, almost eclipsed by its whiteness, and obtaining permis- sion to lodge that night beneath its roof, he sat down close to the wall, in the chimney-corner, and leaned his weary head on his one wasted hand, asking no questions, answering none; and thus he sat in unbroken stillness until bedtime. The next morning, he ascertained, to his great joy, that the cabin where his mother had lived was not only unoccupied but for rent. Before noon of that day he had secured it, and was established in it. It con- tained two little rooms. In tender recollection of the past, he furnished them both as nearly as possible like his mother had kept them. He strove to recall, in gentlest and mournful sensi- bility, the minutest details of her simple but wonderful economy, that he might copy them. It was an humble establishment; but his sublimest days on earth were spent there. The deep snow which had fallen lay on the ground for several weeks. Many of the simple-hearted farmers alled to see Ans- wurf in extreme kindliness, and repeated to him chldish prattle of his own, which melted now his older heart, and showed him afresh, by the light of his love for her, what his mother had been. But he returned none of the calls that were paid him, and with one exception went not abroad at all. Once he went to the city of X--, and retaining only what he considered justly his due, sent back to Mr. Claiborne a large portion of the money which ) the latter had surreptitiously paid him. He had no books to oc- cupy his time ; but even if he had had all the world contained, he would not have read. He had no pen, ink and paper. There was nothing he wished to write, or would ever try to write again, in this world. But day after day, and from hour to hour, he looked down into his own consciousness, reading the new and heavenly wonders which were revealed to his gaze-studying tab- lets there which no film or shadow covered. Into his mourn- ing eye the Father poured His bliss and grandeur; his conscious- ness mounted to its last complete and spiritual form; and the page: 530-531[View Page 530-531] 530 THE' STORY OF AN OUTCAST. once passionate and wonderful boy stood on the earth the final man, the child of God. His spiritual exercise was sight, not of the senses, indeed, but of the reason. He did not stop with the!" organization of sensa- tions," and call that initiatory step, knowledge. He knew that to do so is to be forced to conclude at last that we have no knowl- edge, even of the world of sense. He did not teach that our being is immortal and the Tnfinite a Father, because he wished it to be so, or because the opposite doctrine mocks the soul. He, who had struggled so powerfully against subjective necessi- ties, and had converted them from despotism into ministers of freedom and bliss, taught nothing which he did not know to be true. He knew the verity of the truths he saw, precisely as he knew the verity of the truths of science. One night, late in the winter, another figure in boy's apparel; with one attendant, came over the white hills, into the snow- wrapped valley. By the lavish use of money, but it seemed much more by instinct than by other means, the boy had already did- covered that Auswurf was there, and which was his cabin. Going directly to it, he then, for the first time, faltered in his holy pur- pose, and trudged back and forth in the snow, in terrible suspense. Then he went quickly to the door, opened it and entered. Aus- wurf, a peaceful hermit, sitting there by the firelight, bade the trembling lad welcome, and invited him to come near the hearth ; but the latter, keeping his face partially muffled up, remained standing in the middle of the floor. "I have not come," said he, to intrude upon you. I have only come to ask you to write for me one of those sweet, sad songs, like you used to write. " "That passionate fire has long since burned out, pale lad," said Auswurf, " and only ashes are left on the broken hearthl- stone. I can-write, shall write, no more. But you look ill, sweet lad; come near the fire and rest. If you are poor, you shall bo only the more welcome to share my humble store; and if you have a sorrow, you shall have sympathy and love to make it light. " "I am ill, and very poor; I should bless you for a crust of bread, if you gave it to me in love. I know not yet whether I have a sorrow, or only joy. But do not you, who have offered me your tender sympathy, need loving care and attendance, yourself? You look pale and sick, yet not unhappy. Oh! I hope that you are happy, and will soon be very well!" BEGINNING OF THE BEAJLT'lFUL LIFE. 531 Auswurf looked again, with amazed eyes, at the strange lad; then he sprang forward with a cry, and in an instant more held the wasted form of dying Urania in his arms. He drew an easy chair near the fire for her, brushed the snow from her almost fro- zen feet, and chafed her icy hands. "Oh! may God forever bless you, dear Selric," she said, " for this reception. I was afraid you would not receive me in the ten- derness and pity I so much need. I have come to you to die, beloved, and to hear from your lips, as the last sound of earth, the assurance of your tender love." ' And for your coming, may the Father forever bless you, most heavenly of His messengers," said Auswurf. "A sacrilegious age could forbid, by the horrors of its permission, that we should live together, but it cannot forbid that we shall die together. See, Urania, -bride of my spirit, how my fevered lip is yearning. 'Tis the holy sweetness of your kiss it pines for. Then, yield to its mute persuasion, and kiss me, Urania." "I was all alone," she continued ; "I have no father or mother, no sister or brother; in all the world I have only you, and I wished to come and die near you. I knew that I was right, be- cause the nearer death came, the stronger grew both my wish and my determination to come." "And after the remnant of our days on earth, death shall re- unite us, to live forever in the skies. You have been to me a gift and revelation from the infinite; and never, never more, my heavenly bride, in this or in any other world, can I surrender the light of love which your spotless robe has brought down out of heaven to me." "I knew, dear Selric, that you were not like other men; I knew that you did not despise what was your own, but that then you prized it most, when most it was your own. But I was afraid your duty-seeing spirit would refuse to speak to me, even on the brink of the grave, the words of present love and tenderness without which I cannot go away in peace." He then gave up his own room to her and Yarico, and took the other for himself. The next morning she was some better, and was very cheerful and happy, but she was still a great and constant sufferer, and her stay was evidently a question of hours, almost of moments. Day after day, Auswurf sat beside her, talking to her of the great page: 532-533[View Page 532-533] Oii THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. . truths of his own spiritual life, and whenever he ceased speaking she was unhappy till he began again. His stronger intellect had only to mark out theway, and her own followed and pointed out to him beauty and tenderness in the truth, of which he had not dreamed. She did not pass through struggle, conflict and growth; she could never have reached that sphere if he had not attracted her into it; if she had never loved the teacher, she had never loved his truth; but once awakened, she was his equal and coun- terpart, a revelation to him, as he was to her. Thus the days went on, until the snow had melted from the earth, the grass and early flowers came forth, and tender leaves began to green the forest. Then came two or three days of ;warm and beautiful sunshine, and the ground became dry enough for Urania, leaning on Auswurf with one arm, and Yarico with the other, to take a few steps-about the yard. One night they sat at the front door aad watched the Shadows which the cedars in the yard cast on the young grass, in the moonlight. The world was stillness, the air was balm, the firmament repose. She was sitting on his knee, folded to his breast like a- child. She looked out at the serene world, and only said: "How beautiful!"Then pres- ently she looked up into his face, and said : ' Tell me now, again, dear Selric, that you love me, and that when you come to me in heaven, your love Will still survive. " Hf e answered.: I know, thou heavenly one, that I love thee, forevermore." "Dear, dear Selric!" she murmured. At the words, she looked tenderly at him, and smiled as only the dying can smile in their happiness; her dear arms were about his neck; her face changed, there was a momentary shudder, and she was dead. Her beauti- ful and glorious spirit had gone to tell the angels of the first sad beginning of a nobler and holier life among the sons of men. She was buried the second day thereafter, in a picturesque spot near the little cabin, which she had already pointed out as the place where she preferred to sleep. And Auswurf remained there week after week, watching beside his dead, and longing for the hour when he should go to meet her beyond the skies. PHL HOWELL'S RECOMPENSE. 533 CHAPTER XVI. "PHL HOWELL'S RECOMPENSE. THREE years thereafter, Auswurf, still living, took the long journey to that far northwestern home, to see again his more than sisters, the Howells. How his heart fluttered as he came in sight of that dear homestead, -with its curling smoke! He hastened to the door, raised the latch, and in a moment more was in Miss Patience's arms. Her kisses rained upon his face, and her tears, no longer disguised by innocent pride, flowed freely down her withered cheeks. Miss Temperance was there, Miss Temperance no longer, but a happy wife and mother. Professor Surd, now a general officer in his country's service, at home on leave, as it was winter, embraced his beloved pupil of other days, and then, with his arm around his dear wife, told how, at last, in spite of his bashfulness, he had won her. Miss 1Mercy was not there; she was sleeping beneath the frozen sod. Tom and Mr. Harvey, and all the fixtures of the past, even the same horses, cows, outs and dogs as of old--how delighted Auswurf was to find them all there still. Then they lived the past over again in talking about it, and Auswurf thought he had never known such peace as then. As they sat around the fire that night, they talked of Phil Howell, and Auswurf longed to hear the whole of his melancholy story. "Tell me his story," said he to the Professor. "I He is my brother not less than yours, and I long to receive into the depths of my heart the secret of his noble life." "Then, listen," replied the Professor, " and I will tell you the sad story of poor Phil Howell. "Phil was a noble spirit from his very infancy. He was a brave and generous lad, always eager to take the part of the smaller boy in a fight, or to give his last penny to a beggar. He and I were inseparable companions in our boyhood, and I loved him like a brother. Our friendship increased with our years. We adopted the same profession, and happening to live in different Districts, though in the same neighborhood, we obtained appointments at the same time, and entered the same class at West Point. After graduating, we were both commissioned in the Engineer Corps and served together in 1Mexico, where I lost my arm. After the war was over, we were employed together on one of the light-houses on the eastern coast. Phil, a jovial fellow, and the delight of every page: 534-535[View Page 534-535] 534 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. circle he entered, went a great deal into society in the neighbor- ing city, and began to pay his addresses particularly to Miss W., a beautiful and accomplished girl, and at that time the reigning belle. It was said that she regarded Phil with no indifferent eye, and indeed she would have been a strange woman if she had done so. I never saw a man so qualified to captivate a woman's heart and fancy as Phil Howell was then. In the prime of early man- hood, with remarkable beauty of countenance and person, sin- gularlypolished manners, a free, dashing, intelligent speech, and a noble heart that was always expressing itself in action, he was a rare combination of the admirable, the piquant, and the lovable. I did not go into society; but rumors of Phil's progress in Miss W----'s esteem constantly reached my ears. One day I ventured to rally Phil about his aristocratic ladylove, and told him he must not fail to invite his uncouth and unsocial friend to the wedding. 'Ah, my friend,' said he, with a sigh,- 'she is certainly an admira- ble woman, beautiful, wealthy, accomplished, in a word a thou- sand times too good for me; but she and I will never marry. I cannot love her, and though I might possibl ble to marry her if I were villain enough to do so, I will never 1grade myself and insult and injure her by offering'her my hand without my heart.' 'But why don't you love her, Phil?' I asked. 'From your description it seems to me that it would be no great hardship.' 'I cannot,' said he pensively, 'love a woman who has never known misfortune. It is only misfortune that can produce a depth and strength of emotion, a capacity for loving, such as that woman must possess who becomes Phil Howell's wife. It must be a deep -and eternal affection that could satisfy my heart. -Worthy as this lady is of all honor and esteem, her life has been so uniformly prosperous that the emotional part of her nature is fallow land. She cannot love, because she does not know how.' 'Phil,'said I, 'you are growing ridiculously sentimental; don't let your sillyro- mancing cost you your life's happiness.' He made no reply. "Very soon after that I resigned, and went to teaching. I saw nothing of Phil for five years. I had charge of a seminary near our old home when Phil came back there, and I met him one day pale, sick and dejected. He was not long in explaining to me the cause of the sad change. An unprincipled man of the world, named S., had vainly aspired to Miss W.'s hand, and knowing the peculiar weakness of Phil's generous and chivalrous heart, laid the best of PHL HOWELL'S RECOMPENSE. 535 all possible schemes to rid himself of his most dangerous rival. He threw into Phil's way a young girl, who fell at his feet with sighs and tears, told him a pathetic story, and implored him to remove her from the accursedroof where her innocence was hourly threatened with destruction. This was taking poor Phil in a de- fenceless part. He at once told her to dry her tears, for she had - found a friend. He little knew, poor boy, that he was laying his head in the lap of a Delilah who would shear him of all his strength. He provided for her an elegant home, paidher board, spent a portion of each day in her society, and conducted himself towards her in the most respectful and delicate manner. By this time, the en- chantress had completely bound him with her chain, and he was her willing captive. She was young, in appearance scarcely more than a child, beautiful, sprightly and unfortunate. Nothing more was needed to secure the whole heart of the generous, romantic Phil. Her beauty held him spellbound; her intelli- gence surprised and pleased him; her youth and apparent art- lessness delighted him, and her misfortunes touched him. He sent her to school three years, and at the end of that time mar- ried her. Meanwhile he had given up all thought of Miss W., in fact never went into society at all, and S. bore away the prize. Phil had been married two years and had not yet awakentd from the spell. He found, 'tis true, that his mife possessed an impe- rious and irascible temper, a violent and abusive tongue, and certain grovelling instincts, mere blemishes, as he deemed them, which pained him deeply. But he referred them to her defective education, and hoped that time and riper experience would cure them. He even comforted himself with the ridiculous notion current among men, that a high-tempered woman is more apt to be rigidly virtuous than an amiable one. Poor deluded Phil! "One evening, returning unexpectedly from a journey of some length, he found his wife in the arms of the scoundrel S., who had seduced her, and then conspired with her against her hus- band. Phil flew at him with the fury of a tiger, and left him for :dead, upon the floor. He thenvented on his faithless wife torrents of reproach, and bitter curses. She knew that the spellwas broken, and her influence gone forever; that he would never look upon her more. She therefore bade him defiance to his teeth, coolly gave him all the particulars of the connection between herself and S., and of the plot by which they had entrapped him as a con- page: 536-537[View Page 536-537] 536 THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. temptible weakling, and added the gratifying intelligence that their commerce had been kept up, not only during the two years of her married life, but also during the three years of her stay at school, when Phil, her chivalrous benefactor, would have died rather than approach her with an impure suggestion. "Phil left her forever, resigned his place in the service, snd came home, the picture of despair. I alone, of all the world, shared his sorrow with him, He had never informed his friends of his marriage. Too noble and ingenuous to deceive them as to the standing of his wife, too considerate and devoted to her to subject her to the contumely which would follow a full acknowledgment, he had kept his marriage a secret. During the two years of his married life, the infatuated man never visited his family, nor re- ceived a visit from them, never wrote to them, and did not' seem to care whether they were living or dead. He now became very retired in his manner of living, and took to books to cheer his soli- tude and relieve his mind. About this time he became skeptical; r but after a number of years his views underwent a change, and he became an humble, pious and devoted believer. "At this time I was called to the chair of mathematics, and afterwards to that of Natural Science, at the University. I had heard nothing of Phil for some years, when I received a letter from him stating that his time on earth was short, and urging me by all that I held sacred to comie to him at once, as he had matters of great importance to lay before me. I hastened to this place, and found him stretched upon the bed from which he never rose. I tried to rally him, and assured him that he was only melancholy, not sick. He shook his head, and said melancholy like his was the worst of all sickness, that his days were numbered,.und that he longed to die. He then fold me that he had bought, with his own money; and that of his noble and tru'sting sisters, a large body of land here, which he wished dedicated to as noble a purpose as ever inspired the heart of mian. He saw that war was coming, arid emancipation with it; and what he wished was that the poor, wronged creatures whom his father had once set free, but whom his father's sons and daughters had re-enslaved, should be gathered up, and settled here in homes of their own. He confided the exe- cution of his plan to me, and made me bring him the Evangelists, and swear to respect his injunctions. He repeated the oath before J me, and my blood fairly ran cold as I called upon heaven to inflict t I! . * rPHL HOWELL'S BRECOMPENSE. 537 the terrible curses which he made the penalty of disobedience. As I pronounced ' So help me God,' he said impressively, 'I know how apt the wishes of dead men are to be disregarded, especially in cases like this. But, oh, my friend, I cannot bear the thought that those poor creatures shall not be righted, and receive some portion of their own again at last. Myfvrnd, it is a solemn thing to disregard a dead man's wishes. Tnk of the pale offended ghost hovering around the path of the delinquent, nursing in the centre of its shadowy essence the flame of malice, and ready to fly at him, and tear the flesh from his bones. Think of its meeting him at the bar of God, and covering him with curses bitter as wormwood, as an apostate and a traitor. Well as I love you now, if you fail me in this last desire of my heart, I shall pursue you with unrelenting hatred to your dying day!' Again and again I promised compliance. Again and again, during the few days that remained to him, he reverted to the subject in tones of the deep- est and most touching solicitude. His last words, as soul-weary and broken he lay in my arms, and peacefully breathed out his life, were: 'Remember-justice.' "Ihave kept mypromise to him. 'The fortunes of war and the decree of God have again struck the shackles off those twice en- slaved. I have succeeded in bringing all of. them to this country, and they are now settled in homes of their own, on the land which Phil provided. And if Phil Howell's spirit be permitted- to behold- the scenes of earth, I can imagine him watching over the settle- ment of his freedmen, anxiously regarding their simple husbandry, and imploring the smile of 'God upon their humble beginnings." "O dear Phil," cried Hiss Patience, when the recital was done, "poor no longer, but rich in the love of God, how I too long to pass away, and be with you. Poor, maimed and childless-I who have so many loved ones in heaven-why should I wish to bear pain and sorrow longer? No, I long to go and be with Phil; and when the rest of you shall come, you will find us onethe radiant shore, to welcome you." ' F Then Auswurf laid a hand on either of her withered cheeks, and kissed her many times, telling her that she was not childless, for that he was her child, and that he hoped soon to stand on that shore with her, and know-her noble brother face to face. The ,next day thereafter, and every subsequent day during his stay, Auswurf went with the Professor to visit the colony of freedmen. 23* ' page: 538-539[View Page 538-539] And When he saw their industry, their eagerness for knowledge, their sincere desire to acquit themselves well in their new part, as he had often seen the same traits in other freedmen, he felt more than ever convinced that history, in rendering her verdict on the events of these and yet future days, will have only pity, affection and sincere esteem for that unhappy race, and reserve all her con- damnation for those who once enslaved, and always wronged them. But of all the sights, that Auswurf saw during that last visit, the most thoroughly pleasing and .enjoyable was the Professor in the role of father. He could never think of that sight afterwards, to the last hour of his life, without a perfect glow of droll delight. The Professor was never happy for a moment unless he had his "boy" on his lap-its name was Selrie Auswurf aurd-and when he had it there, he knew no more how to hold it, or what to do with it, than if it had been an elephant. He rarely had it five minutes without hurting it in some way by his awkwardness; and N hen he had set it to crying, he wouldJsay in the most innocent and uterly nonplussed manner imaginable: " ly dear, hadn't you better take'him? He is certainly the most extraordinary child I Auswurf, don't you 'tWink he is a most extraordinary hild?"P And Auswurf would laugh, and laugh again, and say that if the child wasn't, it surely ought to be. So, at last, that happy visit came to a close, and Auswuxf part- 3d from them forever. CHAPTER XVII. SCNA ATONAL, BE REBE mNETIW." ON his way back to his post, Auswurf stopped a day or tro in e city of a---, and Jenkins made haste to announce the fact. 'nenight, as he sat in his room, there cameatap athisdoor. The isitor was no less a personage than the exquisite Tobe, a shade . Ider, 'ts true, but otherwise much the same as when he met the itcasts at the door of Druid Hill, that night in the long ago. We saw your 'stinguished 'rival in the paper, sah," said he. The boss is about to make his last conchshell, and he wants to i e you, sah, before he goes. Mistress, she says, for God's sake me quick, sah, for there is not a minute to lose." A lAjlUlYNAL bsU^V DvilY'riAl. N Ai "Do you mean that your master is ill?" "s That's the way a common niggah would have told it, sah." "What disease has he?" . "Whiskey, sah. I tell you confidentially, sah, hoping you will say nothing about it, for it would disgrace us all, sah, if it got out. But his disease is whiskey, sah, and his copper is burnt out, sah." Tobe had brought a carriage for Auswurf, and in a moment more they were on the road. As they drove along, Auswurf /asked : "Do the physicians say your master will not recover?" "' We didn't send for a octor, sah. The boss has had lots of such spells, sah. The first one he had, we sent for a doctor; but when the boss got well, he gave us such a raking down, that we never made that blunder again. Nobody knows that the boss is much sick, sah, but me and mistress. We kept it from the com- mon niggahs, sah ; common niggahs can't keep a secret, sah, and they have got no business knowing about such things, sah." "Of what does your master complain?" C"Of pneumony, sah, and a cold sweat a-rolling off him in drops as big as the end of my little fingah, sah. My little fingah is not very big, sah--not like common niggah's fingahs." They were soon at Druid Hill. The front door was unlocked, and a feeble light was burnmg in the hall. As he groped his way up the dimly lighted stairs, A^ljurf heard the great clock in the dining-room strike twelve, as he had often heard it strike that same hour in the long-ago. He went on softly up the steps, and entered Mrs. Greed's room, the same from which Jane Phipps had come down that night, to drive the beggars from the house; but how changed were all things since then! Mrs. Greed was standing by the bed, gazing fixedly at its dying occupant. The broken lines of her haggard yet resolute face looked like seams in iron. Auswurf entered so noiselessly, that she was not aware of his presence till he stood beside her. A single lamp, turned well down, was burning in the room, and cast the huge shadows of the furniture against the walls. The heavy bed-curtains were looped up, and the Doctor, fearfully changed, lay there, unmistakably near death. "I am afraid you have come too late," said lMrs. Greed, the composure of her voice and manner contrasting terribly with the pallor of her haggard face. "There was something weighty on his mind, about which he wished to speak to you, yet he shrank page: 540-541[View Page 540-541] from sending for you. He gave and countermanded the order several times, until, an hour ago, he implored me to have you brought at once, for he knew his hour was come. " At that moment, Tobe came in. "Did you put the horses away-the horses-yourself, Tobe ?" she asked. "I did, madame," replied Tobe, with a Parsian air. "For your sake, madame, I turned hostler myself, and did not wake the common niggahs." The sound of voices roused the Doctor; he recognized Auswurf and tried to speak. He struggled again and again, but could ut- ter no intelligible sound. He then made signs for writing.ate- r4als. They were brought, and he grasped the pencil eagerly, but his hand, trembling as if smitten with the'palsy, refused to hold the pencil, and it dropped from his powerless fingers. It was given him again, and he grasped it tight in his clenched fist, brought it with difficulty to the paper, and scrawled a zigzag line across the page. Auswurf took the paper, but could not decipher a single word, and shook his head in token of his inability to do so. Then the Doctor made another powerful effort to speak. "Your uncle," he whispered-- I lied--I wronged you-ask Screw, the lawyer. The audible words were drowned out in an uncertain gurgle, a spasm shook his frame, and he was dead. And thus he died-the divine, the statesman--from rum, unattended, furtively, lest the world should get a whisper of his damning fault. Mrs. Greed stood motionless, looking at the face of her dead husband, and then said in a hollow voice: "So he is gone. I will not weep. I am glad that he is dead. The life he led me, the shame, the misery he has brought on me, no tongue can tell." She was silent a moment, then still looking at him tearlessly, con- tinued: "Yet I loved him once, with a love that made me his slave. With the foolish fondness of an unloved old woman for a younger husband, I doted on- him. He saw the advantage my weakness gave him, and he used it remorselessly. But he is gone now, with all his faults upon his head; 'tis not for me, who have loved him, to speak ill of him." Again she was silent for a mo- ment, then with her stony gaze still fixed on his face, continued "A weak and foolish thing is the heart of an old woman; yet what heart is not full of waywardness and contradictions ? I do not think my.love for him was all folly. Many a younger and more handsome woman than I was, loved him. He appeared to A NATIONAL BEREAVEMENT. . 641 be so pious, so zealous, so disinterested, so blameless. It was not singular that I, with the consciousness of guilt upon me, should love and wish to marry so good a man. I thought that to have him" near me would cure every pang of conscience; remorse, surely, could not gnaw my heart when he was by me ; I regarded him with superstitious awe and reverence. I was rich and high- born; he was poor and of a low family; yet I felt that he was stooping to marryme. But I soon found that poor, miserable, sinful wretch as I was, he was even more wicked and depraved. But why do I complain? It is the way of nature; Fate, wet to her armpits in the'blood of murdered Hope, crashes us all at last, and then brooding sorrow makes us moralists until reason sur- prises moping Fancy in the nest of Folly, and drives her thence. God pity him, and pity us all. I hope: he rests in peace, and I shall soon follow him. "Yet it is consoling to reflect that, wheatever my other crimes may be, to him I have been faithful and true. Even after I ceased to love him, I was the willing slave of all his whims. I have nursed him through many illnesses like this, and am glad that I have attended him on his death-bed. Be careful of his reputation, Selric Auswurf; conceal his faults, as I have done; when asked of what disease he died, say it was pneumonia, and that he would not have a physician." Then she withdrew. And Auswurf thought; "How grandly a discipline of real sorrow has brought out the truth and strength of her nature, and cut down her faults. How rich a blessing has it been to her; how different is she to-day from what she ever was before!" Auswurf, assisted only by Tobe, prepared the body for burial, and watched through the slowly waning hours beside the stiff re- mains. The silent pall, and the thought of who lay beneath--the one dim lamp and the long black shadows-he remembered for- ever. The servants were aroused, and sent around to inform the neighbors of the Doctor's death. By daylight a few of the nearest called, with offers of service. On the morning of the second day, the dead man was taken to the church where he had used to preach; a fulsome eulogy was pronounced, amid the sighs and tears of an immense congregation; the organ sobbed elegies above his cold dust, and then a vast concourse of sorrowing people fol- lowed him to the grave. The public prints were filled for days with biographies of the- great and good man, and with lamentai page: 542-543[View Page 542-543] tions for his untimely fall. Auswurf helped consign his body to the earth, and then, after all the others had departed, retained long there beside the grave in sorrowful and forgiving medita- tion. We last left the living Doctor at that interesting point in his history where his loyalty had just established itself before the world in the decisive declaration: "The Abolitionists are d--d strong. " Straightway, his disinterested patriotism was rewarded with a first-class appointment-the highest perch he had yet reached. Government contracts, trade and cotton permits, and kindred appliances, swelled his coffers and strengthened his loyal hands. The true patriotism of the Border struggled on, as of old, beneath its burden of indigence and obscurity, in the bos- oms of God's poor, while this cormorant was assiduously gorged with public plunder. It was the crowning work of his life, ere he sank into a drunk- ard's grave, .to evoke a new stench out of the word politician, and to impart to corruption a latitude and rottenness never be- fore witnessed on the earth. He sold his influence to whoever would buy it, and to refuse to buy it was the beginning of the ruin of the recusant. He walked the streets with murder in his right hand, and slept at night between the sheets of pecula- tion and venality. He had many innocent, or at worst misguided, victims hung, shot, imprisoned, or banished, while scores that should have suffered enjoyed their freedom, and as much of their property as his rapacity left them. He opened a place in the cal- endar for Saint Verres, and bleached by the contrast of his mal- ice and corruption every page of the book of human shame. As Auswurf.turned away from the grave, he saw an old man coming towards him, led by Mr. Screw, the lawyer. A"ire you sure there is no mistake ?" asked the old man. "This is he, sir ;" answered Mr. Screw. "In heaven's name, who are you, sir ?" asked Auswurf, as he looked upon a face which was. the counterpart of his dead mother's. "If this is still earth, and I do not dream," said the old man, I am your uncle, an unhappy and remorseful old man, who helped to drive your mother to her death, and who for years have lived for nothing but to find you and her." Then he told Aus- wurf the full story of the past. "But she," he added, "she A NATIONAL BEREAVEMENT. 543 who should have lived to see this day, is gone, and can never lay upon my burning tongue that water of forgiveness which alone can cool it.'- "' Reproach not yourself, sir. You have only accomplished the purposes of heaven. For myself, I thank you above all things for what you did. And doubt not that she who is gone awry, is bending over us from heaven to-day, thanking and forgiving you as I have done." "At least the reparation is equal to the injury," replied the old man. "Your father is dead, and to you descend his titles and estates. I am the last of my family, and my name will die with me; but I am very rich, and you will be my heir." "'I am no man's heir, sir, and never shall be. To the money r you speak of I have no right; I did not earn it; none of it is mine; no doubt 'twas plundered from the poor by the strong hand of power in ages past; and I can never touch it." "But is yours by law." "That amounts to nothing, sir." "If your mother were living, a very large share of this wealth would be hers; that much, at least, even the nicest scruples can- not object to receiving." "What my mother despised and ran away from, is not fit for me, her son, to have." "Have you ambition? You shall stand on the tallest heights of power. Do you thirst for knowledge? You- shall have full access to the crystal wave. Do you love society? You shall have the first minds of Europe for companions, and shall be the familiar friend of noble men and beautiful women. All the joys that rank and wealth can confer shall be yours." "I have no ambition for this world, and all the advantages you mention are but a handful of sand compared with what I already have in my lowliness. The offer of the sovereignty of the world could not tempt me to leave this land. True, my race is nearly run, but my destiny is here, and here I will remain till death. I know well what awaits me; but its bitterness is sweet when God, our Father, bids me drink it. I care nothing for either the scorn or the neglect of my countrymen, since these must be. I care only that I may save them from every woe which it is still possible to avert; I care only that I may serve God, our Father, and His truth. Borne down by poverty and many sorrows, I shall page: 544-545[View Page 544-545] O oLV-tUS ' AIN OUTCAST, labor on, as I find or can make opportunity, until the release of death shall come. And, O Father, wilt Thou not at last give one holy and peaceful smile even to 'me, the lowliest of all Thy babes?" And if any would know more of him, who was at once Titan and Outcast, what his opinions were, what holy- truth dwelt in him, all that he suffered, and how he died, there is already in the world a book, that will tell you. THE .ND A Catalogue of BOOK Si ISSUED BY G W. CARLETON & CO., Pu3blishers, NEw YORK. C " Is 6 7. - page: 546-547 (Advertisement) [View Page 546-547 (Advertisement) ] There is a kind of physiognomy in th tiles of books no less than in the faces of * men, by which a-skilful observer zvll know as well what to ex- pectfrom the oneas the otier."--BUTLER. \ * NEW- BOOKS And New Editions Recently Published by G. W. CARLETON & CO., NEW YORK. IMSOUl1 W. CARLSTQ(N. HENRY f A]LsK N B -THB PUBLISHER, upon receipt of the price in advance, will send .ny of the following Books by mail, POSTAGE FREE, to any part of the United States. Thie convenient and very safe mode may be adopted when the neighboring Booksellen are not supplied with the desired work. State name and address in full victor Hugo. 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