← catalogue

Sevenoaks: A Story of Today

by J. G. Holland · English · Gutenberg #15214 · 831,938 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sevenoaks: A Story of Today
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Sevenoaks: A Story of Today

Author: J. G. Holland


        
Release date: March 1, 2005 [eBook #15214]
                Most recently updated: December 14, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15214

Credits: E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Josephine Paolucci, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVENOAKS: A STORY OF TODAY ***


E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Josephine Paolucci, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team



SEVENOAKS

A Story of Today

by

J.G. HOLLAND

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
Published by Arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons

1875







CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.

  Which tells about Sevenoaks, and how Miss Butterworth passed one of
  her evenings

  CHAPTER II.

  Mr. Belcher carries his point at the town-meeting, and the poor are
  knocked down to Thomas Buffum

  CHAPTER III.

  In which Jim Fenton is introduced to the reader and introduces himself to
  Miss Butterworth

  CHAPTER IV.

  In which Jim Fenton applies for lodgings at Tom Buffum's boarding-house,
  and finds his old friend

  CHAPTER V.

  In which Jim enlarges his accommodations and adopts a violent method
  of securing boarders

  CHAPTER VI.

  In which Sevenoaks experiences a great commotion, and comes to the
  conclusion that Benedict has met with foul play

  CHAPTER VII.

  In which Jim and Mike Conlin pass through a great trial and come out
  victorious

  CHAPTER VIII.

  In which Mr. Belcher visits New York, and becomes the Proprietor of
  "Palgrave's Folly."

  CHAPTER IX.

  Mrs. Talbot gives her little dinner party, and Mr. Belcher makes an
  exceedingly pleasant acquaintance

  CHAPTER X.

  Which tells how a lawyer spent his vacation in camp, and took home a
  specimen of game that he had never before found in the woods

  CHAPTER XI.

  Which records Mr. Belcher's connection with a great speculation and
  brings to a close his residence in Sevenoaks

  CHAPTER XII.

  In which Jim enlarges his plans for a house, and completes his plans for
  a house-keeper

  CHAPTER XIII.

  Which introduces several residents of Sevenoaks to the Metropolis and
  a new character to the reader

  CHAPTER XIV.

  Which tells of a great public meeting in Sevenoaks, the burning in effigy
  of Mr. Belcher, and that gentleman's interview with a reporter

  CHAPTER XV.

  Which tells about Mrs. Dillingham's Christmas and the New Year's
  Reception at the Palgrave Mansion

  CHAPTER XVI.

  Which gives an account of a voluntary and an involuntary visit of Sam
  Yates to Number Nine

  CHAPTER XVII.

  In which Jim constructs two happy-Davids, raises his hotel, and dismisses
  Sam Yates

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  In which Mrs. Dillingham makes some important discoveries, but fails to
  reveal them to the reader

  CHAPTER XIX.

  In which Mr. Belcher becomes President of the Crooked Valley Railroad,
  with large "Terminal facilities," and makes an adventure into a
  long-meditated crime

  CHAPTER XX.

  In which "the little woman" announces her engagement to Jim Fenton
  and receives the congratulations of her friends

  CHAPTER XXI.

  In which Jim gets the furniture into his house, and Mike Conlin gets
  another installment of advice into Jim

  CHAPTER XXII.

  In which Jim gets married, the new hotel receives its mistress, and
  Benedict confers a power of attorney

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  In which Mr. Belcher expresses his determination to become a "founder,"
  but drops his noun in fear of a little verb of the same name

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  Wherein the General leaps the bounds of law, finds himself in a new
  world, and becomes the victim of his friends without knowing it

  CHAPTER XXV.

  In which the General goes through a great many trials, and meets at last
  the one he has so long anticipated

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  In which the case of "Benedict _vs._ Belcher" finds itself in court, an
  interesting question of identity is settled, and a mysterious
  disappearance takes place

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  In which Phipps is not to be found, and the General is called upon to do
  his own lying

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  In which a heavenly witness appears who cannot be cross-examined, and
  before which the defense utterly breaks down

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  Wherein Mr. Belcher, having exhibited his dirty record, shows a clean
  pair of heels

  CHAPTER XXX.

  Which gives the history of an anniversary, presents a tableau, and drops
  the curtain





CHAPTER I.

WHICH TELLS ABOUT SEVENOAKS, AND HOW MISS BUTTERWORTH PASSED ONE OF HER
EVENINGS.


Everybody has seen Sevenoaks, or a hundred towns so much like it, in
most particulars, that a description of any one of them would present it
to the imagination--a town strung upon a stream, like beads upon a
thread, or charms upon a chain. Sevenoaks was richer in chain than
charms, for its abundant water-power was only partially used. It
plunged, and roared, and played, and sparkled, because it had not half
enough to do. It leaped down three or four cataracts in passing through
the village; and, as it started from living springs far northward among
the woods and mountains, it never failed in its supplies.

Few of the people of Sevenoaks--thoughtless workers, mainly--either knew
or cared whence it came, or whither it went. They knew it as "The
Branch;" but Sevenoaks was so far from the trunk, down to which it sent
its sap, and from which it received no direct return, that no
significance was attached to its name. But it roared all day, and roared
all night, summer and winter alike, and the sound became a part of the
atmosphere. Resonance was one of the qualities of the oxygen which the
people breathed, so that if, at any midnight moment, the roar had been
suddenly hushed, they would have waked with a start and a sense of
suffocation, and leaped from their beds.

Among the charms that dangled from this liquid chain--depending from the
vest of a landscape which ended in a ruffle of woods toward the north,
overtopped by the head of a mountain--was a huge factory that had been
added to from time to time, as necessity demanded, until it had become
an imposing and not uncomely pile. Below this were two or three
dilapidated saw-mills, a grist-mill in daily use, and a fulling-mill--a
remnant of the old times when homespun went its pilgrimage to town--to
be fulled, colored, and dressed--from all the sparsely settled country
around.

On a little plateau by the side of The Branch was a row of stores and
dram-shops and butchers' establishments. Each had a sort of square,
false front, pierced by two staring windows and a door, that reminded
one of a lion _couchant_--very large in the face and very thin in the
flank. Then there were crowded in, near the mill, little rows of
one-story houses, occupied entirely by operatives, and owned by the
owner of the mill. All the inhabitants, not directly connected with the
mill, were as far away from it as they could go. Their houses were set
back upon either acclivity which rose from the gorge that the stream had
worn, dotting the hill-sides in every direction. There was a clumsy
town-hall, there were three or four churches, there was a high school
and a low tavern. It was, on the whole, a village of importance, but the
great mill was somehow its soul and center. A fair farming and grazing
country stretched back from it eastward and westward, and Sevenoaks was
its only home market.

It is not proposed, in this history, to tell where Sevenoaks was, and is
to-day. It may have been, or may be, in Maine, or New Hampshire, or
Vermont, or New York. It was in the northern part of one of these
States, and not far from the border of a wilderness, almost as deep and
silent as any that can be found beyond the western limit of settlement
and civilization. The red man had left it forever, but the bear, the
deer and the moose remained. The streams and lakes were full of trout;
otter and sable still attracted the trapper, and here and there a
lumberman lingered alone in his cabin, enamored of the solitude and the
wild pursuits to which a hardly gentler industry had introduced him.
Such lumber as could be drifted down the streams had long been cut and
driven out, and the woods were left to the hunter and his prey, and to
the incursions of sportsmen and seekers for health, to whom the rude
residents became guides, cooks, and servants of all work, for the sake
of occasional society, and that ever-serviceable consideration--money.

There were two establishments in Sevenoaks which stood so far away from
the stream that they could hardly be described as attached to it.
Northward, on the top of the bleakest hill in the region, stood the
Sevenoaks poor-house. In dimensions and population, it was utterly out
of proportion to the size of the town, for the people of Sevenoaks
seemed to degenerate into paupers with wonderful facility. There was one
man in the town who was known to be getting rich, while all the rest
grew poor. Even the keepers of the dram-shops, though they seemed to do
a thriving business, did not thrive. A great deal of work was done, but
people were paid very little for it. If a man tried to leave the town
for the purpose of improving his condition, there was always some
mortgage on his property, or some impossibility of selling what he had
for money, or his absolute dependence on each day's labor for each day's
bread, that stood in the way. One by one--sick, disabled, discouraged,
dead-beaten--they drifted into the poor-house, which, as the years went
on, grew into a shabby, double pile of buildings, between which ran a
county road.

This establishment was a county as well as a town institution, and,
theoretically, one group of its buildings was devoted to the reception
of county paupers, while the other was assigned to the poor of
Sevenoaks. Practically, the keeper of both mingled his boarders
indiscriminately, to suit his personal convenience.

The hill, as it climbed somewhat abruptly from the western bank of the
stream--it did this in the grand leisure of the old geologic
centuries--apparently got out of breath and sat down when its task was
half done. Where it sat, it left a beautiful plateau of five or six
acres, and from this it rose, and went on climbing, until it reached the
summit of its effort, and descended the other side. On the brow of this
plateau stood seven huge oaks which the chopper's axe, for some reason
or another, had spared; and the locality, in all the early years of
settlement, was known by the name of "The Seven Oaks." They formed a
notable landmark, and, at last, the old designation having been worn by
usage, the town was incorporated with the name of Sevenoaks, in a single
word.

On this plateau, the owner of the mill, Mr. Robert Belcher--himself an
exceptional product of the village--had built his residence--a large,
white, pretentious dwelling, surrounded and embellished by all the
appointments of wealth. The house was a huge cube, ornamented at its
corners and cornices with all possible flowers of a rude architecture,
reminding one of an elephant, that, in a fit of incontinent playfulness,
had indulged in antics characteristic of its clumsy bulk and brawn.
Outside were ample stables, a green-house, a Chinese pagoda that was
called "the summer-house," an exquisite garden and trees, among which
latter were carefully cherished the seven ancient oaks that had given
the town its name.

Robert Belcher was not a gentleman. He supposed himself to be one, but
he was mistaken. Gentlemen of wealth usually built a fine house; so Mr.
Belcher built one. Gentlemen kept horses, a groom and a coachman; Mr.
Belcher did the same. Gentlemen of wealth built green-houses for
themselves and kept a gardener; Mr. Belcher could do no less. He had no
gentlemanly tastes, to be sure, but he could buy or hire these for
money; so he bought and hired them; and when Robert Belcher walked
through his stables and jested with his men, or sauntered into his
green-house and about his grounds, he rubbed his heavy hands together,
and fancied that the costly things by which he had surrounded himself
were the insignia of a gentleman.

From his windows he could look down upon the village, all of which he
either owned or controlled. He owned the great mill; he owned the
water-privilege; he owned many of the dwellings, and held mortgages on
many others; he owned the churches, for all purposes practical to
himself; he owned the ministers--if not, then this was another mistake
that he had made. So long as it was true that they could not live
without him, he was content with his title. He patronized the church,
and the church was too weak to decline his ostentatious courtesy. He
humiliated every man who came into his presence, seeking a subscription
for a religious or charitable purpose, but his subscription was always
sought, and as regularly obtained. Humbly to seek his assistance for any
high purpose was a concession to his power, and to grant the assistance
sought was to establish an obligation. He was willing to pay for
personal influence and personal glory, and he often paid right royally.

Of course, Mr. Belcher's residence had a library; all gentlemen have
libraries. Mr. Belcher's did not contain many books, but it contained a
great deal of room for them. Here he spent his evenings, kept his papers
in a huge safe built into the wall, smoked, looked down on the twinkling
village and his huge mill, counted his gains and constructed his
schemes. Of Mrs. Belcher and the little Belchers, he saw but little. He
fed and dressed them well, as he did his horses. All gentlemen feed and
dress their dependents well. He was proud of his family as he saw them
riding in their carriage. They looked gay and comfortable, and were, as
he thought, objects of envy among the humbler folk of the town, all of
which reflected pleasantly upon himself.

On a late April evening, of a late spring in 18--, he was sitting in
his library, buried in a huge easy chair, thinking, smoking, scheming.
The shutters were closed, the lamps were lighted, and a hickory fire was
blazing upon the hearth. Around the rich man were spread the luxuries
which his wealth had bought--the velvet carpet, the elegant chairs, the
heavy library table, covered with costly appointments, pictures in broad
gold frames, and one article of furniture that he had not been
accustomed to see in a gentleman's library--an article that sprang out
of his own personal wants. This was an elegant pier-glass, into whose
depths he was accustomed to gaze in self-admiration. He was flashily
dressed in a heavy coat, buff waistcoat, and drab trousers. A gold chain
of fabulous weight hung around his neck and held his Jurgensen repeater.

He rose and walked his room, and rubbed his hands, as was his habit;
then paused before his mirror, admired his robust figure and large face,
brushed his hair back from his big brow, and walked on again. Finally,
he paused before his glass, and indulged in another habit peculiar to
himself.

"Robert Belcher," said he, addressing the image in the mirror, "you are
a brick! Yes, sir, you are a brick! You, Robert Belcher, sir, are an
almighty smart man. You've outwitted the whole of 'em. Look at me, sir!
Dare you tell me, sir, that I am not master of the situation? Ah! you
hesitate; it is well! They all come to me, every man of 'em It is 'Mr.
Belcher, will you be so good?' and 'Mr. Belcher, I hope you are very
well,' and 'Mr. Belcher, I want you to do better by me.' Ha! ha! ha! ha!
My name is Norval. It isn't? Say that again and I'll throttle you! Yes,
sir, I'll shake your rascally head off your shoulders! Down, down in the
dust, and beg my pardon! It is well; go! Get you gone, sir, and remember
not to beard the lion in his den!"

Exactly what this performance meant, it would be difficult to say. Mr.
Belcher, in his visits to the city, had frequented theaters and admired
the villains of the plays he had seen represented. He had noticed
figures upon the boards that reminded him of his own. His addresses to
his mirror afforded him an opportunity to exercise his gifts of
speech and action, and, at the same time, to give form to his
self-gratulations. They amused him; they ministered to his preposterous
vanity. He had no companions in the town, and the habit gave him a sense
of society, and helped to pass away his evenings. At the close of his
effort he sat down and lighted another cigar. Growing drowsy, he laid it
down on a little stand at his side, and settled back in his chair for a
nap. He had hardly shut his eyes when there came a rap upon his door.

"Come in!"

"Please, sir," said a scared-looking maid, opening the door just wide
enough to make room for her face.

"Well?" in a voice so sharp and harsh that the girl cringed.

"Please, sir, Miss Butterworth is at the door, and would like to see
you."

Now, Miss Butterworth was the one person in all Sevenoaks who was not
afraid of Robert Belcher. She had been at the public school with him
when they were children; she had known every circumstance of his
history; she was not dependent on him in any way, and she carried in her
head an honest and fearless tongue. She was an itinerant tailoress, and
having worked, first and last, in nearly every family in the town, she
knew the circumstances of them all, and knew too well the connection of
Robert Belcher with their troubles and reverses. In Mr. Belcher's
present condition of self-complacency and somnolency, she was not a
welcome visitor. Belligerent as he had been toward his own image in the
mirror, he shrank from meeting Keziah Butterworth, for he knew
instinctively that she had come with some burden of complaint.

"Come in," said Mr. Belcher to his servant, "and shut the door behind
you."

The girl came in, shut the door, and waited, leaning against it.

"Go," said her master in a low tone, "and tell Mrs. Belcher that I am
busy, and that she must choke her off. I can't see her to-night. I can't
see her."

The girl retired, and soon afterward Mrs. Belcher came, and reported
that she could do nothing with Miss Butterworth--that Miss Butterworth
was determined to see him before she left the house.

"Bring her in; I'll make short work with her."

As soon as Mrs. Belcher retired, her husband hurried to the mirror,
brushed his hair back fiercely, and then sat down to a pile of papers
that he always kept conveniently upon his library table.

"Come in," said Mr. Belcher, in his blandest tone, when Miss Butterworth
was conducted to his room.

"Ah! Keziah?" said Mr. Belcher, looking up with a smile, as if an
unexpected old friend had come to him.

"My name is Butterworth, and it's got a handle to it,' said that
bumptious lady, quickly.

"Well, but, Keziah, you know we used to--"

"My name is Butterworth, I tell you, and it's got a handle to it."

"Well, Miss Butterworth--happy to see you--hope you are well--take a
chair."

"Humph," exclaimed Miss Butterworth, dropping down upon the edge of a
large chair, whose back felt no pressure from her own during the
interview. The expression of Mr. Belcher's happiness in seeing her, and
his kind suggestion concerning her health, had overspread Miss
Butterworth's countenance with a derisive smile, and though she was
evidently moved to tell him that he lied, she had reasons for
restraining her tongue.

They formed a curious study, as they sat there together, during the
first embarrassing moments. The man had spent his life in schemes for
absorbing the products of the labor of others. He was cunning, brutal,
vain, showy, and essentially vulgar, from his head to his feet, in
every fiber of body and soul. The woman had earned with her own busy
hands every dollar of money she had ever possessed. She would not have
wronged a dog for her own personal advantage. Her black eyes, lean and
spirited face, her prematurely whitening locks, as they were exposed by
the backward fall of her old-fashioned, quilted hood, presented a
physiognomy at once piquant and prepossessing.

Robert Belcher knew that the woman before him was fearless and
incorruptible. He knew that she despised him--that bullying and
brow-beating would have no influence with her, that his ready badinage
would not avail, and that coaxing and soft words would be equally
useless. In her presence, he was shorn of all his weapons; and he never
felt so defenseless and ill at ease in his life.

As Miss Butterworth did not seem inclined to begin conversation, Mr.
Belcher hem'd and haw'd with affected nonchalance, and said:

"Ah!--to--what am I indebted for this visit. Miss--ah--Butterworth?"

"I'm thinking!" she replied sharply, looking into the fire, and pressing
her lips together.

There was nothing to be said to this, so Mr. Belcher looked doggedly at
her, and waited.

"I'm thinking of a man, and-he-was-a-man-every-inch-of-him, if there
ever was one, and a gentleman too, if-I-know-what-a-gentleman-is, who
came to this town ten years ago, from-nobody-knows-where; with a wife
that was an angel, if-there-is-any-such-thing-as-an-angel."

Here Miss Butterworth paused. She had laid her foundation, and proceeded
at her leisure.

"He knew more than any man in Sevenoaks, but he didn't know how to take
care of himself," she went on. "He was the most ingenious creature God
ever made, I do think, and his name was Paul Benedict."

Mr. Belcher grew pale and fidgeted in his chair.

"And his name was Paul Benedict. He invented something, and
then he took it to Robert Belcher, and he put it into his
mill, and-paid-him-just-as-little-for-it-as-he-could. And
then he invented something more, and-that-went-into-the-mill;
and then something more, and the patent was used by Mr.
Belcher for a song, and the man grew poorer and poorer,
while-Mr.-Belcher-grew-richer-and-richer-all-the-time. And
then he invented a gun, and then his little wife died,
and what with the expenses of doctors and funerals and
such things, and the money it took to get his patent,
which-I-begged-him-for-conscience'-sake-to-keep-out-of-Robert-Belcher's-hands,
he almost starved with his little boy, and had to go to Robert
Belcher for money."

"And get it," said Mr. Belcher.

"How much, now? A hundred little dollars for what was worth a hundred
thousand, unless-everybody-lies. The whole went in a day, and then he
went crazy."

"Well, you know I sent him to the asylum," responded Mr. Belcher.

"I know you did--yes, I know you did; and you tried to get him well
enough to sign a paper, which the doctor never would let him sign, and
which wouldn't have been worth a straw if he had signed it.
The-idea-of-getting-a-crazy-man-to-sign-a-paper!"

"Well, but I wanted some security for the money I had advanced," said
Mr. Belcher.

"No; you wanted legal possession of a property which would have made him
rich; that's what it was, and you didn't get it, and you never will get
it. He can't be cured, and he's been sent back, and is up at Tom
Buffum's now, and I've seen him to-day."

Miss Butterworth expected that this intelligence would stun Mr. Belcher,
but it did not.

The gratification of the man with the news was unmistakable. Paul
Benedict had no relatives or friends that he knew of. All his dealings
with him had been without witnesses. The only person living besides
Robert Belcher, who knew exactly what had passed between his victim and
himself, was hopelessly insane. The difference, to him, between
obtaining possession of a valuable invention of a sane or an insane man,
was the difference between paying money and paying none. In what way,
and with what profit, Mr. Belcher was availing himself of Paul
Benedict's last invention, no one in Sevenoaks knew; but all the town
knew that he was getting rich, apparently much faster than he ever was
before, and that, in a distant town, there was a manufactory of what was
known as "The Belcher Rifle."

Mr. Belcher concluded that he was still "master of the situation."
Benedict's testimony could not be taken in a court of justice. The town
itself was in his hands, so that it would institute no suit on
Benedict's behalf, now that he had come upon it for support; for the Tom
Buffum to whom Miss Butterworth had alluded was the keeper of the
poor-house, and was one of his own creatures.

Miss Butterworth had sufficient sagacity to comprehend the reasons for
Mr. Belcher's change of look and manner, and saw that her evening's
mission would prove fruitless; but her true woman's heart would not
permit her to relinquish her project.

"Is poor Benedict comfortable?" he inquired, in his old, off-hand way.

"Comfortable--yes, in the way that pigs are."

"Pigs are very comfortable, I believe, as a general thing," said Mr.
Belcher.

"Bob Belcher," said Miss Butterworth, the tears springing to her eyes in
spite of herself, and forgetting all the proprieties she had determined
to observe, "you are a brute. You know you are a brute. He is in a
little cell, no larger than--than--a pig-pen. There isn't a bit of
furniture in it. He sleeps on the straw, and in the straw, and under the
straw, and his victuals are poked at him as if he were a beast. He is a
poor, patient, emaciated wretch, and he sits on the floor all day, and
weaves the most beautiful things out of the straw he sits on, and Tom
Buffum's girls have got them in the house for ornaments. And he talks
about his rifle, and explains it, and explains it, and explains it, when
anybody will listen to him, and his clothes are all in rags, and that
little boy of his that they have in the house, and treat no better than
if he were a dog, knows he is there, and goes and looks at him, and
calls to him, and cries about him whenever he dares. And you sit here,
in your great house, with your carpets and chairs, that half smother
you, and your looking-glasses and your fine clothes, and don't start to
your feet when I tell you this. I tell you if God doesn't damn everybody
who is responsible for this wickedness, then there is no such thing as a
God."

Miss Butterworth was angry, and had grown more and more angry with every
word. She had brooded over the matter all the afternoon, and her pent-up
indignation had overflowed beyond control. She felt that she had spoken
truth which Robert Belcher ought to hear and to heed, yet she knew that
she had lost her hold upon him. Mr. Belcher listened with the greatest
coolness, while a half smile overspread his face.

"Don't you think I'm a pretty good-natured man to sit here," said he,
"and hear myself abused in this way, without getting angry?"

"No, I think you are a bad-natured man. I think you are the
hardest-hearted and worst man I ever saw. What in God's name has Paul
Benedict done, that he should be treated in this way? There are a dozen
there just like him, or worse. Is it a crime to lose one's reason? I
wish you could spend one night in Paul Benedict's room."

"Thank you. I prefer my present quarters."

"Yes, you look around on your present quarters, as you call 'em, and
think you'll always have 'em. You won't. Mark my words; you won't. Some
time you'll overreach yourself, and cheat yourself out of 'em. See if
you don't."

"It takes a smart man to cheat himself, Miss Butterworth," responded
Mr. Belcher, rubbing his hands.

"There is just where you're mistaken. It takes a fool."

Mr. Belcher laughed outright. Then, in a patronizing way, he said: "Miss
Butterworth, I have given you considerable time, and perhaps you'll be
kind enough to state your business. I'm a practical man, and I really
don't see anything that particularly concerns me in all this talk. Of
course, I'm sorry for Benedict and the rest of 'em, but Sevenoaks isn't
a very rich town, and it cannot afford to board its paupers at the
hotel, or to give them many luxuries."

Miss Butterworth was calm again. She knew that she had done her cause no
good, but was determined to finish her errand.

"Mr. Belcher, I'm a woman."

"I know it, Keziah."

"And my name is Butterworth."

"I know it."

"You do? Well, then, here is what I came to say to you. The town-meeting
comes to-morrow, and the town's poor are to be sold at auction, and to
pass into Tom Buffum's hands again, unless you prevent it. I can't make
a speech, and I can't vote. I never wanted to until now. You can do
both, and if you don't reform this business, and set Tom Buffum at doing
something else, and treat God's poor more like human beings, I shall get
out of Sevenoaks before it sinks; for sink it will if there is any hole
big enough to hold it."

"Well, I'll think of it," said Mr. Belcher, deliberately.

"Tell me you'll do it."

"I'm not used to doing things in a hurry. Mr. Buffum is a friend of
mine, and I've always regarded him as a very good man for the place. Of
course, if there's anything wrong it ought to be righted, but I think
you've exaggerated."

"No, you don't mean to do anything. I see it. Good-night," and she had
swept out of the door before he could say another word, or rise from his
chair.

She went down the hill into the village. The earth was stiffening with
the frost that lingered late in that latitude, and there were patches of
ice, across which she picked her way. There was a great moon overhead,
but just then all beautiful things, and all things that tended to lift
her thoughts upward, seemed a mockery. She reached the quiet home of
Rev. Solomon Snow.

"Who knows but he can be spurred up to do something?" she said to
herself.

There was only one way to ascertain--so she knocked at the door, and was
received so kindly by Mr. Snow and Mrs. Snow and the three Misses Snow,
that she sat down and unburdened herself--first, of course, as regarded
Mr. Robert Belcher, and second, as concerned the Benedicts, father and
son.

The position of Mr. Belcher was one which inspired the minister with
caution, but the atmosphere was freer in his house than in that of the
proprietor. The vocal engine whose wheels had slipped upon the track
with many a whirr, as she started her train in the great house on the
hill, found a down grade, and went off easily. Mr. Snow sat in his
arm-chair, his elbows resting on either support, the thumb and every
finger of each hand touching its twin at the point, and forming a kind
of gateway in front of his heart, which seemed to shut out or let in
conviction at his will. Mrs. Snow and the girls, whose admiration of
Miss Butterworth for having dared to invade Mr. Belcher's library was
unbounded, dropped their work, and listened with eager attention. Mr.
Snow opened the gate occasionally to let in a statement, but for the
most part kept it closed. The judicial attitude, the imperturbable
spectacles, the long, pale face and white cravat did not prevent Miss
Butterworth from "freeing her mind;" and when she finished the task, a
good deal had been made of the case of the insane paupers of Sevenoaks,
and there was very little left of Mr. Robert Belcher and Mr. Thomas
Buffum.

At the close of her account of what she had seen at the poor-house, and
what had passed between her and the great proprietor, Mr. Snow cast his
eyes up to the ceiling, pursed his lips, and somewhere in the
profundities of his nature, or in some celestial laboratory, unseen by
any eyes but his own, prepared his judgments.

"Cases of this kind," said he, at last, to his excited visitor, whose
eyes glowed like coals as she looked into his impassive face, "are to be
treated with great prudence. We are obliged to take things as they air.
Personally (with a rising inflection and a benevolent smile), I should
rejoice to see the insane poor clothed and in their right mind."

"Let us clothe 'em, then, anyway," interjected Miss Butterworth,
impatiently. "And, as for being in their right mind, that's more than
can be said of those that have the care of 'em."

"Personally--Miss Butterworth, excuse me--I should rejoice to see them
clothed and in their right mind, but the age of miracles is past. We
have to deal with the facts of to-day--with things as they air. It is
possible, nay, for aught I know, it may be highly probable, that in
other towns pauperism may fare better than it does with us. It is to be
remembered that Sevenoaks is itself poor, and its poverty becomes one of
the factors of the problem which you have propounded to us. The town of
Buxton, our neighbor over here, pays taxes, let us say, of seven mills
on the dollar; we pay seven mills on the dollar. Buxton is rich; we are
poor. Buxton has few paupers; we have many. Consequently, Buxton may
maintain its paupers in what may almost be regarded as a state of
affluence. It may go as far as feather-beds and winter fires for the
aged; nay, it may advance to some economical form of teeth-brushes, and
still demand no more sacrifice from its people than is constantly
demanded of us to maintain our poor in a humbler way. Then there are
certain prudential considerations--certain, I might almost say, moral
considerations--which are to be taken into account. It will never do, in
a town like ours, to make pauperism attractive--to make our pauper
establishments comfortable asylums for idleness. It must, in some way,
be made to seem a hardship to go to the poor-house."

"Well, Sevenoaks has taken care of that with a vengeance," burst out
Miss Butterworth.

"Excuse me, Miss Butterworth; let me repeat, that it must be made to
seem a hardship to go to the poor-house. Let us say that we have
accomplished this very desirable result. So far, so good. Give our
system whatever credit may belong to it, and still let us frankly
acknowledge that we have suffering left that ought to be alleviated. How
much? In what way? Here we come into contact with another class of
facts. Paupers have less of sickness and death among them than any-other
class in the community. There are paupers in our establishment that have
been there for twenty-five years--a fact which, if it proves anything,
proves that a large proportion of the wants of our present civilization
are not only artificial in their origin, but harmful in their
gratifications. Our poor are compelled to go back nearer to nature--to
old mother nature--and they certainly get a degree of compensation for
it. It increases the expenses of the town, to be sure."

"Suppose we inquire of them," struck in Miss Butterworth again, "and
find out whether they would not rather be treated better and die
earlier."

"Paupers are hardly in a position to be consulted in that way,"
responded Mr. Snow, "and the alternative is one which, considering their
moral condition, they would have no right to entertain."

Miss Butterworth had sat through this rather desultory disquisition with
what patience she could command, breaking in upon it impulsively at
various points, and seen that it was drifting nowhere--at least, that it
was not drifting toward the object of her wishes. Then she took up the
burden of talk, and carried it on in her very direct way.

"All you say is well enough, I suppose," she began, "but I don't stop to
reason about it, and I don't wish to. Here is a lot of human beings
that are treated like brutes--sold every year to the lowest bidder, to
be kept. They go hungry, and naked, and cold. They are in the hands of a
man who has no more blood in his heart than there is in a turnip, and we
pretend to be Christians, and go to church, and coddle ourselves with
comforts, and pay no more attention to them than we should if their
souls had gone where their money went. I tell you it's a sin and a
shame, and I know it. I feel it. And there's a gentleman among 'em, and
his little boy, and they must be taken out of that place, or treated
better in it. I've made up my mind to that, and if the men of Sevenoaks
don't straighten matters on that horrible old hill, then they're just no
men at all."

Mr. Snow smiled a calm, self-respectful smile, that said, as plainly as
words could say: "Oh! I know women: they are amiably impulsive, but
impracticable."

"Have you ever been there?" inquired Miss Butterworth, sharply.

"Yes, I've been there."

"And conscience forbid!" broke in Mrs. Snow, "that he should go again,
and bring home what he brought home that time. It took me the longest
time to get them out of the house!"

"Mrs. Snow! my dear! you forget that we have a stranger present."

"Well, I don't forget those strangers, anyway!"

The three Misses Snow tittered, and looked at one another, but were
immediately solemnized by a glance from their father.

Mrs. Snow, having found her tongue--a characteristically lively and
emphatic one--went on to say:--

"I think Miss Butterworth is right. It's a burning shame, and you ought
to go to the meeting to-morrow, and put it down."

"Easily said, my dear," responded Mr. Snow, "but you forget that Mr.
Belcher is Buffum's friend, and that it is impossible to carry any
measure against him in Sevenoaks. I grant that it ought not to be so. I
wish it were otherwise; but we must take things as they air."

"To take things as they air," was a cardinal aphorism in Mr. Snow's
budget of wisdom. It was a good starting-point for any range of
reasoning, and exceedingly useful to a man of limited intellect and
little moral courage. The real truth of the case had dawned upon Miss
Butterworth, and it had rankled in the breast of Mrs. Snow from the
beginning of his pointless talk. He was afraid of offending Robert
Belcher, for not only did his church need repairing, but his salary was
in arrears, and the wolf that had chased so many up the long hill to
what was popularly known as Tom Buffum's Boarding House he had heard
many a night, while his family was sleeping, howling with menace in the
distance.

Mrs. Snow rebelled, in every part of her nature, against the power which
had cowed her reverend companion. There is nothing that so goads a
spirited woman to madness as the realization that any man controls her
husband. He may be subservient to her--a cuckold even--but to be mated
with a man whose soul is neither his own nor wholly hers, is to her the
torment of torments.

"I wish Robert Belcher was hanged," said Mrs. Snow, spitefully.

"Amen! and my name is Butterworth," responded that lady, making sure
that there should be no mistake as to the responsibility for the
utterance.

"Why, mother!" exclaimed the three hisses Snow, in wonder.

"And drawn and quartered!" added Mrs. Snow, emphatically.

"Amen, again!" responded Miss Butterworth.

"Mrs. Snow! my dear! You forget that you are a Christian pastor's wife,
and that there is a stranger present."

"No, that is just what I don't forget," said Mrs. Snow. "I see a
Christian pastor afraid of a man of the world, who cares no more about
Christianity than he does about a pair of old shoes, and who patronizes
it for the sake of shutting its mouth against him. It makes me angry,
and makes me wish I were a man; and you ought to go to that meeting
to-morrow, as a Christian pastor, and put down this shame and
wickedness. You have influence, if you will use it. All the people want
is a leader, and some one to tell them the truth."

"Yes, father, I'm sure you have a _great_ deal of influence," said the
elder Miss Snow.

"A great _deal_ of influence," responded the next in years.

"Yes, indeed," echoed the youngest.

Mr. Snow established the bridge again, by bringing his fingers
together,--whether to keep out the flattery that thus came like a subtle
balm to his heart, or to keep in the self-complacency which had been
engendered, was not apparent.

He smiled, looking benevolently out upon the group, and said: "Oh, you
women are so hasty, so hasty, so hasty! I had not said that I would not
interfere. Indeed, I had pretty much made up my mind to do so. But I
wanted you in advance to see things as they air. It may be that
something can be done, and it certainly will be a great satisfaction to
me if I can be the humble instrument for the accomplishment of a
reform."

"And you will go to the meeting? and you will speak?" said Miss
Butterworth, eagerly.

"Yes!" and Mr. Snow looked straight into Miss Butterworth's tearful
eyes, and smiled.

"The Lord add His blessing, and to His name be all the praise!
Good-night!" said Miss Butterworth, rising and making for the door.

"Dear," said Mrs. Snow, springing and catching her by the arm, "don't
you think you ought to put on something more? It's very chilly
to-night."

"Not a rag. I'm hot. I believe I should roast if I had on a feather
more."

"Wouldn't you like Mr. Snow to go home with you? He can go just as well
as not," insisted Mrs. Snow.

"Certainly, just as well as not," repeated the elder Miss Snow, followed
by the second with: "as well as not," and by the third with: "and be
glad to do it."

"No--no--no--no"--to each. "I can get along better without him, and I
don't mean to give him a chance to take back what he has said."

Miss Butterworth ran down the steps, the whole family standing in the
open door, with Mr. Snow, in his glasses, behind his good-natured,
cackling flock, thoroughly glad that his protective services were deemed
of so small value by the brave little tailoress.

Then Miss Butterworth could see the moon and the stars. Then she could
see how beautiful the night was. Then she became conscious of the
everlasting roar of the cataracts, and of the wreaths of mist that they
sent up into the crisp evening air. To the fear of anything in
Sevenoaks, in the day or in the night, she was a stranger; so, with a
light heart, talking and humming to herself, she went by the silent
mill, the noisy dram-shops, and, with her benevolent spirit full of hope
and purpose, reached the house where, in a humble hired room she had
garnered all her treasures, including the bed and the linen which she
had prepared years before for an event that never took place.

"The Lord add His blessing, and to His name be all the praise," she
said, as she extinguished the candle, laughing in spite of herself, to
think how she had blurted out the prayer and the ascription in the face
of Solomon Snow.

"Well, he's a broken reed--a broken reed--but I hope Mrs. Snow will tie
something to him--or starch him--or--something--to make him stand
straight for once," and then she went to sleep, and dreamed of fighting
with Robert Belcher all night.




CHAPTER II.

MR. BELCHER CARRIES HIS POINT AT THE TOWN-MEETING, AND THE POOR ARE
KNOCKED DOWN TO THOMAS BUFFUM.


The abrupt departure of Miss Butterworth left Mr. Belcher piqued and
surprised. Although he regarded himself as still "master of the
situation"--to use his own pet phrase,--the visit of that spirited woman
had in various ways humiliated him. To sit in his own library, with an
intruding woman who not only was not afraid of him but despised him, to
sit before her patiently and be called "Bob Belcher," and a brute, and
not to have the privilege of kicking her out of doors, was the severest
possible trial of his equanimity. She left him so suddenly that he had
not had the opportunity to insult her, for he had fully intended to do
this before she retired. He had determined, also, as a matter of course,
that in regard to the public poor of Sevenoaks he would give all his
influence toward maintaining the existing state of things. The idea of
being influenced by a woman, particularly by a woman over whom he had no
influence, to change his policy with regard to anything, public or
private, was one against which all the brute within him rebelled.

In this state of mind, angry with himself for having tolerated one who
had so boldly and ruthlessly wounded his self-love, he had but one
resort. He could not confess his humiliation to his wife; and there was
no one in the world with whom he could hold conversation on the subject,
except his old confidant who came into the mirror when wanted, and
conveniently retired when the interview closed.

Rising from his chair, and approaching his mirror, as if he had been
whipped, he stood a full minute regarding his disgraced and speechless
image. "Are you Robert Belcher, Esquire, of Sevenoaks?" he inquired, at
length. "Are you the person who has been insulted by a woman? Look at
me, sir! Turn not away! Have you any constitutional objections to
telling me how you feel? Are you, sir, the proprietor of this house? Are
you the owner of yonder mill? Are you the distinguished person who
carries Sevenoaks in his pocket? How are the mighty fallen! And you,
sir, who have been insulted by a tailoress, can stand here, and look me
in the face, and still pretend to be a man! You are a scoundrel, sir--a
low, mean-spirited scoundrel, sir. You are nicely dressed, but you are a
puppy. Dare to tell me you are not, and I will grind you under my foot,
as I would grind a worm. Don't give me a word--not a word! I am not in a
mood to bear it!"

Having vented his indignation and disgust, with the fiercest facial
expression and the most menacing gesticulations, he became calm, and
proceeded:

"Benedict at the poor-house, hopelessly insane! Tell me now, and, mark
you, no lies here! Who developed his inventions? Whose money was risked?
What did it cost Benedict? Nothing. What did it cost Robert Belcher?
More thousands than Benedict ever dreamed of. Have you done your duty,
Robert Belcher? Ay, ay, sir! I believe you. Did you turn his head? No,
sir. I believe you; it is well! I have spent money for him--first and
last, a great deal of money for him; and any man or woman who disputes
me is a liar--a base, malignant liar! Who is still master of the
situation? Whose name is Norval? Whose are these Grampian Hills? Who
intends to go to the town-meeting to-morrow, and have things fixed about
as he wants them? Who will make Keziah Butterworth weep and howl with
anguish? Let Robert Belcher alone! Alone! Far in azure depths of space
(here Mr. Belcher extended both arms heavenward, and regarded his image
admiringly), far--far away! Well, you're a pretty good-looking man,
after all, and I'll let you off this time; but don't let me catch you
playing baby to another woman! I think you'll be able to take care of
yourself [nodding slowly.] By-by! Good-night!"

Mr. Belcher retired from the glass with two or three profound bows, his
face beaming with restored self-complacency, and, taking his chair, he
resumed his cigar. At this moment, there arose in his memory a single
sentence he had read in the warrant for the meeting of the morrow: "To
see if the town will take any steps for the improvement of the condition
of the poor, now supported at the public charge."

When he read this article of the warrant, posted in the public places of
the village, it had not impressed him particularly. Now, he saw Miss
Butterworth's hand in it. Evidently, Mr. Belcher was not the only man
who had been honored by a call from that philanthropic woman. As he
thought the matter over, he regretted that, for the sake of giving form
and force to his spite against her, he should be obliged to relinquish
the popularity he might have won by favoring a reformative measure. He
saw something in it, also, that might be made to add to Tom Buffum's
profits, but even this consideration weighed nothing against his desire
for personal revenge, to be exhibited in the form of triumphant personal
power.

He rose from his chair, walked his room, swinging his hands backward and
forward, casting furtive glances into his mirror, and then rang his
bell. He had arrived at a conclusion. He had fixed upon his scheme, and
was ready for work.

"Tell Phipps to come here," he said to the maid who responded to the
summons.

Phipps was his coachman, body-servant, table-waiter, pet, butt for his
jests, tool, man of all occasions. He considered himself a part of Mr.
Belcher's personal property. To be the object of his clumsy badinage,
when visitors were present and his master was particularly amiable, was
equivalent to an honorable public notice. He took Mr. Belcher's cast-off
clothes, and had them reduced in their dimensions for his own wearing,
and was thus always able to be nearly as well dressed and foppish as the
man for whom they were originally made. He was as insolent to others as
he was obsequious to his master--a flunky by nature and long education.

Phipps appeared.

"Well, Phipps, what are you here for?" inquired Mr. Belcher.

"I was told you wanted me, sir," looking doubtfully with his cunning
eyes into Mr. Belcher's face, as if questioning his mood.

"How is your health? You look feeble. Overwhelmed by your tremendous
duties? Been sitting up late along back? Eh? You rascal! Who's the happy
woman?"

Phipps laughed, and twiddled his fingers.

"You're a precious fellow, and I've got to get rid of you. You are
altogether too many for me. Where did you get that coat? It seems to me
I've seen something like that before. Just tell me how you do it, man. I
can't dress the way you do. Yes, Phipps, you're too many for me!"

Phipps smiled, aware that he was expected to make no reply.

"Phipps, do you expect to get up to-morrow morning?"

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, you do! Very well! See that you do."

"Yes, sir."

"And Phipps--"

"Yes, sir."

"Bring the grays and the light wagon to the door to-morrow morning at
seven o'clock."

"Yes, sir."

"And Phipps, gather all the old clothes about the house that you can't
use yourself, and tie 'em up in a bundle, and put 'em into the back of
the wagon. Mum is the word, and if Mrs. Belcher asks you any questions,
tell her I think of turning Sister of Charity."

Phipps snickered.

"And Phipps, make a basket of cold meat and goodies, and put in with the
clothes."

"Yes, sir."

"And Phipps, remember:--seven o'clock, sharp, and no soldiering."

"Yes, sir."

"And Phipps, here is a cigar that cost twenty-five cents. Do it up in a
paper, and lay it away. Keep it to remember me by."

This joke was too good to be passed over lightly, and so Phipps giggled,
took the cigar, put it caressingly to his nose, and then slipped it into
his pocket.

"Now make yourself scarce," said his master, and the man retired,
entirely conscious that the person he served had some rascally scheme on
foot, and heartily sympathetic with him in the project of its execution.

Promptly at seven the next morning, the rakish pair of trotters stood
before the door, with a basket and a large bundle in the back of the
rakish little wagon. Almost at the same moment, the proprietor came out,
buttoning his overcoat. Phipps leaped out, then followed his master into
the wagon, who, taking the reins, drove off at a rattling pace up the
long hill toward Tom Buffum's boarding-house. The road lay entirely
outside of the village, so that the unusual drive was not observed.

Arriving at the poor-house, Mr. Belcher gave the reins to his servant,
and, with a sharp rap upon the door with the butt of his whip, summoned
to the latch the red-faced and stuffy keeper. What passed between them,
Phipps did not hear, although he tried very hard to do so. At the close
of a half hour's buzzing conversation, Tom Buffum took the bundle from
the wagon, and pitched it into his doorway. Then, with the basket on his
arm, he and Mr. Belcher made their way across the street to the
dormitories and cells occupied by the paupers of both sexes and all ages
and conditions. Even the hard-hearted proprietor saw that which wounded
his blunted sensibilities; but he looked on with a bland face, and
witnessed the greedy consumption of the stale dainties of his own table.

It was by accident that he was led out by a side passage, and there he
caught glimpses of the cells to which Miss Butterworth had alluded, and
inhaled an atmosphere which sickened him to paleness, and brought to his
lips the exclamation: "For God's sake let's get out of this."

"Ay! ay!" came tremblingly from behind the bars of a cell, "let's get
out of this."

Mr. Belcher pushed toward the light, but not so quickly that a pair of
eyes, glaring from the straw, failed to recognize him.

"Robert Belcher! Oh, for God's sake! Robert Belcher!"

It was a call of wild distress--a whine, a howl, an objurgation, all
combined. It was repeated as long as he could hear it. It sounded in his
ears as he descended the hill. It came again and again to him as he was
seated at his comfortable breakfast. It rang in the chambers of his
consciousness for hours, and only a firm and despotic will expelled it
at last. He knew the voice, and he never wished to hear it again.

What he had seen that morning, and what he had done, where he had been,
and why he had gone, were secrets to which his wife and children were
not admitted. The relations between himself and his wife were not new in
the world. He wished to retain her respect, so he never revealed to her
his iniquities. She wished as far as possible to respect him, so she
never made uncomfortable inquiries. He was bountiful to her. He had been
bountiful to many others. She clothed and informed all his acts of
beneficence with the motives which became them. If she was ever shocked
by his vulgarity, he never knew it by any word of hers, in disapproval.
If she had suspicions, she did not betray them. Her children were
trained to respect their father, and among them she found the
satisfactions of her life. He had long ceased to be her companion. As
an associate, friend, lover, she had given him up, and, burying in her
heart all her griefs and all her loneliness, had determined to make the
best of her life, and to bring her children to believe that their father
was a man of honor, of whom they had no reason to be ashamed. If she was
proud, hers was an amiable pride, and to Mr. Belcher's credit let it be
said that he respected her as much as he wished her to honor him.

For an hour after breakfast, Mr. Belcher was occupied in his library,
with his agent, in the transaction of his daily business. Then, just as
the church bell rang its preliminary summons for the assembling of the
town-meeting, Phipps came to the door again with the rakish grays and
the rakish wagon, and Mr. Belcher drove down the steep hill into the
village, exchanging pleasant words with the farmers whom he encountered
on the way, and stopping at various shops, to speak with those upon whom
he depended for voting through whatever public schemes he found it
desirable to favor.

The old town-hall was thronged for half-an-hour before the time
designated in the warrant. Finally, the bell ceased to ring, at the
exact moment when Mr. Belcher drove to the door and ascended the steps.
There was a buzz all over the house when he entered, and he was
surrounded at once.

"Have it just as you want it," shaking his head ostentatiously and
motioning them away, "don't mind anything about me. I'm a passenger," he
said aloud, and with a laugh, as the meeting was called to order and the
warrant read, and a nomination for moderator demanded.

"Peter Vernol," shouted a dozen voices in unison.

Peter Vernol had represented the district in the Legislature, and was
supposed to be familiar with parliamentary usage. He was one of Mr.
Belcher's men, of course--as truly owned and controlled by him as Phipps
himself.

Peter Vernol became moderator by acclamation. He was a young man, and,
ascending the platform very red in the face, and looking out upon the
assembled voters of Sevenoaks, he asked with a trembling voice:

"What is the further pleasure of the meeting?"

"I move you," said Mr. Belcher, rising, and throwing open his overcoat,
"that the Rev. Solomon Snow, whom I am exceedingly glad to see present,
open our deliberations with prayer."

The moderator, forgetting apparently that the motion had not been put,
thereupon invited the reverend gentleman to the platform, from which,
when his service had been completed, he with dignity retired--but with
the painful consciousness that in some way Mr. Belcher had become aware
of the philanthropic task he had undertaken. He knew he was beaten, at
the very threshold of his enterprise--that his conversations of the
morning among his neighbors had been reported, and that Paul Benedict
and his fellow-sufferers would be none the better for him.

The business connected with the various articles of the warrant was
transacted without notable discussion or difference. Mr. Belcher's
ticket for town officers, which he took pains to show to those around
him, was unanimously adopted. When it came to the question of schools,
Mr. Belcher indulged in a few flights of oratory. He thought it
impossible for a town like Sevenoaks to spend too much money for
schools. He felt himself indebted to the public school for all that he
was, and all that he had won. The glory of America, in his view--its
pre-eminence above all the exhausted and decayed civilizations of the
Old World--was to be found in popular education. It was the
distinguishing feature of our new and abounding national life. Drop it,
falter, recede, and the darkness that now hangs over England, and the
thick darkness that envelops the degenerating hordes of the Continent,
would settle down upon fair America, and blot her out forever from the
list of the earth's teeming nations. He would pay good wages to
teachers. He would improve school-houses, and he would do it as a matter
of economy. It was, in his view, the only safeguard against the
encroachments of a destructive pauperism. "We are soon," said Mr.
Belcher, "to consider whether we will take any steps for the improvement
of the condition of the poor, now supported at the public charge. Here
is our first step. Let us endow our children with such a degree of
intelligence that pauperism shall be impossible. In this thing I go hand
in hand with the clergy. On many points I do not agree with them, but on
this matter of popular education, I will do them the honor to say that
they have uniformly been in advance of the rest of us. I join hands with
them here to-day, and, as any advance in our rate of taxation for
schools will bear more heavily upon me than upon any other citizen--I do
not say it boastingly, gentlemen--I pledge myself to support and stand
by it."

Mr. Belcher's speech, delivered with majestic swellings of his broad
chest, the ostentatious removal of his overcoat, and brilliant passages
of oratorical action, but most imperfectly summarized in this report,
was received with cheers. Mr. Snow himself feebly joined in the
approval, although he knew it was intended to disarm him. His strength,
his resolution, his courage, ebbed away with sickening rapidity; and he
was not reassured by a glance toward the door, where he saw, sitting
quite alone, Miss Butterworth herself, who had come in for the purpose
partly of strengthening him, and partly of informing herself concerning
the progress of a reform which had taken such strong hold upon her
sympathies.

At length the article in the warrant which most interested that good
lady was taken up, and Mr. Snow rose to speak upon it. He spoke of the
reports he had heard concerning the bad treatment that the paupers, and
especially those who were hopelessly insane, had received in the
alms-house, enlarged upon the duties of humanity and Christianity, and
expressed the conviction that the enlightened people of Sevenoaks should
spend more money for the comfort of the unfortunate whom Heaven had
thrown upon their charge, and particularly that they should institute a
more searching and competent inspection of their pauper establishment.

As he took his seat, all eyes were turned upon Mr. Belcher, and that
gentleman rose for a second exhibition of his characteristic eloquence.

"I do not forget," said Mr. Belcher, "that we have present here to-day
an old and well-tried public servant. I see before me Mr. Thomas Buffum,
who, for years, has had in charge the poor, not only of this town, but
of this county. I do not forget that his task has been one of great
delicacy, with the problem constantly before him how to maintain in
comfort our most unfortunate class of population, and at the same time
to reduce to its minimum the burden of our taxpayers. That he has solved
this problem and served the public well, I most firmly believe. He has
been for many years my trusted personal friend, and I cannot sit here
and hear his administration questioned, and his integrity and humanity
doubted, without entering my protest. [Cheers, during which Mr. Buffum
grew very red in the face.] He has had a task to perform before which
the bravest of us would shrink. We, who sit in our peaceful homes, know
little of the hardships to which this faithful public servant has been
subjected. Pauperism is ungrateful. Pauperism is naturally filthy.
Pauperism is noisy. It consists of humanity in its most repulsive forms,
and if we have among us a man who can--who can--stand it, let us stand
by him." [Tremendous cheers.]

Mr. Belcher paused until the wave of applause had subsided, and then
went on:

"An open-hand, free competition: this has been my policy, in a business
of whose prosperity you are the best judges. I say an open-hand and free
competition in everything. How shall we dispose of our poor? Shall they
be disposed of by private arrangement--sold out to favorites, of whose
responsibility we know nothing? [Cries of no, no, no!] If anybody who is
responsible--and now he is attacked, mark you, I propose to stand behind
and be responsible for Mr. Buffum myself--can do the work cheaper and
better than Mr. Buffum, let him enter at once upon the task. But let the
competition be free, nothing covered up. Let us have clean hands in this
business, if nowhere else. If we cannot have impartial dealing, where
the interests of humanity are concerned, we are unworthy of the trust we
have assumed. I give the Rev. Mr. Snow credit for motives that are
unimpeachable--unimpeachable, sir. I do not think him capable of
intentional wrong, and I wish to ask him, here and now, whether, within
a recent period, he has visited the pauper establishment of Sevenoaks."

Mr. Snow rose and acknowledged that it was a long time since he had
entered Mr. Buffum's establishment.

"I thought so. He has listened to the voice of rumor. Very well. I have
to say that I have been there recently, and have walked through the
establishment. I should do injustice to myself, and fail to hint to the
reverend gentleman, and all those who sympathize with him, what I regard
as one of their neglected duties, if I should omit to mention that I did
not go empty-handed. [Loud cheers.] It is easy for those who neglect
their own duties to suspect that others do the same. I know our paupers
are not supported in luxury. We cannot afford to support them in luxury;
but I wash my hands of all responsibility for inhumanity and inattention
to their reasonable wants. The reverend gentleman himself knows, I
think, whether any man ever came to me for assistance on behalf of any
humane or religious object, and went away without aid, I cannot consent
to be placed in a position that reflects upon my benevolence, and, least
of all, by the reverend gentleman who has reflected upon that
administration of public charity which has had, and still retains, my
approval. I therefore move that the usual sum be appropriated for the
support of the poor, and that at the close of this meeting the care of
the poor for the ensuing year be disposed of at public auction to the
lowest bidder."

Mr. Snow was silent, for he knew that he was impotent.

Then there jumped up a little man with tumbled hair, weazened face, and
the general look of a broken-down gentleman, who was recognized by the
moderator as "Dr. Radcliffe."

"Mr. Moderator," said he, in a screaming voice, "as I am the medical
attendant and inspector of our pauper establishment, it becomes proper
for me, in seconding the motion of Mr. Belcher, as I heartily do, to say
a few words, and submit my report for the past year."

Dr. Radcliffe was armed with a large document, and the assembled voters
of Sevenoaks were getting tired.

"I move," said Mr. Belcher, "that, as the hour is late, the reading of
the report be dispensed with." The motion was seconded, and carried
_nem. con_.

The Doctor was wounded in a sensitive spot, and was determined not to be
put down.

"I may at least say," he went on, "that I have made some discoveries
during the past year that ought to be in the possession of the
scientific world. It takes less food to support a pauper than it does
any other man, and I believe the reason is that he hasn't any mind. If I
take two potatoes, one goes to the elaboration of mental processes, the
other to the support of the physical economy. The pauper has only a
physical economy, and he needs but one potato. Anemia is the normal
condition of the pauper. He breathes comfortably an atmosphere which
would give a healthy man asphyxia. Hearty food produces inflammatory
diseases and a general condition of hypertrophy. The character of the
diseases at the poor-house, during the past year, has been typhoid. I
have suggested to Mr. Buffum better ventilation, a change from
farinaceous to nitrogenous food as conducive to a better condition of
the mucous surfaces and a more perfect oxydation of the vital fluids.
Mr. Buffum--"

"Oh, git out!" shouted a voice at the rear.

"Question! question!" called a dozen voices.

The moderator caught a wink and a nod from Mr. Belcher, and put the
question, amid the protests of Dr. Radcliffe; and it was triumphantly
carried.

And now, as the town-meeting drops out of this story, let us leave it,
and leave Mr. Thomas Buffum at its close to underbid all contestants for
the privilege of feeding the paupers of Sevenoaks for another year.




CHAPTER III

IN WHICH JIM FENTON IS INTRODUCED TO THE READER AND INTRODUCES HIMSELF
TO MISS BUTTERWORTH.


Miss Butterworth, while painfully witnessing the defeat of her hopes
from the last seat in the hall, was conscious of the presence at her
side of a very singular-looking personage, who evidently did not belong
in Sevenoaks. He was a woodsman, who had been attracted to the hall by
his desire to witness the proceedings. His clothes, originally of strong
material, were patched; he held in his hand a fur cap without a visor;
and a rifle leaned on the bench at his side. She had been attracted to
him by his thoroughly good-natured face, his noble, muscular figure, and
certain exclamations that escaped from his lips during the speeches.
Finally, he turned to her, and with a smile so broad and full that it
brought an answer to her own face, he said: "This 'ere breathin' is
worse nor an old swamp. I'm goin', and good-bye to ye!"

Why this remark, personally addressed to her, did not offend her, coming
as it did from a stranger, she did not know; but it certainly did not
seem impudent. There was something so simple and strong and manly about
him, as he had sat there by her side, contrasted with the baser and
better dressed men before her, that she took his address as an honorable
courtesy.

When the woodsman went out upon the steps of the town-hall, to get a
breath, he found there such an assembly of boys as usually gathers in
villages on the smallest public occasion. Squarely before the door stood
Mr. Belcher's grays, and in Mr. Belcher's wagon sat Mr. Belcher's man,
Phipps. Phipps was making the most of his position. He was proud of his
horses, proud of his clothes, proud of the whip he was carelessly
snapping, proud of belonging to Mr. Belcher. The boys were laughing at
his funny remarks, envying him his proud eminence, and discussing the
merits of the horses and the various points of the attractive
establishment.

As the stranger appeared, he looked down upon the boys with a broad
smile, which attracted them at once, and quite diverted them from their
flattering attentions to Phipps--a fact quickly perceived by the latter,
and as quickly revenged in a way peculiar to himself and the man from
whom he had learned it.

"This is the hippopotamus, gentlemen," said Phipps, "fresh from his
native woods. He sleeps underneath the banyan-tree, and lives on the
nuts of the hick-o-ree, and pursues his prey with his tail extended
upward and one eye open, and has been known when excited by hunger to
eat small boys, spitting out their boots with great violence. Keep out
of his way, gentlemen! Keep out of his way, and observe his wickedness
at a distance."

Phipps's saucy speech was received with a great roar by the boys, who
were surprised to notice that the animal himself was not only not
disturbed, but very much amused by being shown up as a curiosity.

"Well, you're a new sort of a monkey, anyway," said the woodsman, after
the laugh had subsided. "I never hearn one talk afore."

"You never will again," retorted Phipps, "if you give me any more of
your lip."

The woodsman walked quickly toward Phipps, as if he were about to pull
him from his seat.

Phipps saw the motion, started the horses, and was out of his way in an
instant.

The boys shouted in derision, but Phipps did not come back, and the
stranger was the hero. They gathered around him, asking questions, all
of which he good-naturedly answered. He seemed to be pleased with their
society, as if he were only a big boy himself, and wanted to make the
most of the limited time which his visit to the town afforded him.

While he was thus standing as the center of an inquisitive and admiring
group, Miss Butterworth came out of the town-hall. Her eyes were full of
tears, and her eloquent face expressed vexation and distress. The
stranger saw the look and the tears, and, leaving the boys, he
approached her without the slightest awkwardness, and said:

"Has anybody teched ye, mum?"

"Oh, no, sir," Miss Butterworth answered.

"Has anybody spoke ha'sh to ye?"

"Oh, no, sir;" and Miss Butterworth pressed on, conscious that in that
kind inquiry there breathed as genuine respect and sympathy as ever had
reached her ears in the voice of a man.

"Because," said the man, still walking along at her side, "I'm spilin'
to do somethin' for somebody, and I wouldn't mind thrashin' anybody
you'd p'int out."

"No, you can do nothing for me. Nobody can do anything in this town for
anybody until Robert Belcher is dead," said Miss Butterworth.

"Well, I shouldn't like to kill 'im," responded the man, "unless it was
an accident in the woods--a great ways off--for a turkey or a
hedgehog--and the gun half-cocked."

The little tailoress smiled through her tears, though she felt very
uneasy at being observed in company and conversation with the
rough-looking stranger. He evidently divined the thoughts which
possessed her, and said, as if only the mention of his name would make
him an acquaintance:

"I'm Jim Fenton. I trap for a livin' up in Number Nine, and have jest
brung in my skins."

"My name is Butterworth," she responded mechanically.

"I know'd it," he replied. "I axed the boys."

"Good-bye," he said. "Here's the store, and I must shoulder my sack and
be off. I don't see women much, but I'm fond of 'em, and they're pretty
apt to like me."

"Good-bye," said the woman. "I think you're the best man I've seen
to-day;" and then, as if she had said more than became a modest woman,
she added, "and that isn't saying very much."

They parted, and Jim Fenton stood perfectly still in the street and
looked at her, until she disappeared around a corner. "That's what I
call a genuine creetur'," he muttered to himself at last, "a genuine
creetur'."

Then Jim Fenton went into the store, where he had sold his skins and
bought his supplies, and, after exchanging a few jokes with those who
had observed his interview with Miss Butterworth, he shouldered his sack
as he called it, and started for Number Nine. The sack was a contrivance
of his own, with two pouches which depended, one before and one behind,
from his broad shoulders. Taking his rifle in his hand, he bade the
group that had gathered around him a hearty good-bye, and started on his
way.

The afternoon was not a pleasant one. The air was raw, and, as the sun
went toward its setting, the wind came on to blow from the north-west.
This was just as he would have it. It gave him breath, and stimulated
the vitality that was necessary to him in the performance of his long
task. A tramp of forty miles was not play, even to him, and this long
distance was to be accomplished before he could reach the boat that
would bear him and his burden into the woods.

He crossed the Branch at its principal bridge, and took the same path up
the hill that Robert Belcher had traveled in the morning. About half-way
up the hill, as he was going on with the stride of a giant, he saw a
little boy at the side of the road, who had evidently been weeping. He
was thinly and very shabbily clad, and was shivering with cold. The
great, healthy heart within Jim Fenton was touched in an instant.

"Well, bub," said he, tenderly, "how fare ye? How fare ye? Eh?"

"I'm pretty well, I thank you, sir," replied the lad.

"I guess not. You're as blue as a whetstone. You haven't got as much on
you as a picked goose."

"I can't help it, sir," and the boy burst into tears.

"Well, well, I didn't mean to trouble you, boy. Here, take this money,
and buy somethin' to make you happy. Don't tell your dad you've got it.
It's yourn."

The boy made a gesture of rejection, and said: "I don't wish to take it,
sir."

"Now, that's good! Don't wish to take it! Why, what's your name? You're
a new sort o' boy."

"My name is Harry Benedict."

"Harry Benedict? And what's your pa's name?"

"His name is Paul Benedict."

"Where is he now?"

"He is in the poor-house."

"And you, too?"

"Yes, sir," and the lad found expression for his distress in another
flow of tears.

"Well, well, well, well! If that ain't the strangest thing I ever hearn
on! Paul Benedict, of Sevenoaks, in Tom Buffum's Boardin'-house!"

"Yes, sir, and he's very crazy, too."

Jim Fenton set his rifle against a rock at the roadside, slowly lifted
off his pack and placed it near the rifle, and then sat down on a stone
and called the boy to him, folding him in his great warm arms to his
warm breast.

"Harry, my boy," said Jim, "your pa and me was old friends. We have
hunted together, fished together, eat together, and slept together
many's the day and night. He was the best shot that ever come into the
woods. I've seed him hit a deer at fifty rod many's the time, and he
used to bring up the nicest tackle for fishin', every bit of it made
with his own hands. He was the curisist creetur' I ever seed in my life,
and the best; and I'd do more fur 'im nor fur any livin' live man. Oh, I
tell ye, we used to have high old times. It was wuth livin' a year in
the woods jest to have 'im with me for a fortnight. I never charged 'im
a red cent fur nothin', and I've got some of his old tackle now that he
give me. Him an' me was like brothers, and he used to talk about
religion, and tell me I ought to shift over, but I never could see
'zactly what I ought to shift over from, or shift over to; but I let 'im
talk, 'cause he liked to. He used to go out behind the trees nights, and
I hearn him sayin' somethin'--somethin' very low, as I am talkin' to ye
now. Well, he was prayin'; that's the fact about it, I s'pose; and ye
know I felt jest as safe when that man was round! I don't believe I
could a' been drownded when he was in the woods any more'n if I'd a'
been a mink. An' Paul Benedict is in the poor-house! I vow I don't
'zactly see why the Lord let that man go up the spout; but perhaps it'll
all come out right. Where's your ma, boy?"

Harry gave a great, shuddering gasp, and, answering him that she was
dead, gave himself up to another fit of crying.

"Oh, now don't! now don't!" said Jim tenderly, pressing the distressed
lad still closer to his heart. "Don't ye do it; it don't do no good. It
jest takes the spunk all out o' ye. Ma's have to die like other folks,
or go to the poor-house. You wouldn't like to have yer ma in the
poor-house. She's all right. God Almighty's bound to take care o' her.
Now, ye jest stop that sort o' thing. She's better off with him nor she
would be with Tom Buffum--any amount better off. Doesn't Tom Buffum
treat your pa well?"

"Oh, no, sir; he doesn't give him enough to eat, and he doesn't let him
have things in his room, because he says he'll hurt himself, or break
them all to pieces, and he doesn't give him good clothes, nor anything
to cover himself up with when it's cold."

"Well, boy," said Jim, his great frame shaking with indignation, "do ye
want to know what I think of Tom Buffum?"

"Yes, sir."

"It won't do fur me to tell ye, 'cause I'm rough, but if there's
anything awful bad--oh, bad as anything can be, in Skeezacks--I should
say that Tom Buffum was an old Skeezacks."

Jim Fenton was feeling his way.

"I should say he was an infernal old Skeezacks. That isn't very bad, is
it?"

"I don't know sir," replied the boy.

"Well, a d----d rascal; how's that?"

"My father never used such words," replied the boy.

"That's right, and I take it back. I oughtn't to have said it, but
unless a feller has got some sort o' religion he has a mighty hard time
namin' people in this world. What's that?"

Jim started with the sound in his ear of what seemed to be a cry of
distress.

"That's one of the crazy people. They do it all the time.'"

Then Jim thought of the speeches he had heard in the town-meeting, and
recalled the distress of Miss Butterworth, and the significance of all
the scenes he had so recently witnessed.

"Look 'ere, boy; can ye keep right 'ere," tapping him on his breast,
"whatsomever I tell ye? Can you keep yer tongue still?--hope you'll die
if ye don't?"

There was something in these questions through which the intuitions of
the lad saw help, both for his father and himself. Hope strung his
little muscles in an instant, his attitude became alert, and he replied:

"I'll never say anything if they kill me."

"Well, I'll tell ye what I'm goin' to do. I'm goin' to stay to the
poor-house to-night, if they'll keep me, an' I guess they will; and I'm
goin' to see yer pa too, and somehow you and he must be got out of this
place."

The boy threw his arms around Jim's neck, and kissed him passionately,
again and again, without the power, apparently, to give any other
expression to his emotions.

"Oh, God! don't, boy! That's a sort o' thing I can't stand. I ain't used
to it."

Jim paused, as if to realize how sweet it was to hold the trusting
child in his arms, and to be thus caressed, and then said: "Ye must be
mighty keerful, and do just as I bid ye. If I stay to the poor-house
to-night, I shall want to see ye in the mornin', and I shall want to see
ye alone. Now ye know there's a big stump by the side of the road,
half-way up to the old school-house."

Harry gave his assent.

"Well, I want ye to be thar, ahead o' me, and then I'll tell ye jest
what I'm a goin' to do, and jest what I want to have ye do."

"Yes, sir."

"Now mind, ye mustn't know me when I'm about the house, and mustn't tell
anybody you've seed me, and I mustn't know you. Now ye leave all the
rest to Jim Fenton, yer pa's old friend. Don't ye begin to feel a little
better now?"

"Yes, sir."

"You can kiss me again, if ye want to. I didn't mean to choke ye off.
That was all in fun, ye know."

Harry kissed him, and then Jim said: "Now make tracks for yer old
boardin'-house. I'll be along bimeby."

The boy started upon a brisk run, and Jim still sat upon the stone
watching him until he disappeared somewhere among the angles of the
tumble-down buildings that constituted the establishment.

"Well, Jim Fenton," he said to himself, "ye've been spilin' fur
somethin' to do fur somebody. I guess ye've got it, and not a very small
job neither."

Then he shouldered his pack, took up his rifle, looked up at the cloudy
and blustering sky, and pushed up the hill, still talking to himself,
and saying: "A little boy of about his haighth and bigness ain't a bad
thing to take."




CHAPTER IV.

IN WHICH JIM FENTON APPLIES FOR LODGINGS AT TOM BUFFUM'S BOARDING-HOUSE,
AND FINDS HIS OLD FRIEND.


As Jim walked up to the door of the building occupied by Tom Buffum's
family, he met the head of the family coming out; and as, hitherto, that
personage has escaped description, it will be well for the reader to
make his acquaintance. The first suggestion conveyed by his rotund
figure was, that however scantily he furnished his boarders, he never
stinted himself in the matter of food. He had the sluggish, clumsy look
of a heavy eater. His face was large, his almost colorless eyes were
small, and, if one might judge by the general expression of his
features, his favorite viand was pork. Indeed, if the swine into which
the devils once entered had left any descendants, it would be legitimate
to suppose that the breed still thrived in the most respectable sty
connected with his establishment. He was always hoarse, and spoke either
in a whisper or a wheeze. For this, or for some other reason not
apparent, he was a silent man, rarely speaking except when addressed by
a question, and never making conversation with anybody. From the time he
first started independently in the world, he had been in some public
office. Men with dirty work to do had found him wonderfully serviceable,
and, by ways which it would be hard to define to the ordinary mind, he
had so managed that every town and county office, in which there was any
money, had been by turns in his hands.

"Well, Mr. Buffum, how fare ye?" said Jim, walking heartily up to him,
and shaking his hand, his face glowing with good-nature.

Mr. Buffum's attempt to respond to this address ended in a wheeze and a
cough.

"Have ye got room for another boarder to-night? Faith, I never expected
to come to the poor-house, but here I am. I'll take entertainment for
man or beast. Which is the best, and which do you charge the most for?
Somebody's got to keep me to-night, and ye're the man to bid low."

Buffum made no reply, but stooped down, took a sliver from a log, and
began to pick his teeth. Jim watched him with quiet amusement. The more
Mr. Buffum thought, the more furious he grew with his toothpick.

"Pretty tough old beef, wasn't it?" said Jim, with a hearty laugh.

"You go in and see the women," said Mr. Buffum, in a wheezy whisper.

This, to Jim, was equivalent to an honorable reception. He had no doubt
of his ability to make his way with "the women" who, he was fully aware,
had been watching him all the time from the window.

To the women of Tom Buffum's household, a visitor was a godsend.
Socially, they had lived all their lives in a state of starvation. They
knew all about Jim Fenton, and had exchanged many a saucy word with him,
as he had passed their house on his journeys to and from Sevenoaks.

"If you can take up with what we've got," said Mrs. Buffum suggestively.

"In course," responded Jim, "an' I can take up with what ye haven't
got."

"Our accommodations is very crowded," said Mrs. Buffum.

"So is mine to home," responded Jim. "I allers sleep hangin' on a
gambrel, between two slabs."

While Mr. Tom Buffum's "women" were laughing, Jim lifted off his pack,
placed his rifle in the corner of the room, and sat down in front of the
fire, running on with his easygoing tongue through preposterous
stories, and sundry flattering allusions to the beauty and
attractiveness of the women to whose hospitalities he had committed
himself.

After supper, to which he did full justice, the family drew around the
evening fire, and while Mr. Buffum went, or seemed to go, to sleep, in
his chair, his guest did his best to entertain the minor members of the
group.

"This hollerin' ye have here reminds me," said Jim, "of Number Nine.
Ther's some pretty tall hollerin' thar nights. Do ye see how my ha'r
sticks up? I can't keep it down. It riz one night jest about where you
see it now, and it's mostly been thar ever sence. Combin' don't do no
good Taller don't do no good. Nothin' don't do no good. I s'pose if Mr.
Buffum, a-snorin' jest as hard as he does now, should set on it for a
fortnight, it would spring right up like a staddle, with a b'ar ketched
at the eend of it, jest as quick as he let up on me." At this there was
a slight rumble in Mr. Buffum's throat.

"Why, what made it rise so?" inquired the most interested and eldest
Miss Buffum.

"Now, ain't your purty eyes wide open?" said Jim.

"You're jest fooling; you know you are," responded Miss Buffum,
blushing.

"Do ye see the ha'r on the back of my hand?" said Jim, patting one of
those ample instruments with the other. "That stands up jest as it does
on my head. I'm a regular hedgehog. It all happened then."

"Now, Jim Fenton, you shall go along and tell your story, and not keep
us on tenter-hooks all night," said Miss Buffum sharply.

"I don't want to scare the dear little heart out o' ye," said Jim, with
a killing look of his eyes, "but if ye will hear it, I s'pose I must
tell ye. Ye see I'm alone purty much all the time up thar. I don't have
no such times as I'm havin' here to-night, with purty gals 'round me.
Well, one night I hearn a loon, or thought I hearn one. It sounded 'way
off on the lake, and bimeby it come nigher, and then I thought it was a
painter, but it didn't sound 'zactly like a painter. My dog Turk he
don't mind such things, but he knowed it wa'r'n't a loon and wa'r'n't a
painter. So he got up and went to the door, and then the yell come agin,
and he set up the most un'arthly howl I ever hearn. I flung one o' my
boots at 'im, but he didn't mind any thing more about it than if it had
been a feather. Well, ye see, I couldn't sleep, and the skeeters was
purty busy, and I thought I'd git up. So I went to my cabin door and
flung it open. The moon was shinin', and the woods was still, but Turk,
he rushed out, and growled and barked like mad. Bimeby he got tired, and
come back lookin' kind o' skeered, and says I: 'Ye're a purty dog, ain't
ye?' Jest then I hearn the thing nigher, and I begun to hear the brush
crack. I knowed I'd got to meet some new sort of a creetur, and I jest
stepped back and took my rifle. When I stood in the door agin, I seen
somethin' comin'. It was a walkin' on two legs like a man, and it was a
man, or somethin' that looked like one. He come toward the cabin, and
stopped about three rod off. He had long white hair that looked jest
like silk under the moon, and his robes was white, and he had somethin'
in his hand that shined like silver. I jest drew up my rifle, and says
I: 'Whosomever you be, stop, or I'll plug ye.' What do ye s'pose he did?
He jest took that shinin' thing and swung it round and round his head,
and I begun to feel the ha'r start, and up it come all over me. Then he
put suthin' to his mouth, and then I knowed it was a trumpet, and he
jest blowed till all the woods rung, and rung, and rung agin, and I
hearn it comin' back from the mountain, louder nor it was itself. And
then says I to myself: 'There's another one, and Jim Fenton's a goner;'
but I didn't let on that I was skeered, and says I to him: 'That's a
good deal of a toot; who be ye callin' to dinner?' And says he: 'It's
the last day! Come to jedgment! I'm the Angel Gabr'el!' 'Well,' says I,
'if ye're the Angel Gabr'el, cold lead won't hurt ye, so mind yer eyes!'
At that I drew a bead on 'im, and if ye'll b'lieve it, I knocked a tin
horn out of his hands and picked it up the next mornin', and he went off
into the woods like a streak o' lightnin'. But my ha'r hain't never come
down."

Jim stroked the refractory locks toward his forehead with his huge hand,
and they rose behind it like a wheat-field behind a summer wind. As he
finished the manipulation, Mr. Buffum gave symptoms of life. Like a
volcano under premonitory signs of an eruption, a wheezy chuckle seemed
to begin somewhere in the region of his boots, and rise, growing more
and more audible, until it burst into a full demonstration, that was
half laugh and half cough.

"Why, what are you laughing at, father?" exclaimed Miss Buffum.

The truth was that Mr. Buffum had not slept at all. The simulation of
sleep had been indulged in simply to escape the necessity of talking.

"It was old Tilden," said Mr. Buffum, and then went off into another fit
of coughing and laughing that nearly strangled him.

"I wonder if it was!" seemed to come simultaneously from the lips of the
mother and her daughters.

"Did you ever see him again?" inquired Mr. Buffum.

"I seen 'im oncet, in the spring, I s'pose," said Jim, "what there was
left of 'im. There wasn't much left but an old shirt and some bones, an'
I guess he wa'n't no great shakes of an angel. I buried 'im where I
found 'im, and said nothin' to nobody."

"That's right," wheezed Mr. Buffum. "It's just as well."

"The truth is," said Mrs. Buffum, "that folks made a great fuss about
his gettin' away from here and never bein' found. I thought 'twas a good
riddance myself, but people seem to think that these crazy critturs are
just as much consequence as any body, when they don't know a thing. He
was always arter our dinner horn, and blowin', and thinkin' he was the
Angel Gabriel. Well, it's a comfort to know he's buried, and isn't no
more expense."

"I sh'd like to see some of these crazy people," said Jim. "They must be
a jolly set. My ha'r can't stand any straighter nor it does now, and
when you feed the animals in the mornin', I'd kind o' like to go round
with ye."

The women insisted that he ought not to do it. Only those who understood
them, and were used to them, ought to see them.

"You see, we can't give 'em much furnitur'," said Mrs. Buffum. "They
break it, and they tear their beds to pieces, and all we can do is to
jest keep them alive. As for keepin' their bodies and souls together, I
don't s'pose they've got any souls. They are nothin' but animils, as you
say, and I don't see why any body should treat an animil like a human
bein.' They hav'n't no sense of what you do for 'em."

"Oh, ye needn't be afraid o' my blowin'. I never blowed about old
Tilden, as you call 'im, an' I never expect to," said Jim.

"That's right," wheezed Mr. Buffum. "It's just as well."

"Well, I s'pose the Doctor'll be up in the mornin'," said Mrs. Buffum,
"and we shall clean up a little, and put in new straw, and p'r'aps you
can go round with him?"

Mr. Buffum nodded his assent, and after an evening spent in
story-telling and chaffing, Jim went to bed upon the shakedown in an
upper room to which he was conducted.

Long before he was on his feet in the morning, the paupers of the
establishment had been fed, and things had been put in order for the
medical inspector. Soon after breakfast, the Doctor's crazy little gig
was seen ascending the hill, and Mr. Buffum and Jim were at the door
when he drove up. Buffum took the Doctor aside, and told him of Jim's
desire to make the rounds with him. Nothing could have delighted the
little man more than a proposition of this kind, because it gave him an
opportunity to talk. Jim had measured his man when he heard him speak
the previous day, and as they crossed the road together, he said:
"Doctor, they didn't treat ye very well down there yesterday. I said to
myself; 'Jim Fenton, what would ye done if ye had knowed as much as that
doctor, an' had worked as hard as he had, and then be'n jest as good as
stomped on by a set o' fellows that didn't know a hole in the ground
when they seen it?' and, says I, answerin' myself, 'ye'd 'a' made the
fur fly, and spilt blood.'"

"Ah," responded the Doctor, "Violence resteth in the bosom of fools."

"Well, it wouldn't 'a' rested in my bosom long. I'd 'a' made a young
'arthquake there in two minutes."

The Doctor smiled, and said with a sigh:

"The vulgar mind does not comprehend science."

"Now, jest tell me what science is," said Jim. "I hearn a great deal
about science, but I live up in the woods, and I can't read very much,
and ye see I ain't edicated, and I made up my mind if I ever found a man
as knowed what science was, I'd ask him."

"Science, sir, is the sum of organized and systematized knowledge,"
replied the Doctor.

"Now, that seems reasomble," said Jim, "but what is it like? What do
they do with it? Can a feller get a livin' by it?"

"Not in Sevenoaks," replied the Doctor, with a bitter smile.

"Then, what's the use of it?"

"Pardon me, Mr. Fenton," replied the Doctor. "You'll excuse me, when I
veil you that you have not arrived at that mental altitude--that
intellectual plane--"

"No," said Jim, "I live on a sort of a medder."

The case being hopeless, the Doctor went on and opened the door into
what he was pleased to call "the insane ward." As Jim put his head into
the door, he uttered a "phew!" and then said:

"This is worser nor the town meetin'."

The moment Jim's eyes beheld the misery that groaned out its days and
nights within the stingy cells, his great heart melted with pity. For
the first moments, his disposition to jest passed away, and all his soul
rose up in indignation. If profane words came to his lips, they came
from genuine commiseration, and a sense of the outrage that had been
committed upon those who had been stamped with the image of the
Almighty.

"This is a case of Shakspearean madness," said Dr. Radcliffe, pausing
before the barred and grated cell that held a half-nude woman. It was a
little box of a place, with a rude bedstead in one corner, filthy beyond
the power of water to cleanse. The occupant sat on a little bench in
another corner, with her eyes rolled up to Jim's in a tragic expression,
which would make the fortune of an actress. He felt of his hair,
impulsively.

"How are ye now? How do ye feel?" inquired Jim, tenderly.

She gave him no answer, but glared at him as if she would search the
very depths of his heart.

"If ye'll look t'other way, ye'll obleege me," said Jim.

But the woman gazed on, speechless, as if all the soul that had left her
brain had taken up its residence in her large, black eyes.

"Is she tryin' to look me out o' countenance, Doctor?" Inquired Jim,
"'cause, if she is, I'll stand here and let 'er try it on; but if she
ain't I'll take the next one."

"Oh, she doesn't know what she's about, but it's a very curious form of
insanity, and has almost a romantic interest attached to it from the
fact that it did not escape the notice of the great bard."

"I notice, myself," said Jim, "that she's grated and barred."

The Doctor looked at his visitor inquisitively, but the woodman's face
was as innocent as that of a child. Then they passed on to the next
cell, and there they found another Woman sitting quietly in the corner,
among the straw.

"How fare ye, this mornin'?" inquired Jim, with a voice full of
kindness.

"I'm just on the verge of eternity," replied the woman.

"Don't ye be so sure o' that, now," responded Jim. "Ye're good for ten
year yit."

"No," said the woman, "I shall die in a minute."

"Does she mean that?" inquired Jim, turning to the Doctor.

"Yes, and she has been just on the verge of eternity for fifteen years,"
replied the Doctor, coolly. "That's rather an interesting case, too.
I've given it a good deal of study. It's hopeless, of course, but it's a
marked case, and full of suggestion to a scientific man."

"Isn't it a pity," responded Jim, "that she isn't a scientific man
herself? It might amuse her, you know."

The Doctor laughed, and led him on to the next cell, and here he found
the most wretched creature he had ever seen. He greeted her as he had
greeted the others, and she looked up to him with surprise, raised
herself from the straw, and said:

"You speak like a Christian."

The tears came into Jim's eyes, for he saw in that little sentence, the
cruelty of the treatment she had received.

"Well, I ain't no Christian, as I knows on," he responded, "an' I don't
think they're very plenty in these parts; but I'm right sorry for ye.
You look as if you might be a good sort of a woman."

"I should have been if it hadn't been for the pigeons," said the woman.
"They flew over a whole day, in flocks, and flocks, and cursed the
world. All the people have got the plague, and they don't know it. My
children all died of it, and went to hell. Everybody is going to hell,
and nothing can save them. Old Buffum'll go first. Robert Belcher'll go
next. Dr. Radcliffe will go next."

"Look here, old woman, ye jest leave me out of that calkerlation," said
Jim.

"Will you have the kindness to kill me, sir?" said the woman.

"I really can't, this mornin'," he replied, "for I've got a good ways
to tramp to-day; but if I ever want to kill anybody I'll come round,
p'r'aps, and 'commodate ye."

"Thank you," she responded heartily.

The Doctor turned to Jim, and said:

"Do you see that hole in the wall, beyond her head? Well, that hole was
made by Mr. Buffum. She had begged him to kill her so often that he
thought he would put her to the test, and he agreed he would do so. So
he set her up by that wall, and took a heavy stick from the wood-pile,
raised it as high as the room would permit, and then brought it down
with great violence, burying the end of the bludgeon in the plastering.
I suppose he came within three inches of her head, and she never winked.
It was a very interesting experiment, as it illustrated the genuineness
of her desire for death Otherwise the case is much like many others."

"Very interestin'," responded Jim, "very! Didn't you never think of
makin' her so easy and comfortable that she wouldn't want any body to
kill her? I sh'd think that would be an interestin' experiment."

Now the Doctor had one resort, which, among the people of Sevenoaks, was
infallible, whenever he wished to check argumentation on any subject
relating to his profession. Any man who undertook to argue a medical
question with him, or make a suggestion relating to medical treatment,
he was in the habit of flooring at once, by wisely and almost pityingly
shaking his head, and saying: "It's very evident to me, sir, that you've
not received a medical education." So, when Jim suggested, in his
peculiar way, that the woman ought to be treated better, the Doctor saw
the point, and made his usual response.

"Mr. Fenton," said he, "excuse me, sir, but it's very evident that
you've not had a medical education."

"There's where you're weak," Jim responded. "I'm a reg'lar M.D., three
C's, double X, two I's. That's the year I was born, and that's my
perfession. I studied with an Injun, and I know more 'arbs, and roots,
and drawin' leaves than any doctor in a hundred mile; and if I can be of
any use to ye, Doctor, there's my hand."

And Jim seized the Doctor's hand, and gave it a pressure which raised
the little man off the floor.

The Doctor looked at him with eyes equally charged with amusement and
amazement. He never had been met in that way before, and was not
inclined to leave the field without in some way convincing Jim of his
own superiority.

"Mr. Fenton," said he, "did you ever see a medulla oblongata?"

"Well, I seen a good many garters," replied the woodsman, 'in the
stores, an' I guess they was mostly oblong."

"Did you ever see a solar plexus?" inquired the Doctor, severely.

"Dozens of 'em. I allers pick a few in the fall, but I don't make much
use of 'em."

"Perhaps you've seen a pineal gland," suggested the disgusted Doctor.

"I make 'em," responded Jim. "I whittle 'em out evenin's, ye know."

"If you were in one of these cells," said the Doctor, "I should think
you were as mad as a March hare."

At this moment the Doctor's attention was called to a few harmless
patients who thronged toward him as soon as they learned that he was in
the building, begging for medicine; for if there is anything that a
pauper takes supreme delight in it is drugs. Passing along with them to
a little lobby, where he could inspect them more conveniently, he left
Jim behind, as that personage did not prove to be so interesting and
impressible as he had hoped. Jim watched him as he moved away, with a
quiet chuckle, and then turned to pursue his investigations. The next
cell he encountered held the man he was looking for. Sitting in the
straw, talking to himself or some imaginary companion, he saw his old
friend. It took him a full minute to realize that the gentle sportsman,
the true Christian, the delicate man, the delightful companion, was
there before him, a wreck--cast out from among his fellows, confined in
a noisome cell, and hopelessly given over to his vagrant fancies and the
tender mercies of Thomas Buffum. When the memory of what Paul Benedict
had been to him, at one period of his life, came to Jim, with the full
realization of his present misery and degradation, the strong man wept
like a child. He drew an old silk handkerchief from his pocket, blew his
nose as if it had been a trumpet, and then slipped up to the cell and
said, softly: "Paul Benedict, give us your benediction."

"Jim!" said the man, looking up quickly.

"Good God! he knows me," said Jim, whimpering. "Yes, Mr. Benedict, I'm
the same rough old fellow. How fare ye?"

"I'm miserable," replied the man.

"Well, ye don't look as ef ye felt fust-rate. How did ye git in here?"

"Oh, I was damned when I died. It's all right, I know; but it's
terrible."

"Why, ye don't think ye're in hell, do ye?" inquired Jim.

"Don't you see?" inquired the wretch, looking around him.

"Oh, yes; I see! I guess you're right," said Jim, falling in with his
fancy.

"But where did you come from, Jim? I never heard that you were dead."

"Yes; I'm jest as dead as you be."

"Well, what did you come here for?"

"Oh, I thought I'd call round," replied Jim carelessly.

"Did you come from Abraham's bosom?" inquired Mr. Benedict eagerly.

"Straight."

"I can't think why you should come to see me, into such a place as
this!" said Benedict, wonderingly.

"Oh, I got kind o' oneasy. Don't have much to do over there, ye know."

"How did you get across the gulf?"

"I jest shoved over in a birch, an' ye must be perlite enough to return
the call," replied Jim, in the most matter-of-course manner possible.

Benedict looked down upon his torn and wretched clothing, and then
turned his pitiful eyes up to Jim, who saw the thoughts that were
passing in the poor man's mind.

"Never mind your clo'es," he said. "I dress jest the same there as I did
in Number Nine, and nobody says a word. The fact is, they don't mind
very much about clo'es there, any way. I'll come over and git ye, ye
know, an' interjuce ye, and ye shall have jest as good a time as Jim
Fenton can give ye."

"Shall I take my rifle along?" inquired Benedict.

"Yes, an' plenty of amanition. There ain't no game to speak on--only a
few pa'tridge; but we can shoot at a mark all day, ef we want to."

Benedict tottered to his feet and came to the grated door, with his eyes
all alight with hope and expectation. "Jim, you always were a good
fellow," said he, dropping his voice to a whisper, "I'll show you my
improvements. Belcher mustn't get hold of them. He's after them. I hear
him round nights, but he shan't have them. I've got a new tumbler,
and--"

"Well, never mind now," replied Jim. "It'll be jest as well when ye come
over to spend the day with me. Now ye look a here! Don't you say nothin'
about this to nobody. They'll all want to go, and we can't have 'em. You
an' I want to git red of the crowd, ye know. We allers did. So when I
come arter ye, jest keep mum, and we'll have a high old time."

All the intellect that Benedict could exercise was summoned to
comprehend this injunction. He nodded his head; he laid it up in his
memory. Hope had touched him, and he had won at least a degree of
momentary strength and steadiness from her gracious finger.

"Now jest lay down an' rest, an' keep your thoughts to yerself till I
come agin. Don't tell nobody I've be'n here, and don't ask leave of
nobody. I'll settle with the old boss if he makes any sort of a row; and
ye know when Jim Fenton says he'll stand between ye and all harm he
means it, an' nothin' else."

"Yes, Jim."

"An' when I come here--most likely in the night--I'll bring a robe to
put on ye, and we'll go out still."

"Yes, Jim."

"Sure you understand?"

"Yes, Jim."

"Well, good-bye. Give us your hand. Here's hopin'."

Benedict held himself up by the slats of the door, while Jim went along
to rejoin the Doctor. Outside of this door was still a solid one, which
had been thrown wide open in the morning for the purpose of admitting
the air. In this door Jim discovered a key, which he quietly placed in
his pocket, and which he judged, by its size, was fitted to the lock of
the inner as well as the outer door. He had already discovered that the
door by which he entered the building was bolted upon the outside, the
keeper doubtless supposing that no one would wish to enter so foul a
place, and trusting thus to keep the inmates in durance.

"Well, Doctor," said Jim, "this sort o' thing is too many for me. I
gi'en it up. It's very interestin', I s'pose, but my head begins to
spin, an' it seems to me it's gettin' out of order. Do ye see my har,
Doctor?" said he, exposing the heavy shock that crowned his head.

"Yes, I see it," replied the Doctor tartly. He thought he had shaken off
his unpleasant visitor, and his return disturbed him.

"Well, Doctor, that has all riz sence I come in here."

"Are you sure?" inquired the Doctor, mollified in the presence of a fact
that might prove to be of scientific interest.

"I'd jest combed it when you come this mornin'. D'ye ever see anythin'
like that? How am I goin' to git it down?"

"Very singular," said the Doctor.

"Yes, an' look here! D'ye see the har on the back o' my hand? That
stands up jest the same. Why, Doctor, I feel like a hedgehog! What am I
goin' to do?"

"Why, this is really very interesting!" said the Doctor, taking out his
note-book. "What is your name?"

"Jim Fenton."

"Age?"

"Thirty or forty--somewhere along there."

"H'm!" exclaimed the Doctor, writing out the whole reply. "Occupation?"

"M.D., three C's, double X., two I's."

"H'm! What do you do?"

"Trap, mostly."

"Religious?"

"When I'm skeered."

"Nativity?"

"Which?"

"What is your parentage? Where were you born?"

"Well, my father was an Englishman, my mother was a Scotchman, I was
born in Ireland, raised in Canady, and have lived for ten year in Number
Nine."

"How does your head feel now?"

"It feels as if every har was a pin. Do you s'pose it'll strike in?"

The Doctor looked him over as if he were a bullock, and went on with his
statistics: "Weight, about two hundred pounds; height, six feet two;
temperament, sanguine-bilious."

"Some time when you are in Sevenoaks," said the Doctor, slipping his
pencil into its sheath in his note-book, and putting his book in his
pocket, "come and see me."

"And stay all night?" inquired Jim, innocently.

"I'd like to see the case again," said Dr. Radcliffe, nodding. "I shall
not detain you long. The matter has a certain scientific interest."

"Well, good-bye, Doctor," said Jim, holding down his hair. "I'm off for
Number Nine. I'm much obleeged for lettin' me go round with ye; an' I
never want to go agin."

Jim went out into the pleasant morning air. The sun had dispelled the
light frost of the night, the sky was blue overhead, and the blue-birds,
whose first spring notes were as sweet and fresh as the blossoms of the
arbutus, were caroling among the maples. Far away to the north he could
see the mountain at whose foot his cabin stood, red in the sunshine,
save where in the deeper gorges the snow still lingered. Sevenoaks lay
at the foot of the hill, on the other hand, and he could see the people
passing to and fro along its streets, and, perched upon the hill-side
among its trees and gardens, the paradise that wealth had built for
Robert Belcher. The first emotion that thrilled him as he emerged from
the shadows of misery and mental alienation was that of gratitude. He
filled his lungs with the vitalizing air, but expired his long breath
with a sigh.

"What bothers me," said Jim to himself, "is, that the Lord lets one set
of people that is happy, make it so thunderin' rough for another set of
people that is onhappy. An' there's another thing that bothers me," he
said, continuing his audible cogitations. "How do they 'xpect a feller
is goin' to git well, when they put 'im where a well feller'd git sick?
I vow I think that poor old creetur that wanted me to kill her is
straighter in her brains than any body I seen on the lot. I couldn't
live there a week, an' if I was a hopeless case, an' know'd it, I'd hang
myself on a nail."

Jim saw his host across the road, and went over to him. Mr. Buffum had
had a hard time with his pipes that morning, and was hoarse and very red
in the face.

"Jolly lot you've got over there," said Jim. "If I had sech a family as
them, I'd take 'em 'round for a show, and hire Belcher's man to do the
talkin'. 'Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and see how a Christian can treat
a feller bein'. Here's a feller that's got sense enough left to think
he's in hell. Observe his wickedness, gentlemen, and don't be afraid to
use your handkerchers.'"

As Jim talked, he found he was getting angry, and that the refractory
hair that covered his poll began to feel hot. It would not do to betray
his feelings, so he ended his sally with a huge laugh that had about as
much music and heartiness in it as the caw of a crow. Buffum joined him
with his wheezy chuckle, but having sense enough to see that Jim had
really been pained, he explained that he kept his paupers as well as he
could afford to.

"Oh, I know it," said Jim. "If there's anything wrong about it, it don't
begin with you, Buffum, nor it don't end with you; but it seems a little
rough to a feller like me to see people shut up, an' in the dark, when
there's good breathin' an' any amount o' sunshine to be had, free gratis
for nothin'."

"Well, they don't know the difference," said Buffum.

"Arter a while, I guess they don't," Jim responded; "an', now, what's
the damage? for I've got to go 'long."

"I sha'n't charge you anything," whispered Mr. Buffum. "You hav'n't said
anything about old Tilden, and it's just as well."

Jim winked, nodded, and indicated that he not only understood Mr.
Buffum, but would act upon his hint. Then he went into the house, bade
good-bye to Mr. Buffum's "women," kissed his hand gallantly to the elder
Miss Buffum, who declared, in revenge, that she would not help him on
with his pack, although she had intended to do so, ands after having
gathered his burdens, trudged off northward.

From the time he entered the establishment on the previous evening, he
had not caught a glimpse of Harry Benedict. "He's cute," said Jim, "an'
jest the little chap for this business." As he came near the stump over
the brow of the hill, behind which the poor-house buildings disappeared,
he saw first the brim of an old hat, then one eye, then an eager,
laughing face, and then the whole trim little figure. The lad was
transformed. Jim thought when he saw him first that he was a pretty
boy, but there was something about him now that thrilled the woodsman
with admiration.

Jim came up to him with: "Mornin,' Harry!" and the mountain that shone
so gloriously in the light before him, was not more sunny than Jim's
face. He sat down behind the stump without removing his pack, and once
more had the little fellow in his arms.

"Harry," said Jim, "I've had ye in my arms all night--a little live
thing--an' I've be'n a longin' to git at ye agin. If ye want to, very
much, you can put yer arms round my neck, an' hug me like a little bar.
Thar, that's right, that's right. I shall feel it till I see ye agin.
Ye've been thinkin' 'bout what I telled ye last night?"

"Oh yes!" responded the boy, eagerly, "all the time."

"Well, now, do you know the days--Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and the rest
of 'em?"

"Yes, sir, all of them."

"Now, remember, to-day is Wednesday. It will be seven days to next
Wednesday, then Thursday will be eight, Friday, nine, Saturday, ten. You
always know when Saturday comes, don't ye?"

"Yes, because it's our school holiday," replied Harry.

"Well, then, in ten days--that is, a week from next Saturday--I shall
come agin. Saturday night, don't ye go to bed. Leastways, ef ye do, ye
must git out of the house afore ten o'clock, and come straight to this
old stump. Can ye git away, an' nobody seen ye?"

"Yes, I hope so," replied the boy. "They don't mind anything about us. I
could stay out all night, and they wouldn't know where I was."

"Well, that's all right, now. Remember--be jest here with all the clo'es
ye've got, at ten o'clock, Saturday night--ten days off--cut 'em in a
stick every day--the next Saturday after the next one, an' don't git
mixed."

The boy assured him that he should make no mistake.

"When I come, I sh'll bring a hoss and wagin. It'll be a stiddy hoss,
and I sh'll come here to this stump, an' stop till I seen ye. Then ye'll
hold the hoss till I go an' git yer pa, and then we'll wopse 'im up in
some blankits, an' make a clean streak for the woods. It'll be late
Sunday mornin' afore any body knows he's gone, and there won't be no
people on the road where we are goin', and ef we're druv into cover, I
know where the cover is. Jim Fenton's got friends on the road, and
they'll be mum as beetles. Did ye ever seen a beetle, Harry?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, they work right along and don't say nothin' to nobody, but they
keep workin'; an' you an' me has got to be jest like beetles. Remember!
an' now git back to Tom Buffum's the best way ye can."

The boy reassured Jim, gave him a kiss, jumped over the fence, and crept
along through the bushes toward the house. Jim watched him, wrapped in
admiration.

"He's got the ra-al hunter in 'im, jest like his father, but there's
more in 'im nor there ever was in his father. I sh'd kinder liked to 'a'
knowed his ma," said Jim, as he took up his rifle and started in earnest
for his home.

As he plodded along his way, he thought over all the experiences of the
morning.

"Any man," said he to himself, "who can string things together in the
way Benedict did this mornin' can be cured. Startin' in hell, he was all
right, an' everything reasomble. The startin' is the principal p'int,
an' if I can git 'im to start from Number Nine, I'll fetch 'im round. He
never was so much to home as he was in the woods, an' when I git 'im
thar, and git 'im fishin' and huntin', and sleepin' on hemlock, an'
eatin' venison and corn-dodgers, it'll come to 'im that he's been there
afore, and he'll look round to find Abram, an' he won't see 'im, and his
craze 'll kind o' leak out of 'im afore he knows it."

Jim's theory was his own, but it would be difficult for Dr. Radcliffe,
and all his fellow-devotees of science, to controvert it. It contented
him, at least; and full of plans and hopes, stimulated by the thought
that he had a job on hand that would not only occupy his thoughts, but
give exercise to the benevolent impulses of his heart, he pressed on,
the miles disappearing behind him and shortening before, as if the
ground had been charmed.

He stopped at noon at a settler's lonely house, occupied by Mike Conlin,
a friendly Irishman. Jim took the man aside and related his plans. Mike
entered at once upon the project with interest and sympathy, and Jim
knew that he could trust him wholly. It was arranged that Jim should
return to Mike the evening before the proposed descent upon Tom Buffum's
establishment, and sleep. The following evening Mike's horse would be
placed at Jim's disposal, and he and the Benedicts were to drive through
during the night to the point on the river where he would leave his
boat. Mike was to find his horse there and take him home.

Having accomplished his business, Jim went on, and before the twilight
had deepened into night, he found himself briskly paddling up the
stream, and at ten o'clock he had drawn his little boat up the beach,
and embraced Turk, his faithful dog, whom he had left, not only to take
care of his cabin, but to provide for himself. He had already eaten his
supper, and five minutes after he entered his cabin he and his dog were
snoring side by side in a sleep too profound to be disturbed, even by
the trumpet of old Tilden.




CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH, JIM ENLARGES HIS ACCOMMODATIONS AND ADOPTS A VIOLENT METHOD OF
SECURING BOARDERS.


When Jim Fenton waked from his long and refreshing sleep, after his
weary tramp and his row upon the river, the sun was shining brightly,
the blue-birds were singing, the partridges were drumming, and a red
squirrel, which even Turk would not disturb, was looking for provisions
in his cabin, or eyeing him saucily from one of the beams over his head.
He lay for a moment, stretching his huge limbs and rubbing his eyes,
thinking over what he had undertaken, and exclaiming at last: "Well,
Jim, ye've got a big contrack," he jumped up, and, striking a fire,
cooked his breakfast.

His first work was to make an addition to his accommodations for
lodgers, and he set about it in thorough earnest. Before noon he had
stripped bark enough from the trees in his vicinity to cover a building
as large as his own. The question with him was whether he should put up
an addition to his cabin, or hide a new building somewhere behind the
trees in his vicinity. In case of pursuit, his lodgers would need a
cover, and this he knew he could not give them in his cabin; for all who
were in the habit of visiting the woods were familiar with that
structure, and would certainly notice any addition to it, and be curious
about it. Twenty rods away there was a thicket of hemlock, and by
removing two or three trees in its center, he could successfully hide
from any but the most inquisitive observation the cabin he proposed to
erect. His conclusion was quickly arrived at, and before he slept that
night the trees were down, the frame was up, and the bark was gathered.
The next day sufficed to make the cabin habitable; but he lingered about
the work for several days, putting up various appointments of
convenience, building a broad bed of hemlock boughs, so deep and
fragrant and inviting, that he wondered he had never undertaken to do as
much for himself as he had thus gladly done for others, and making sure
that there was no crevice at which the storms of spring and summer could
force an entrance.

When he could do no more, he looked it over with approval and said:
"Thar! If I'd a done that for Miss Butterworth, I couldn't 'a' done
better nor that." Then he went back to his cabin muttering: "I wonder
what she'd 'a' said if she'd hearn that little speech o' mine!"

What remained for Jim to do was to make provision to feed his boarders.
His trusty rifle stood in the corner of his cabin, and Jim had but to
take it in his hand to excite the expectations of his dog, and to
receive from him, in language as plain as an eager whine and a wagging
tail could express, an offer of assistance. Before night there hung in
front of his cabin a buck, dragged with difficulty through the woods
from the place where he had shot him. A good part of the following day
was spent in cutting from the carcass every ounce of flesh, and packing
it into pails, to be stowed in a spring whose water, summer and winter
alike, was almost at the freezing point.

"He'll need a good deal o' lookin' arter, and I shan't hunt much the
fust few days," said Jim to himself; "an' as for flour, there's a sack
on't, an' as for pertaters, we shan't want many on 'em till they come
agin, an' as for salt pork, there's a whole bar'l buried, an' as for the
rest, let me alone!"

Jim had put off the removal for ten days, partly to get time for all his
preparations, and partly that the rapidly advancing spring might give
him warmer weather for the removal of a delicate patient. He found,
however, at the conclusion of his labors, that he had two or three spare
days on his hands. His mind was too busy and too much excited by his
enterprise to permit him to engage in any regular employment, and he
roamed around the woods, or sat whittling in the sun, or smoked, or
thought of Miss Butterworth. It was strange how, when the business upon
his hands was suspended, he went back again and again, to his brief
interview with that little woman. He thought of her eyes full of tears,
of her sympathy with the poor, of her smart and saucy speech when he
parted with her, and he said again and again to himself, what he said on
that occasion: "she's a genuine creetur!" and the last time he said it,
on the day before his projected expedition, he added: "an' who knows!"

Then a bright idea seized him, and taking out a huge jack-knife, he went
through the hemlocks to his new cabin, and there carved into the slabs
of bark that constituted its door, the words "Number Ten." This was the
crowning grace of that interesting structure. He looked at it close, and
then from a distance, and then he went back chuckling to his cabin, to
pass his night in dreams of fast driving before the fury of all
Sevenoaks, with Phipps and his gray trotters in advance.

Early on Friday morning preceding his proposed descent upon the
poor-house, he gave his orders to Turk.

"I'm goin' away, Turk," said he. "I'm goin' away agin. Ye was a good dog
when I went away afore, and ye berhaved a good deal more like a
Christian nor a Turk. Look out for this 'ere cabin, and look out for
yerself. I'm a goin' to bring back a sick man, an' a little feller to
play with ye. Now, ole feller, won't that be jolly? Ye must'n't make no
noise when I come--understand?"

Turk wagged his tail in assent, and Jim departed, believing that his dog
had understood every word as completely as if he were a man.
"Good-bye--here's hopin'," said Jim, waving his hand to Turk as he
pushed his boat from the bank, and disappeared down the river. The dog
watched him until he passed from sight, and then went back to the cabin
to mope away the period of his master's absence.

Jim sat in the stern of his little boat, guiding and propelling it with
his paddle. Flocks of ducks rose before him, and swashed down with a
fluttering ricochet into the water again, beyond the shot of his rifle.
A fish-hawk, perched above his last year's nest, sat on a dead limb and
watched him as he glided by. A blue heron rose among the reeds, looked
at him quietly, and then hid behind a tree. A muskrat swam shoreward
from his track, with only his nose above water. A deer, feeding among
the lily-pads, looked up, snorted, and then wheeled and plunged into the
woods. All these things he saw, but they made no more impression upon
his memory than is left upon the canvas by the projected images of a
magic-lantern. His mind was occupied by his scheme, which had never
seemed so serious a matter as when he had started upon its fulfilment.
All the possibilities of immediate detection and efficient pursuit
presented themselves to him. He had no respect for Thomas Buffum, yet
there was the thought that he was taking away from him one of the
sources of his income. He would not like to have Buffum suppose that he
could be guilty of a mean act, or capable of making an ungrateful return
for hospitality. Still he did not doubt his own motives, or his ability
to do good to Paul Benedict and his boy.

It was nearly ten miles from Jim's cabin, down the winding river, to the
point where he was to hide his boat, and take to the road which would
lead him to the house of Mike Conlin, half way to Sevenoaks. Remembering
before he started that the blind cart-road over which he must bring his
patient was obstructed at various points by fallen trees, he brought
along his axe, and found himself obliged to spend the whole day on his
walk, and in clearing the road for the passage of a wagon. It was six
o'clock before he reached Mike's house, the outermost post of the
"settlement," which embraced in its definition the presence of women and
children.

"Be gorry," said Mike, who had long been looking for him, "I was afeared
ye'd gi'en it up. The old horse is ready this two hours. I've took more
nor three quarts o' dander out iv 'is hide, and gi'en 'im four quarts
o' water and a pail iv oats, an' he'll go."

Mike nodded his head as if he were profoundly sure of it. Jim had used
horses in his life, in the old days of lumbering and logging, and was
quite at home with them. He had had many a drive with Mike, and knew the
animal he would be required to handle--a large, hardy, raw-boned
creature, that had endured much in Mike's hands, and was quite equal to
the present emergency.

As soon as Jim had eaten his supper, and Mike's wife had put up for him
food enough to last him and such accessions to his party as he expected
to secure during the night, and supplied him abundantly with wrappings,
he went to the stable, mounted the low, strong wagon before which Mike
had placed the horse, and with a hearty "good luck to ye!" from the
Irishman ringing in his ears, started on the road to Sevenoaks. This
portion of the way was easy. The road was worn somewhat, and moderately
well kept; and there was nothing to interfere with the steady jog which
measured the distance at the rate of six miles an hour. For three steady
hours he went on, the horse no more worried than if he had been standing
in the stable. At nine o'clock the lights in the farmers' cottages by
the wayside were extinguished, and the families they held were in bed.
Then the road began to grow dim, and the sky to become dark. The fickle
spring weather gave promise of rain. Jim shuddered at the thought of the
exposure to which, in a shower, his delicate friend would be subjected,
but thought that if he could but get him to the wagon, and cover him
well before its onset, he could shield him from harm.

The town clock was striking ten as he drove up to the stump where he was
to meet Benedict's boy. He stopped and whistled. A whistle came back in
reply, and a dark little object crept out from behind the stump, and
came up to the wagon.

"Harry, how's your pa?" said Jim.

"He's been very bad to-day," said Harry. "He says he's going to
Abraham's bosom on a visit, and he's been walking around in his room,
and wondering why you don't come for him."

"Who did he say that to?" inquired Jim.

"To me," replied the boy. "And he told me not to speak to Mr. Buffum
about it."

Jim breathed a sigh of relief, and saying "All right!" he leaped from
the wagon. Then taking out a heavy blanket, he said:

"Now, Harry, you jest stand by the old feller's head till I git back to
ye. He's out o' the road, an' ye needn't stir if any body comes along."

Harry went up to the old horse, patted his nose and his breast, and told
him he was good. The creature seemed to understand it, and gave him no
trouble. Jim then stalked off noiselessly into the darkness, and the boy
waited with a trembling and expectant heart.

Jim reached the poor-house, and stood still in the middle of the road
between the two establishments. The lights in both had been
extinguished, and stillness reigned in that portion occupied by Thomas
Buffum and his family. The darkness was so great that Jim could almost
feel it. No lights were visible except in the village at the foot of the
hill, and these were distant and feeble, through an open window--left
open that the asthmatic keeper of the establishment might be supplied
with breath--he heard a stertorous snore. On the other side matters were
not so silent. There were groans, and yells, and gabble from the reeking
and sleepless patients, who had been penned up for the long and terrible
night. Concluding that every thing was as safe for his operations as it
would become at any time, he slowly felt his way to the door of the ward
which held Paul Benedict, and found it fastened on the outside, as he
had anticipated. Lifting the bar from the iron arms that held it, and
pushing back the bolt, he silently opened the door. Whether the darkness
within was greater than that without, or whether the preternaturally
quickened ears of the patients detected the manipulations of the
fastenings, he did not know, but he was conscious at once that the
tumult within was hushed. It was apparent that they had been visited in
the night before, and that the accustomed intruder had come on no gentle
errand.. There was not a sound as Jim felt his way along from stall to
stall, sickened almost to retching by the insufferable stench that
reached his nostrils and poisoned every inspiration.

On the morning of his previous visit he had taken all the bearings with
reference to an expedition in the darkness, and so, feeling his way
along the hall, he had little difficulty in finding the cell in which he
had left his old friend.

Jim tried the door, but found it locked. His great fear was that the
lock would be changed, but it had not been meddled with, and had either
been furnished with a new key, or had been locked with a skeleton. He
slipped the stolen key in, and the bolt slid back. Opening the outer
door, he tried the inner, but the key did not fit the lock. Here was a
difficulty not entirely unexpected, but seeming to be insurmountable. He
quietly went back to the door of entrance, and as quietly closed it,
that no sound of violence might reach and wake the inmates of the house
across the road. Then he returned, and whispered in a low voice to the
inmate:

"Paul Benedict, give us your benediction."

"Jim," responded the man in a whisper, so light that it could reach no
ear but his own.

"Don't make no noise, not even if I sh'd make consid'able," said Jim.

Then, grasping the bars with both hands, he gave the door a sudden pull,
into which he put all the might of his huge frame. A thousand pounds
would not have measured it, and the door yielded, not at the bolt, but
at the hinges. Screws deeply imbedded were pulled out bodily. A second
lighter wrench completed the task, and the door was noiselessly set
aside, though Jim was trembling in every muscle.

Benedict stood at the door.

"Here's the robe that Abram sent ye," said Jim, throwing over the poor
man's shoulders an ample blanket; and putting one of his large arms
around him, he led him shuffling out of the hall, and shut and bolted
the door.

He had no sooner done this, than the bedlam inside broke loose. There
were yells, and howls, and curses, but Jim did not stop for these.
Dizzied with his effort, enveloped in thick darkness, and the wind which
preceded the approaching shower blowing a fierce gale, he was obliged to
stop a moment to make sure that he was walking in the right direction.
He saw the lights of the village, and, finding the road, managed to keep
on it until he reached the horse, that had become uneasy under the
premonitory tumult of the storm. Lifting Benedict into the wagon as if
he had been a child, he wrapped him warmly, and put the boy in behind
him, to kneel and see that his father did not fall out. Then he turned
the horse around, and started toward Number Nine. The horse knew the
road, and was furnished with keener vision than the man who drove him.
Jim was aware of this, and letting the reins lie loose upon his back,
the animal struck into a long, swinging trot, in prospect of home and
another "pail iv oats."

They had not gone a mile when the gathering tempest came down upon them.
It rained in torrents, the lightning illuminated the whole region again
and again, and the thunder cracked, and boomed, and rolled off among the
woods and hills, as if the day of doom had come.

The war of the elements harmonized strangely with the weird fancies of
the weak man who sat at Jim's side. He rode in perfect silence for
miles. At last the wind went down, and the rain settled to a steady
fall.

"They were pretty angry about my going," said he, feebly.

"Yes," said Jim, "they behaved purty car'less, but I'm too many for
'em."

"Does Father Abraham know I'm coming?" inquired Benedict. "Does he
expect me to-night?"

"Yes," responded Jim, "an' he'd 'a' sent afore, but he's jest wore out
with company. He's a mighty good-natered man, an' I tell 'im they take
the advantage of 'im. But I've posted 'im 'bout ye, and ye're all
right."

"Is it very far to the gulf?" inquired Benedict.

"Yes, it's a good deal of a drive, but when ye git there, ye can jest
lay right down in the boat, an' go to sleep. I'll wake ye up, ye know,
when we run in."

The miles slid behind into the darkness, and, at last, the rain
subsiding somewhat, Jim stopped, partly to rest his smoking horse, and
partly to feed his half-famished companions. Benedict ate mechanically
the food that Jim fished out of the basket with a careful hand, and the
boy ate as only boys can eat. Jim himself was hungry, and nearly
finished what they left.

At two o'clock in the morning, they descried Mike Conlin's light, and in
ten minutes the reeking horse and the drenched inmates of the wagon
drove up to the door. Mike was waiting to receive them.

"Mike, this is my particular friend, Benedict. Take 'im in, an' dry 'im.
An' this is 'is boy. Toast 'im both sides--brown."

A large, pleasant fire was blazing on Mike's humble hearth, and with
sundry cheerful remarks he placed his guests before it, relieving them
of their soaked wrappings. Then he went to the stable, and fed and
groomed his horse, and returned eagerly, to chat with Jim, who sat
steaming before the fire, as if he had just been lifted from a hot bath.

"What place is this, Jim?" said Mr. Benedict.

"This is the half-way house," responded that personage, without looking
up.

"Why, this is purgatory, isn't it?" inquired Benedict.

"Yes, Mike is a Catholic, an' all his folks; an' he's got to stay here a
good while, an' he's jest settled down an' gone to housekeepin'."

"Is it far to the gulf, now?"

"Twenty mile, and the road is rougher nor a--"

"'Ah, it's no twinty mile," responded Mike, "an' the road is jist
lovely--jist lovely; an' afore ye start I'm goin' to give ye a drap that
'll make ye think so."

They sat a whole hour before the fire, and then Mike mixed the draught
he had promised to the poor patient. It was not a heavy one, but, for
the time, it lifted the man so far out of his weakness that he could
sleep, and the moment his brain felt the stimulus, he dropped into a
slumber so profound that when the time of departure came he could not be
awakened. As there was no time to be lost, a bed was procured from a
spare chamber, with pillows; the wagon was brought to the door, and the
man was carried out as unconscious as if he were in his last slumber,
and tenderly put to bed in the wagon. Jim declined the dram that Mike
urged upon him, for he had need of all his wits, and slowly walked the
horse away on the road to his boat. If Benedict had been wide awake and
well, he could not have traveled the road safely faster than a walk; and
the sleep, and the bed which it rendered necessary, became the happiest
accidents of the journey.

For two long hours the horse plodded along the stony and uneven road,
and then the light began to redden in the east, and Jim could see the
road sufficiently to increase his speed with safety. It was not until
long after the sun had risen that Benedict awoke, and found himself too
weak to rise. Jim gave him more food, answered his anxious inquiries in
his own way, and managed to keep him upon his bed, from which he
constantly tried to rise in response to his wandering impulses. It was
nearly noon when they found themselves at the river; and the
preparations for embarkation were quickly made. The horse was tied and
fed, the wagon unfastened, and the whole establishment was left for Mike
to reclaim, according to the arrangement that Jim had made with him.

The woodsman saw that his patient would not be able to sit, and so felt
himself compelled to take along the bed. Arranging this with the pillows
in the bow of his boat, and placing Benedict upon it, with his boy at
his feet, he shoved off, and started up the stream.

After running along against the current for a mile, Benedict having
quietly rested meantime, looked up and said weakly:

"Jim, is this the gulf?"

"Yes," responded Jim, cheerfully. "This is the gulf, and a purty place
'tis too. I've seed a sight o' worser places nor this."

"It's very beautiful," responded Benedict. "We must be getting pretty
near."

"It's not very fur now," said Jim.

The poor, wandering mind was trying to realize the heavenly scenes that
it believed were about to burst upon its vision. The quiet, sunlit
water, the trees still bare but bourgeoning, the songs of birds, the
blue sky across which fleecy clouds were peacefully floating, the
breezes that kissed his fevered cheek, the fragrance of the bordering
evergreens, and the electric air that entered his lungs so long
accustomed to the poisonous fetor of his cell, were well calculated to
foster his delusion, and to fill his soul with a peace to which it had
long been a stranger. An exquisite languor stole upon him, and under the
pressure of his long fatigue, his eyelids fell, and he dropped into a
quiet slumber.

When the boy saw that his father was asleep, he crept back to Jim and
said:

"Mr. Fenton, I don't think it's right for you to tell papa such lies."

"Call me Jim. The Doctor called me 'Mr. Fenton,' and it 'most killed
me."

"Well, Jim."

"Now, that sounds like it. You jest look a here, my boy. Your pa ain't
livin' in this world now, an' what's true to him is a lie to us, an'
what's true to us is a lie to him. I jest go into his world and say
what's true whar he lives. Isn't that right?"

This vein of casuistry was new to the boy, and he was staggered.

"When your pa gits well agin, an' here's hopin,' Jim Fenton an' he will
be together in their brains, ye know, and then they won't be talkin'
like a couple of jay-birds, and I won't lie to him no more nor I would
to you."

The lad's troubled mind was satisfied, and he crept back to his father's
feet, where he lay until he discovered Turk, whining and wagging his
tail in front of the little hillock that was crowned by Jim's cabin.

The long, hard, weird journey was at an end. The boat came up broadside
to the shore, and Jim leaped out, and showered as many caresses upon his
dog as he received from the faithful brute.




CHAPTER VI.

IN WHICH SEVENOAKS EXPERIENCES A GREAT COMMOTION, AND COMES TO THE
CONCLUSION THAT BENEDICT HAS MET WITH FOUL PLAY.


Thomas Buffum and his family slept late on Sunday morning, and the
operating forces of the establishment lingered in their beds. When, at
last, the latter rose and opened the doors of the dormitories, the
escape of Benedict was detected. Mr. Buffum was summoned at once, and
hastened across the street in his shirt-sleeves, which, by the way, was
about as far toward full dress as he ever went when the weather did not
compel him to wear a coat. Buffum examined the inner door and saw that
it had been forced by a tremendous exercise of muscular power. He
remembered the loss of the key, and knew that some one had assisted in
the operation.

"Where's that boy?" wheezed the keeper.

An attendant rushed to the room where the boy usually slept, and came
back with the report that the bed had not been occupied. Then there was
a search outside for tracks, but the rain had obliterated them all. The
keeper was in despair. He did not believe that Benedict could have
survived the storm of the night, and he did not doubt that the boy had
undertaken to hide his father somewhere.

"Go out, all of you, all round, and find 'em," hoarsely whispered Mr.
Buffum, "and bring 'em back, and say nothing about it."

The men, including several of the more reliable paupers, divided
themselves into little squads, and departed without breakfast, in order
to get back before the farmers should drive by on their way to church.
The orchards, the woods, the thickets--all possible covers--were
searched, and searched, of course, in vain. One by one the parties
returned to report that they could not find the slightest sign of the
fugitives.

Mr. Buffum, who had not a question that the little boy had planned and
executed the escape, assisted by the paroxysmal strength of his insane
father, felt that he was seriously compromised. The flight and undoubted
death of old Tilden were too fresh in the public mind to permit this new
reflection upon his faithfulness and efficiency as a public guardian to
pass without a popular tumult. He had but just assumed the charge of the
establishment for another year, and he knew that Robert Belcher would be
seriously offended, for more reasons than the public knew, or than that
person would be willing to confess. He had never in his life been in
more serious trouble. He hardly tasted his breakfast, and was too crusty
and cross to be safely addressed by any member of his family. Personally
he was not in a condition to range the fields, and when he had received
the reports of the parties who had made the search, he felt that he had
a job to undertake too serious for his single handling.

In the meantime, Mr. Belcher had risen at his leisure, in blissful
unconsciousness of the calamities that had befallen his _protege_. He
owned a pew in every church in Sevenoaks, and boasted that he had no
preferences. Once every Sunday he went to one of these churches; and
there was a fine flutter throughout the building whenever he and his
family appeared. He felt that the building had received a special honor
from his visit; but if he was not guided by his preferences, he
certainly was by his animosities. If for three or four Sabbaths in
succession he honored a single church by his presence, it was usually to
pay off a grudge against some minister or member of another flock. He
delighted to excite the suspicion that he had at last become attached to
one clergyman, and that the other churches were in danger of being
forsaken by him. It would be painful to paint the popular weakness and
the ministerial jealousy--painful to describe the lack of Christian
dignity--with which these demonstrations of worldly caprice and
arrogance, were watched by pastor and flock.

After the town meeting and the demonstration of the Rev. Solomon Snow,
it was not expected that Mr. Belcher would visit the church of the
latter for some months. During the first Sabbath after this event, there
was gloom in that clergyman's congregation; for Mr. Belcher, in his
routine, should have illuminated their public services by his presence,
but he did not appear.

"This comes," bitterly complained one of the deacons, "of a minister's
meddling with public affairs."

But during the week following, Mr. Belcher had had a satisfactory
interview with Mr. Snow, and on the morning of the flight of Benedict he
drove in the carriage with his family up to the door of that gentleman's
church, and gratified the congregation and its reverend head by walking
up the broad aisle, and, with his richly dressed flock, taking his old
seat.

As he looked around upon the humbler parishioners, he seemed to say, by
his patronizing smile: "Mr. Snow and the great proprietor are at peace.
Make yourselves easy, and enjoy your sunshine while it lasts."

Mr. Buffum never went to church. He had a theory that it was necessary
for him to remain in charge of his establishment, and that he was doing
a good thing by sending his servants and dependents. When, therefore, he
entered Mr. Snow's church on the Sunday morning which found Mr. Belcher
comfortably seated there, and stumped up the broad aisle in his
shirt-sleeves, the amazement of the minister and the congregation may be
imagined. If he had been one of his own insane paupers _en deshabille_
he could not have excited more astonishment or more consternation.

Mr. Snow stopped in the middle of a stanza of the first hymn, as if the
words had dried upon his tongue. Every thing seemed to stop. Of this,
however, Mr. Buffum was ignorant. He had no sense of the proprieties of
the house, and was intent only on reaching Mr. Belcher's pew.

Bending to his patron's ear, he whispered a few words, received a few
words in return, and then retired. The proprietor's face was red with
rage and mortification, but he tried to appear unconcerned, and the
services went on to their conclusion. Boys who sat near the windows
stretched their necks to see whether smoke was issuing from the
poor-house; and it is to be feared that the ministrations of the morning
were not particularly edifying to the congregation at large. Even Mr.
Snow lost his place in his sermon more frequently than usual. When the
meeting was dismissed, a hundred heads came together in chattering
surmise, and when they walked into the streets, the report of Benedict's
escape with his little boy met them. They understood, too, why Buffum
had come to Mr. Belcher with his trouble. He was Mr. Belcher's man, and
Mr. Belcher had publicly assumed responsibility for him.

No more meetings were held in any of the churches of Sevenoaks that day.
The ministers came to perform the services of the afternoon, and,
finding their pews empty, went home. A reward of one hundred dollars,
offered by Mr. Belcher to any one who would find Benedict and his boy,
"and return them in safety to the home provided for them by the town,"
was a sufficient apology, without the motives of curiosity and humanity
and the excitement of a search in the fields and woods, for a universal
relinquishment of Sunday habits, and the pouring out of the whole
population on an expedition of discovery.

Sevenoaks and its whole vicinity presented a strange aspect that
afternoon. There had slept in the hearts of the people a pleasant and
sympathetic memory of Mr. Benedict. They had seen him struggling,
dreaming, hopeful, yet always disappointed, dropping lower and lower
into poverty, and, at last, under accumulated trials, deprived of his
reason. They knew but little of his relations to Mr. Belcher, but they
had a strong suspicion that he had been badly treated by the
proprietor, and that it had been in the power of the latter to save him
from wreck. So, when it became known that he had escaped with his boy
from the poor-house, and that both had been exposed to the storm of the
previous night, they all--men and boys--covered the fields, and filled
the woods for miles around, in a search so minute that hardly a rod of
cover was left unexplored.

It was a strange excitement which stirred the women at home, as well as
the men afield. Nothing was thought of but the fugitives and the
pursuit.

Robert Belcher, in the character of principal citizen, was riding back
and forth behind his gray trotters, and stimulating the search in every
quarter. Poor Miss Butterworth sat at her window, making indiscriminate
inquiries of every passenger, or going about from house to house,
working off her nervous anxiety in meaningless activities.

As the various squads became tired by their long and unsuccessful
search, they went to the poor-house to report, and, before sunset, the
hill was covered by hundreds of weary and excited men. Some were sure
they had discovered traces of the fugitives. Others expressed the
conviction that they had thrown themselves into a well. One man, who did
not love Mr. Belcher, and had heard the stories of his ill-treatment of
Benedict, breathed the suspicion that both he and his boy had been
foully dealt with by one who had an interest in getting them out of the
way.

It was a marvel to see how quickly this suspicion took wing. It seemed
to be the most rational theory of the event. It went from mouth to mouth
and ear to ear, as the wind breathes among the leaves of a forest; but
there were reasons in every man's mind, or instincts in his nature, that
withheld the word "murder" from the ear of Mr. Belcher. As soon as the
suspicion became general, the aspect of every incident of the flight
changed. Then they saw, apparently for the first time, that a man
weakened by disease and long confinement, and never muscular at his
best, could not have forced the inner door of Benedict's cell. Then they
connected Mr. Belcher's behavior during the day with the affair, and,
though they said nothing at the time, they thought of his ostentatious
anxiety, his evident perturbation when Mr. Buffum announced to him the
escape, his offer of the reward for Benedict's discovery, and his
excited personal appearance among them. He acted like a guilty man--a
man who was trying to blind them, and divert suspicion from himself.

To the great horror of Mr. Buffum, his establishment was thoroughly
inspected and ransacked, and, as one after another left the hill for his
home, he went with indignation and shame in his heart, and curses on his
lips. Even if Benedict and his innocent boy had been murdered, murder
was not the only foul deed that had been committed on the hill. The
poor-house itself was an embodied crime against humanity and against
Christianity, for which the town of Sevenoaks at large was responsible,
though it had been covered from their sight by Mr. Belcher and the
keeper. It would have taken but a spark to kindle a conflagration. Such
was the excitement that only a leader was needed to bring the tumult of
a violent mob around the heads of the proprietor and his _protege_.

Mr. Belcher was not a fool, and he detected, as he sat in his wagon
talking with Buffum in a low tone, the change that had come over the
excited groups around him. They looked at him as they talked, with a
serious scrutiny to which he was unused. They no more addressed him with
suggestions and inquiries. They shunned his neighborhood, and silently
went off down the hill. He knew, as well as if they had been spoken,
that there were not only suspicions against him, but indignation over
the state of things that had been discovered in the establishment, for
whose keeper he had voluntarily become responsible. Notwithstanding all
his efforts to assist them in their search, he knew that in their hearts
they charged him with Benedict's disappearance. At last he bade Buffum
good-night, and went down the hill to his home.

He had no badinage for Phipps during that drive, and no pleasant
reveries in his library during that evening, for all the possibilities
of the future passed through his mind in dark review. If Benedict had
been murdered, who could have any interest in his death but himself? If
he had died from exposure, his secrets would be safe, but the charge of
his death would be brought to his door, as Miss Butterworth had already
brought the responsibility for his insanity there. If he had got away
alive, and should recover, or if his boy should get into hands that
would ultimately claim for him his rights, then his prosperity would be
interfered with. He did not wish to acknowledge to himself that he
desired the poor man's death, but he was aware that in his death he
found the most hopeful vision of the night. Angry with the public
feeling that accused him of a crime of which he was not guilty, and
guilty of a crime of which definitely the public knew little or nothing,
there was no man in Sevenoaks so unhappy as he. He loved power and
popularity. He had been happy in the thought that he controlled the
town, and for the moment, at least, he knew the town had slipped
disloyally out of his hands.

An impromptu meeting of citizens was held that evening, at which Mr.
Belcher did not assist. The clergymen were all present, and there seemed
to be a general understanding that they had been ruled long enough in
the interest and by the will of a single man. A subscription was raised
for a large amount, and the sum offered to any one who would discover
the fugitives.

The next morning Mr. Belcher found the village quiet and very reticent,
and having learned that a subscription had been raised without calling
upon him, he laughingly expressed his determination to win the reward
for himself.

Then he turned his grays up the hill, had a long consultation with Mr.
Buffum, who informed him of the fate of old Tilden, and started at a
rapid pace toward Number Nine.




CHAPTER VII.

IN WHICH JIM AND MIKE CONLIN PASS THROUGH A GREAT TRIAL AND COME OUT
VICTORIOUS.


"There, Turk, there they be!" said Jim to his dog, pointing to his
passengers, as he stood caressing him, with one foot on the land and the
other holding the boat to the shore. "There's the little chap that I've
brung to play with ye, an' there's the sick man that we've got to take
care on. Now don't ye make no row."

Turk looked up into his master's face, then surveyed the new comers with
a wag of his tail that had all the force of a welcome, and, when Harry
leaped on shore, he smelt him over, licked his hand, and accepted him as
a satisfactory companion.

Jim towed his boat around a point into a little cove where there was a
beach, and then drew it by a long, strong pull entirely out of the
water. Lifting Benedict and carrying him to his own cabin, he left him
in charge of Harry and the dog, while he went to make his bed in "Number
Ten." His arrangements completed, he transferred his patient to the
quarters prepared for him, where, upheld and pillowed by the sweetest
couch that weary body ever rested upon, he sank into slumber.

Harry and the dog became inseparable companions at once; and as it was
necessary for Jim to watch with Benedict during the night, he had no
difficulty in inducing the new friends to occupy his cabin together. The
dog understood his responsibility and the lad accepted his protector;
and when both had been bountifully fed they went to sleep side by side.

It was, however, a troubled night at Number Ten. The patient's
imagination had been excited, his frame had undergone a great fatigue,
and the fresh air, no less than the rain that had found its way to his
person through all his wrappings, on the previous night, had produced a
powerful impression upon his nervous system. It was not strange that the
morning found Jim unrefreshed, and his patient in a high, delirious
fever.

"Now's the time," said Jim to himself, "when a feller wants some sort o'
religion or a woman; an' I hain't got nothin' but a big dog an' a little
boy, an' no doctor nearer 'n forty mile."

Poor Jim! He did not know that the shock to which he had subjected the
enfeebled lunatic was precisely what was needed to rouse every effort of
nature to effect a cure. He could not measure the influence of the
subtle earth-currents that breathed over him. He did not know that there
was better medicine in the pure air, in the balsamic bed, in the broad
stillness, in the nourishing food and the careful nursing, than in all
the drugs of the world. He did not know that, in order to reach the
convalescence for which he so ardently longed, his patient must go down
to the very basis of his life, and begin and build up anew; that in
changing from an old and worn-out existence to a fresh and healthy one,
there must come a point between the two conditions where there would
seem to be no life, and where death would appear to be the only natural
determination. He was burdened with his responsibility; and only the
consciousness that his motives were pure and his patient no more
hopeless in his hands than in those from which he had rescued him,
strengthened his equanimity and sustained his courage.

As the sun rose, Benedict fell into an uneasy slumber, and, while Jim
watched his heavy breathing, the door was noiselessly opened, and Harry
and the dog looked in. The hungry look of the lad summoned Jim to new
duties, and leaving Harry to watch his father, he went off to prepare a
breakfast for his family.

All that day and all the following night Jim's time was so occupied in
feeding the well and administering to the sick, that his own
sleeplessness began to tell upon him. He who had been accustomed to the
sleep of a healthy and active man began to look haggard, and to long for
the assistance of a trusty hand. It was with a great, irrepressible
shout of gratification that, at the close of the second day, he detected
the form of Mike Conlin walking up the path by the side of the river,
with a snug pack of provisions upon his back.

Jim pushed his boat from the shore, and ferried Mike over to his cabin.
The Irishman had reached the landing ten miles below to learn that the
birch canoe in which he had expected to ascend the river had either been
stolen or washed away. He was, therefore, obliged to take the old
"tote-road" worn in former years by the lumbermen, at the side of the
river, and to reach Jim's camp on foot. He was very tired, but the
warmth of his welcome brought a merry twinkle to his eyes and the ready
blarney to his tongue.

"Och! divil a bit wud ye be glad to see Mike Conlin if ye knowed he'd
come to arrist ye. Jim, ye're me prisoner. Ye've been stalin a pauper--a
pair iv 'em, faith--an' ye must answer fur it wid yer life to owld
Belcher. Come along wid me. None o' yer nonsinse, or I'll put a windy in
ye."

Jim eyed him with a smile, but he knew that no ordinary errand had
brought Mike to him so quickly.

"Old Belcher sent ye, did he?" said Jim.

"Be gorry he did, an' I've come to git a reward. Now, if ye'll be
dacint, ye shall have part of it."

Although Jim saw that Mike was apparently in sport, he knew that the
offer of a cash reward for his own betrayal was indeed a sore temptation
to him.

"Did ye tell 'im anything, Mike?" inquired Jim, solemnly.

"Divil a bit."

"An' ye knowed I'd lick ye if ye did. Ye knowed that, didn't ye?"

"I knowed ye'd thry it faithful, an' if ye didn't do it there'd be
niver a man to blame but Mike Conlin."

Jim said no more, but went to work and got a bountiful supper for Mike.
When he had finished, he took him over to Number Ten, where Harry and
Turk were watching. Quietly opening the door of the cabin, he entered.
Benedict lay on his bed, his rapt eyes looking up to the roof. His
clean-cut, deathly face, his long, tangled locks, and the comfortable
appointments about him, were all scanned by Mike, and, without saying a
word, both turned and retired.

"Mike," said Jim, as they retraced their way, "that man an' me was like
brothers. I found 'im in the devil's own hole, an' any man as comes
atween me an' him must look out fur 'imself forever arter. Jim Fenton's
a good-natered man when he ain't riled, but he'd sooner fight nor eat
when he is. Will ye help me, or won't ye?"

Mike made no reply, but opened his pack and brought out a tumbler of
jelly. "There, ye bloody blaggard, wouldn't ye be afther lickin' that
now?" said he; and then, as he proceeded to unload the pack, his tongue
ran on in comment. (A paper of crackers.) "Mash 'em all to smithereens
now. Give it to 'em, Jim." (A roasted chicken.) "Pitch intil the
rooster, Jim. Crack every bone in 'is body." (A bottle of brandy.)
"Knock the head aff his shoolders and suck 'is blood." (A package of
tea.) "Down with the tay! It's insulted ye, Jim." (A piece of maple
sugar.) "Och! the owld, brown rascal! ye'll be afther doin Jim Fenton a
bad turn, will ye? Ye'll be brakin 'is teeth fur 'im." Then followed a
plate, cup and saucer, and these were supplemented by an old shirt and
various knick-knacks that only a woman would remember in trying to
provide for an invalid far away from the conveniences and comforts of
home.

Jim watched Mike with tearful eyes, which grew more and more loaded and
luminous as the disgorgement of the contents of the pack progressed.

"Mike, will ye forgive me?" said Jim, stretching out his hand. "I was
afeared the money'd be too many for ye; but barrin' yer big foot an' the
ugly nose that's on ye, ye're an angel."

"Niver ye mind me fut," responded Mike. "Me inimies don't like it, an'
they can give a good raison fur it; an' as fur me nose, it'll look
worser nor it does now when Jim Fenton gets a crack at it."

"Mike," said Jim, "ye hurt me. Here's my hand, an' honors are easy."

Mike took the hand without more ado, and then sat back and told Jim all
about it.

"Ye see, afther ye wint away that night I jist lay down an' got a bit iv
a shnooze, an' in the mornin' I shtarted for me owld horse. It was a big
thramp to where ye lift him, and comin' back purty slow, I picked up a
few shticks and put intil the wagin for me owld woman--pine knots an'
the like o' that. I didn't git home much afore darruk, and me owld horse
wasn't more nor in the shtable an' I 'atin' me supper, quiet like, afore
Belcher druv up to me house wid his purty man on the seat wid 'im. An'
says he: 'Mike Conlin! Mike Conlin! Come to the dour wid ye!' So I wint
to the dour, an' he says, says he: 'Hev ye seen a crazy old feller wid a
b'y?' An' says I: 'There's no crazy owld feller wid a b'y been by me
house in the daytime. If they wint by at all at all, it was when me
family was aslape.' Then he got out of his wagin and come in, and he
looked 'round in all the corners careless like, and thin he said he
wanted to go to the barrun. So we wint to the barrun, and he looked all
about purty careful, and he says, says he: 'What ye been doin' wid the
owld horse on a Sunday, Mike?' And says I to him, says I: 'Jist a
pickin' up a few shticks for the owld woman.' An' when he come out he
see the shticks in the wagin, and he says, says he: 'Mike, if ye'll find
these fellers in the woods I'll give ye five hundred dollars.' And says
I: 'Squire Belcher,' says I (for I knowed he had a wake shpot in 'im),
'ye are richer nor a king, and Mike Conlin's no betther nor a pauper
himself. Give me a hundred dollars,' says I, 'an' I'll thry it. And be
gorry I've got it right there' (slapping his pocket.) 'Take along
somethin' for 'em to ate,' says he, 'and faith I've done that same and
found me min; an' now I'll stay wid ye fur a week an' 'arn me hundred
dollars."

The week that Mike promised Jim was like a lifetime. To have some one
with him to share his vigils and his responsibility lifted a great
burden from his shoulders. But the sick man grew weaker and weaker every
day. He was assiduously nursed and literally fed with dainties; but the
two men went about their duties with solemn faces, and talked almost in
a whisper. Occasionally one of them went out for delicate game, and by
alternate watches they managed to get sufficient sleep to recruit their
exhausted energies.

One morning, after Mike had been there four or five days, both stood by
Benedict's bed, and felt that a crisis was upon him. A great uneasiness
had possessed him for some hours, and then he had sunk away into a
stupor or a sleep, they could not determine which.

The two men watched him for a while, and then went out and sat down on a
log in front of the cabin, and held a consultation.

"Mike," said Jim, "somethin' must be did. We've did our best an' nothin'
comes on't; an' Benedict is nearer Abram's bosom nor I ever meant he
should come in my time. I ain't no doctor; you ain't no doctor. We've
nussed 'im the best we knowed, but I guess he's a goner. It's too
thunderin' bad, for I'd set my heart on puttin' 'im through."

"Well," said Mike, "I've got me hundred dollars, and you'll git yer pay
in the nixt wurruld."

"I don't want no pay," responded Jim. "An' what do ye know about the
next world, anyway?"

"The praste says there is one," said Mike.

"The priest be hanged! What does he know about it?"

"That's his business," said Mike. "It's not for the like o' me to answer
for the praste."

"Well, I wish he was here, in Number Nine, an' we'd see what we could
git out of 'im. I've got to the eend o' my rope."

The truth was that Jim was becoming religious. When his own strong right
hand failed in any enterprise, he always came to a point where the
possibilities of a superior wisdom and power dawned upon him. He had
never offered a prayer in his life, but the wish for some medium or
instrument of intercession was strong within him. At last an idea struck
him, and he turned to Mike and told him to go down to his old cabin, and
stay there while he sent the boy back to him.

When Harry came up, with an anxious face, Jim took him between his
knees.

"Little feller," said he, "I need comfortin'. It's a comfort to have ye
here in my arms, an' I don't never want to have you go 'way from me.
Your pa is awful sick, and perhaps he ain't never goin' to be no better.
The rain and the ride, I'm afeared, was too many fur him; but I've did
the best I could, and I meant well to both on ye, an' now I can't do no
more, and there ain't no doctor here, an' there ain't no minister. Ye've
allers been a pretty good boy, hain't ye? And don't ye s'pose ye can go
out here a little ways behind a tree and pray? I'll hold on to the dog;
an' it seems to me, if I was the Lord, I sh'd pay 'tention to what a
little feller like you was sayin'. There ain't nobody here but you to do
it now, ye know. I can nuss your pa and fix his vittles, and set up with
'im nights, but I can't pray. I wasn't brung up to it. Now, if ye'll do
this, I won't ax ye to do nothin' else."

The boy was serious. He looked off with his great black eyes into the
woods. He had said his prayers many times when he did not know that he
wanted anything. Here was a great emergency, the most terrible that he
had ever encountered. He, a child, was the only one who could pray for
the life of his father; and the thought of the responsibility, though it
was only dimly entertained, or imperfectly grasped, overwhelmed him. His
eyes, that had been strained so long, filled with tears, and, bursting
into a fit of uncontrollable weeping, he threw his arms around Jim's
neck, where he sobbed away his sudden and almost hysterical passion.
Then he gently disengaged himself and went away.

Jim took off his cap, and holding fast his uneasy and inquiring dog,
bowed his head as if he were in a church. Soon, among the songs of birds
that were turning the morning into music, and the flash of waves that
ran shoreward before the breeze, and the whisper of the wind among the
evergreens, there came to his ear the voice of a child, pleading for his
father's life. The tears dropped from his eyes and rolled down upon his
beard. There was an element of romantic superstition in the man, of
which his request was the offspring, and to which the sound of the
child's voice appealed with irresistible power.

When the lad reappeared and approached him, Jim said to himself: "Now,
if that won't do it, ther' won't nothin'." Reaching out his arms to
Harry, as he came up, he embraced him, and said:

"My boy, ye've did the right thing. It's better nor all the nussin', an'
ye must do that every mornin'--every mornin'; an' don't ye take no for
an answer. Now jest go in with me an' see your pa."

Jim would not have been greatly surprised to see the rude little room
thronged with angels, but he was astonished, almost to fainting, to see
Benedict open his eyes, look about him, then turn his questioning gaze
upon him, and recognize him by a faint smile, so like the look of other
days--so full of intelligence and peace, that the woodsman dropped upon
his knees and hid his face in the blankets. He did not say a word, but
leaving the boy passionately kissing his father, he ran to his own
cabin.

Seizing Mike by the shoulders, he shook him as if he intended to kill
him.

"Mike," said he, "by the great horned spoons, the little fellow has
fetched 'im! Git yer pa'tridge-broth and yer brandy quicker'n'
lightnin'. Don't talk to me no more 'bout yer priest; I've got a trick
worth two o' that."

Both men made haste back to Number Ten, where they found their patient
quite able to take the nourishment and stimulant they brought, but still
unable to speak. He soon sank into a refreshing slumber, and gave signs
of mending throughout the day. The men who had watched him with such
careful anxiety were full of hope, and gave vent to their lightened
spirits in the chaffing which, in their careless hours, had become
habitual with them. The boy and the dog rejoiced too in sympathy; and if
there had been ten days of storm and gloom, ended by a brilliant
outshining sun, the aspect of the camp could not have been more suddenly
or happily changed.

Two days and nights passed away, and then Mike declared that he must go
home. The patient had spoken, and knew where he was. He only remembered
the past as a dream. First, it was dark and long, and full of horror,
but at length all had become bright; and Jim was made supremely happy to
learn that he had had a vision of the glory toward which he had
pretended to conduct him. Of the fatherly breast he had slept upon, of
the golden streets through which he had walked, of the river of the
water of life, of the shining ones with whom he had strolled in
companionship, of the marvelous city which hath foundations, and the
ineffable beauty of its Maker and Builder, he could not speak in full,
until years had passed away; but out of this lovely dream he had emerged
into natural life.

"He's jest been down to the bottom, and started new." That was the sum
and substance of Jim's philosophy, and it would be hard for science to
supplant it.

"Well," said Jim to Mike, "ye've be'n a godsend. Ye've did more good in
a week nor ye'll do agin if ye live a thousand year. Ye've arned yer
hundred dollars, and ye haven't found no pauper, and ye can tell 'em so.
Paul Benedict ain't no pauper, an' he ain't no crazy man either."

"Be gorry ye're right!" said Mike, who was greatly relieved at finding
his report shaped for him in such a way that he would not be obliged to
tell a falsehood.

"An' thank yer old woman for me," said Jim, "an' tell her she's the
queen of the huckleberry bushes, an' a jewel to the side o' the road she
lives on."

"Divil a bit will I do it," responded Mike. "She'll be so grand I can't
live wid her."

"An' tell her when ye've had yer quarrel," said Jim, "that there'll
allers be a place for her in Number Ten."

They chaffed one another until Mike passed out of sight among the trees;
and Jim, notwithstanding his new society, felt lonelier, as he turned
back to his cabin, than he had ever felt when there was no human being
within twenty miles of him.

The sun of early May had begun to shine brightly, the willows were
growing green by the side of the river, the resinous buds were swelling
daily, and making ready to burst into foliage, the birds returned one
after another from their winter journeyings, and the thrushes filled the
mornings and the evenings alike with their carolings. Spring had come to
the woods again, with words of promise and wings of fulfillment, and
Jim's heart was full of tender gladness. He had gratified his benevolent
impulses, and he found upon his hands that which would tax their
abounding energies. Life had never seemed to him so full of significance
as it did then. He could see what he had been saving money for, and he
felt that out of the service he was rendering to the poor and the
distressed was growing a love for them that gave a new and almost divine
flavor to his existence.

Benedict mended slowly, but he mended daily, and gave promise of the
permanent recovery of a healthy body and a sound mind. It was a happy
day for Jim when, with Harry and the dog bounding before him, and
Benedict leaning on his arm, he walked over to his old cabin, and all
ate together at his own rude table. Jim never encouraged his friend's
questions. He endeavored, by every practical way, to restrain his mind
from wandering into the past, and encouraged him to associate his future
with his present society and surroundings. The stronger the patient
grew, the more willing he became to shut out the past, which, as memory
sometimes--nay, too often--recalled it, was an unbroken history of
trial, disappointment, grief, despair, and dreams of great darkness.

There was one man whom he could never think of without a shudder, and
with that man his possible outside life was inseparably associated. Mr.
Belcher had always been able, by his command of money and his coarse and
despotic will, to compel him into any course or transaction that he
desired. His nature was offensive to Benedict to an extreme degree, and
when in his presence, particularly when he entered it driven by
necessity, he felt shorn of his own manhood. He felt him to be without
conscience, without principle, without humanity, and was sure that it
needed only to be known that the insane pauper had become a sound and
healthy man to make him the subject of a series of persecutions or
persuasions that would wrest from him the rights and values on which the
great proprietor was foully battening. These rights and values he never
intended to surrender, and until he was strong and independent enough to
secure them to himself, he did not care to expose his gentler will to
the machinations of the great scoundrel who had thrived upon his
unrewarded genius.

So, by degrees, he came to look upon the woods as his home. He was there
at peace. His wife had faded out of the world, his life had been a fatal
struggle with the grossest selfishness, he had come out of the shadows
into a new life, and in that life's simple conditions, cared for by
Jim's strong arms, and upheld by his manly and cheerful companionship,
he intended to build safely the structure of his health, and to erect on
the foundation of a useful experience a better life.

In June, Jim did his planting, confined almost entirely to vegetables,
as there was no mill near enough to grind his wheat and corn should he
succeed in growing them. By the time the young plants were ready for
dressing, Benedict could assist Jim for an hour every day; and when the
autumn came, the invalid of Number Ten had become a heavier man than he
ever was before. Through the disguise of rags, the sun-browned features,
the heavy beard, and the generous and almost stalwart figure, his old
and most intimate friends would have failed to recognize the delicate
and attenuated man they had once known. Jim regarded him with great
pride, and almost with awe. He delighted to hear him talk, for he was
full of information and overflowing with suggestion.

"Mr. Benedict," said Jim one day, after they had indulged in one of
their long talks, "do ye s'pose ye can make a house?"

"Anything."

"A raal house, all ship-shape for a woman to live in?"

"Anything."

"With a little stoop, an' a bureau, an' some chairs, an' a frame, like,
fur posies to run up on?"

"Yes, Jim, and a thousand things you never thought of."

Jim did not pursue the conversation further, but went down very deep
into a brown study.

During September, he was in the habit of receiving the visits of
sportsmen, one of whom, a New York lawyer, who bore the name of Balfour,
had come into the woods every year for several successive years. He
became aware that his supplies were running low, and that not only was
it necessary to lay in a winter's stock of flour and pork, but that his
helpless _proteges_ should be supplied with clothing for the coming cold
weather. Benedict had become quite able to take care of himself and his
boy; so one day Jim, having furnished himself with a supply of money
from his long accumulated hoard, went off down the river for a week's
absence.

He had a long consultation with Mike Conlin, who agreed to draw his
lumber to the river whenever he should see fit to begin his enterprise.
He had taken along a list of tools, furnished him by Benedict; and Mike
carried him to Sevenoaks with the purpose of taking back whatever, in
the way of stores, they should purchase. Jim was full of reminiscences
of his night's drive, and pointed out to Mike all the localities of his
great enterprise. Things had undergone a transformation about the
poor-house, and Jim stopped and inquired tenderly for Tom Buffum, and
learned that soon after the escape of Benedict the man had gone off in
an apoplectic fit.

"He was a pertickler friend o' mine," said Jim, smiling in the face of
the new occupant, "an' I'm glad he went off so quick he didn't know
where he was goin'. Left some rocks, didn't he?"

The man having replied to Jim's tender solicitude, that he believed the
family were sufficiently well provided for, the precious pair of
sympathizers went off down the hill.

Jim and Mike had a busy day in Sevenoaks, and at about eight o'clock in
the evening, Miss Keziah Butterworth was surprised in her room by the
announcement that there was a strange man down stairs who desired to see
her. As she entered the parlor of the little house, she saw a tall man
standing upright in the middle of the room, with his fur cap in his
hand, and a huge roll of cloth under his arm.

"Miss Butterworth, how fare ye?" said Jim.

"I remember you," said Miss Butterworth, peering up into his face to
read his features in the dim light. "You are Jim Fenton, whom I met last
spring at the town meeting."

"I knowed you'd remember me. Women allers does. Be'n purty chirk this
summer?"

"Very well, I thank you, sir," and Miss Butterworth dropped a courtesy,
and then, sitting down, she pointed him to a chair.

Jim laid his cap on the floor, placed his roll of cloth upright between
his knees, and, pulling out his bandana handkerchief, wiped his
perspiring face.

"I've brung a little job fur ye," said Jim.

"Oh, I can't do it," said Miss Butterworth at once. "I'm crowded to
death with work. It's a hurrying time of year."

"Yes, I knowed that, but this is a pertickler job."

"Oh, they are all particular jobs," responded Miss Butterworth, shaking
her head.

"But this is a job fur pertickler folks."

"Folks are all alike to me," said Miss Butterworth, sharply.

"These clo'es," said Jim, "are fur a good man an' a little boy. They has
nothin' but rags on 'em, an' won't have till ye make these clo'es. The
man is a pertickler friend o' mine, an' the boy is a cute little chap,
an' he can pray better nor any minister in Sevenoaks. If you knowed what
I know, Miss Butterworth, I don't know but you'd do somethin' that you'd
be ashamed of, an' I don't know but you'd do something that I sh'd be
ashamed of. Strange things has happened, an' if ye want to know what
they be, you must make these clo'es."

Jim had aimed straight at one of the most powerful motives in human
nature, and the woman began to relent, and to talk more as if it were
possible for her to undertake the job.

"It may be," said the tailoress, thinking, and scratching the top of her
head with a hair-pin, "that I _can_ work it in; but I haven't the
measure."

"Well, now, let's see," said Jim, pondering. "Whar is they about such a
man? Don't ye remember a man that used to be here by the name
of--of--Benedict, wasn't it?--a feller about up to my ear--only fleshier
nor he was? An' the little feller--well, he's bigger nor Benedict's
boy--bigger, leastways, nor he was then."

Miss Butterworth rose to her feet, went up to Jim, and looked him
sharply in the eyes.

"Can you tell me anything about Benedict and his boy?"

"All that any feller knows I know," said Jim, "an' I've never telled
nobody in Sevenoaks."

"Jim Fenton, you needn't be afraid of me."

"Oh, I ain't. I like ye better nor any woman I seen."

"But you needn't be afraid to tell me," said Miss Butterworth, blushing.

"An' will ye make the clo'es?"

"Yes, I'll make the clothes, if I make them for nothing, and sit up
nights to do it."

"Give us your hand," said Jim, and he had a woman's hand in his own
almost before he knew it, and his face grew crimson to the roots of his
bushy hair.

Miss Butterworth drew her chair up to his, and in a low tone he told her
the whole long story as only he knew it, and only he could tell it.

"I think you are the noblest man I ever saw," said Miss Butterworth,
trembling with excitement.

"Well, turn about's fa'r play, they say, an' I think you're the most
genuine creetur' I ever seen," responded Jim. "All we want up in the
woods now is a woman, an' I'd sooner have ye thar nor any other."

"Poh! what a spoon you are!" said Miss Butterworth, tossing her head.

"Then there's timber enough in me fur the puttiest kind of a buckle."

"But you're a blockhead--a great, good blockhead. That's just what you
are," said Miss Butterworth, laughing in spite of herself.

"Well, ye can whittle any sort of a head out of a block," said Jim
imperturbably.

"Let's have done with joking," said the tailoress solemnly.

"I hain't been jokin'," said Jim. "I'm in 'arnest. I been thinkin' o' ye
ever sence the town-meetin'. I been kinder livin' on yer looks. I've
dreamt about ye nights; an' when I've be'n helpin' Benedict, I took some
o' my pay, thinkin' I was pleasin' ye. I couldn't help hopin'; an' now,
when I come to ye so, an' tell ye jest how the land lays, ye git
rampageous, or tell me I'm jokin'. 'Twon't be no joke if Jim Fenton goes
away from this house feelin' that the only woman he ever seen as he
thought was wuth a row o' pins feels herself better nor he is."

Miss Butterworth cast down her eyes, and trotted her knees nervously.
She felt that Jim was really in earnest--that he thoroughly respected
her, and that behind his rough exterior there was as true a man as she
had ever seen; but the life to which he would introduce her, the gossip
to which she would be subjected by any intimate connection with him, and
the uprooting of the active social life into which the routine of her
daily labor led her, would be a great hardship. Then there was another
consideration which weighed heavily with her. In her room were the
memorials of an early affection and the disappointment of a life.

"Mr. Fenton," she said, looking up--

"Jest call me Jim."

"Well, Jim--" and Miss Butterworth smiled through tearful eyes--"I must
tell you that I was once engaged to be married."

"Sho! You don't say!"

"Yes, and I had everything ready."

"Now, you don't tell me!"

"Yes, and the only man I ever loved died--died a week before the day we
had set."

"It must have purty near finished ye off."

"Yes, I should have been glad to die myself."

"Well, now, Miss Butterworth, if ye s'pose that Jim Fenton wouldn't
bring that man to life if he could, and go to your weddin' singin'
hallelujer, you must think he's meaner nor a rat. But ye know he's dead,
an' ye never can see him no more. He's a goner, an' ye're all alone, an'
here's a man as'll take care on ye fur him; an' it does seem to me that
if he was a reasonable man he'd feel obleeged for what I'm doin'."

Miss Butterworth could not help smiling at Jim's earnestness and
ingenuity, but his proposition was so sudden and strange, and she had so
long ago given up any thought of marrying, that it was impossible for
her to give him an answer then, unless she should give him the answer
which he deprecated.

"Jim," she said at last, "I believe you are a good man. I believe you
are honorable, and that you mean well toward me; but we have been
brought up very differently, and the life into which you wish to bring
me would be very strange to me. I doubt whether I could be happy in it."

Jim saw that it would not help him to press his suit further at that
time, and recognized the reasonableness of her hesitation. He knew he
was rough and unused to every sort of refinement, but he also knew that
he was truthful, and honorable, and faithful; and with trust in his own
motives and trust in Miss Butterworth's good sense and discretion, he
withheld any further exhibition of his wish to settle the affair on the
spot.

"Well, Miss Butterworth," he said, rising, "ye know yer own business,
but there'll be a house, an' a stoop, an' a bureau, an' a little ladder
for flowers, an' Mike Conlin will draw the lumber, an' Benedict'll put
it together, an' Jim Fenton'll be the busiest and happiest man in a
hundred mile."

As Jim rose, Miss Butterworth also stood up, and looked up into his
face. Jim regarded her with tender admiration.

"Do ye know I take to little things wonderful, if they're only alive?"
said he. "There's Benedict's little boy! I feel 'im fur hours arter I've
had 'im in my arms, jest because he's alive an' little. An' I don't
know--I--I vow, I guess I better go away. Can you git the clo'es made in
two days, so I can take 'em home with me? Can't ye put 'em out round?
I'll pay ye, ye know."

Miss Butterworth thought she could, and on that promise Jim remained in
Sevenoaks.

How he got out of the house he did not remember, but he went away very
much exalted. What he did during those two days it did not matter to
him, so long as he could walk over to Miss Butterworth's each night, and
watch her light from his cover in the trees.

Before the tailoress closed her eyes in sleep that night her brisk and
ready shears had cut the cloth for the two suits at a venture, and in
the morning the work was parceled among her benevolent friends, as a
work of charity whose objects were not to be mentioned.

When Jim called for the clothes, they were done, and there was no money
to be paid for the labor. The statement of the fact embarrassed Jim more
than anything that had occurred in his interviews with the tailoress.

"I sh'll pay ye some time, even if so be that nothin' happens," said he;
"an' if so be that somethin' does happen, it'll be squar' any way. I
don't want no man that I do fur to be beholden to workin' women for
their clo'es."

Jim took the big bundle under his left arm, and, extending his right
hand, he took Miss Butterworth's, and said: "Good-bye, little woman; I
sh'll see ye agin, an' here's hopin'. Don't hurt yerself, and think as
well of me as ye can. I hate to go away an' leave every thing loose
like, but I s'pose I must. Yes, I don't like to go away so"--and Jim
shook his head tenderly--"an' arter I go ye mustn't kick a stone on the
road or scare a bird in the trees, for fear it'll be the heart that Jim
Fenton leaves behind him."

Jim departed, and Miss Butterworth went up to her room, her eyes moist
with the effect of the unconscious poetry of his closing utterance.

It was still early in the evening when Jim reached the hotel, and he had
hardly mounted the steps when the stage drove up, and Mr. Balfour,
encumbered with a gun, all sorts of fishing-tackle and a lad of twelve
years, leaped out. He was on his annual vacation; and with all the
hilarity and heartiness of a boy let loose from school greeted Jim,
whose irresistibly broad smile was full of welcome.

It was quickly arranged that Jim and Mike should go on that night with
their load of stores; that Mr. Balfour and his boy should follow in the
morning with a team to be hired for the occasion, and that Jim, reaching
home first, should return and meet his guests with his boat at the
landing.




CHAPTER VIII.

IN WHICH MR. BELCHER VISITS NEW YORK, AND BECOMES THE PROPRIETOR OF
"PALGRAVE'S FOLLY."


The shadow of a mystery hung over Sevenoaks for many months. Handbills
advertising the fugitives were posted in all directions throughout the
country, but nothing came of them but rumors. The newspapers, far and
near, told the story, but it resulted in nothing save such an airing of
the Sevenoaks poor-house, and the county establishment connected with
the same, that Tom Buffum, who had lived for several years on the
border-land of apoplexy, passed suddenly over, and went so far that he
never returned to meet the official inquiry into his administration. The
Augean stables were cleansed by the Hercules of public opinion; and with
the satisfied conscience and restored self-complacency procured by this
act, the people at last settled down upon the conviction that Benedict
and his boy had shared the fate of old Tilden--that they had lost
themselves in the distant forest, and met their death alike beyond help
and discovery.

Mr. Belcher found himself without influence in the adjustment of the new
administration. Sevenoaks turned the cold shoulder to him. Nobody went
to him with the reports that connected him with the flight and fate of
the crazed inventor, yet he knew, through instincts which men of his
nature often possess in a remarkable degree, that he was deeply blamed
for the causes of Benedict's misfortunes. It has already been hinted
that at first he was suspected of knowing guiltily more about the
disappearance of the fugitives than he would be willing to tell, but
there were only a few minds in which the suspicion was long permitted to
linger. When the first excitement passed away and men began to think,
it was impossible for them to imagine motives sufficiently powerful to
induce the rich proprietor to pursue a lunatic pauper to his death.

Mr. Belcher never had encouraged the neighborly approaches which, in an
emergency like this, might have given him comfort and companionship.
Recognizing no equals in Sevenoaks--measuring his own social position by
the depth of his purse and the reach of his power--he had been in the
habit of dispensing his society as largess to the humble villagers. To
recognize a man upon the street, and speak to him in a familiar way, was
to him like the opening of his purse and throwing the surprise of a
dollar into a beggar's hat. His courtesies were charities; his
politeness was a boon; he tossed his jokes into a crowd of dirty
employes as he would toss a handful of silver coin. Up to this time he
had been sufficient unto himself. By money, by petty revenges, by
personal assumption, he had managed to retain his throne for a long
decade; and when he found his power partly ignored and partly defied,
and learned that his personal courtesies were not accepted at their old
value, he not only began to feel lonesome, but he grew angry. He held
hot discussions with his image in the mirror night after night, in his
lonely library, where a certain measure which had once seemed a distant
possibility took shape more and more as a purpose. In some way he would
revenge himself upon the people of the town. Even at a personal
sacrifice, he would pay them off for their slight upon him; and he knew
there was no way in which he could so effectually do this as by leaving
them. He had dreamed many times, as he rapidly accumulated his wealth,
of arriving at a point where he could treat his splendid home as a
summer resort, and take up his residence in the great city among those
of his own kind. He had an uneasy desire for the splendors of city life,
yet his interests had always held him to Sevenoaks, and he had contented
himself there simply because he had his own way, and was accounted "the
principal citizen." His village splendors were without competition. His
will was law. His self-complacency, fed and flourishing in his country
home, had taken the place of society; but this had ceased to be
all-sufficient, even before the change occurred in the atmosphere around
him.

It was six months after the reader's first introduction to him that,
showily dressed as he always was, he took his place before his mirror
for a conversation with the striking-looking person whom he saw
reflected there.

"Robert Belcher, Esquire," said he, "are you played out? Who says played
out? Did you address that question to me, sir? Am I the subject of that
insulting remark? Do you dare to beard the lion in his den? Withdraw the
dagger that you have aimed at my breast, or I will not hold myself
responsible for the consequences. Played out, with a million dollars in
your pocket? Played out, with wealth pouring in in mighty waves? Whose
name is Norval still? Whose are these Grampian Hills? In yonder silent
heavens the stars still shine, printing on boundless space the words of
golden promise. Will you leave Sevenoaks? Will you go to yonder
metropolis, and there reap, in honor and pleasure, the rewards of your
enterprise? Will you leave Sevenoaks howling in pain? Will you leave
these scurvy ministers to whine for their salaries and whine to empty
air? Ye fresh fields and pastures new, I yield, I go, I reside! I spurn
the dust of Sevenoaks from my feet. I hail the glories of the distant
mart. I make my bow to you, sir. You ask my pardon? It is well! Go!"

The next morning, after a long examination of his affairs, in conference
with his confidential agent, and the announcement to Mrs. Belcher that
he was about to start for New York on business, Phipps took him and his
trunk on a drive of twenty miles, to the northern terminus of a railroad
line which, with his connections, would bear him to the city of his
hopes.

It is astonishing how much room a richly dressed snob can occupy in a
railway car without receiving a request to occupy less, or endangering
the welfare of his arrogant eyes. Mr. Belcher occupied always two seats,
and usually four. It was pitiful to see feeble women look at his
abounding supply, then look at him, and then pass on. It was pitiful to
see humbly dressed men do the same. It was pitiful to see gentlemen put
themselves to inconvenience rather than dispute with him his right to
all the space he could cover with his luggage and his feet. Mr. Belcher
watched all these exhibitions with supreme satisfaction. They were a
tribute to his commanding personal appearance. Even the conductors
recognized the manner of man with whom they had to deal, and shunned
him. He not only got the worth of his money in his ride, but the worth
of the money of several other people.

Arriving at New York, he went directly to the Astor, then the leading
hotel of the city. The clerk not only knew the kind of man who stood
before him recording his name, but he knew him; and while he assigned to
his betters, men and women, rooms at the top of the house, Mr. Belcher
secured, without difficulty, a parlor and bedroom on the second floor.
The arrogant snob was not only at a premium on the railway train, but at
the hotel. When he swaggered into the dining-room, the head waiter took
his measure instinctively, and placed him as a figure-head at the top of
the hall, where he easily won to himself the most careful and obsequious
service, the choicest viands, and a large degree of quiet observation
from the curious guests. In the office, waiters ran for him, hackmen
took off their hats to him, his cards were delivered with great
promptitude, and even the courtly principal deigned to inquire whether
he found everything to his mind. In short, Mr. Belcher seemed to find
that his name was as distinctly "Norval" in New York as in Sevenoaks,
and that his "Grampian Hills" were movable eminences that stood around
and smiled upon him wherever he went.

Retiring to his room to enjoy in quiet his morning cigar and to look
over the papers, his eye was attracted, among the "personals," to an
item which read as follows:

"Col. Robert Belcher, the rich and well-known manufacturer of Sevenoaks,
and the maker of the celebrated Belcher rifle, has arrived in town, and
occupies a suite of apartments at the Astor."

His title, he was aware, had been manufactured, in order to give the
highest significance to the item, by the enterprising reporter, but it
pleased him. The reporter, associating his name with fire-arms, had
chosen a military title, in accordance with the custom which makes
"commodores" of enterprising landsmen who build and manage lines of
marine transportation and travel, and "bosses" of men who control
election gangs, employed to dig the dirty channels to political success.

He read it again and again, and smoked, and walked to his glass, and
coddled himself with complacent fancies. He felt that all doors opened
themselves widely to the man who had money, and the skill to carry it in
his own magnificent way. In the midst of pleasant thoughts, there came a
rap at the door, and he received from the waiter's little salver the
card of his factor, "Mr. Benjamin Talbot." Mr. Talbot had read the
"personal" which had so attracted and delighted himself, and had made
haste to pay his respects to the principal from whose productions he was
coining a fortune.

Mr. Talbot was the man of all others whom Mr. Belcher desired to see;
so, with a glance at the card, he told the waiter promptly to show the
gentleman up.

No man in the world understood Mr. Belcher better than the quick-witted
and obsequious factor. He had been in the habit, during the ten years in
which he had handled Mr. Belcher's goods, of devoting his whole time to
the proprietor while that person was on his stated visits to the city.
He took him to his club to dine; he introduced him to congenial spirits;
he went to the theater with him; he went with him to grosser resorts,
which do not need to be named in these pages; he drove with him to the
races; he took him to lunch at suburban hotels, frequented by fast men
who drove fast horses; he ministered to every coarse taste and vulgar
desire possessed by the man whose nature and graceless caprices he so
carefully studied. He did all this at his own expense, and at the same
time he kept his principal out of the clutches of gamblers and sharpers.
It was for his interest to be of actual use to the man whose desires he
aimed to gratify, and so to guard and shadow him that no deep harm would
come to him. It was for his interest to keep Mr. Belcher to himself,
while he gave him the gratifications that a coarse man living in the
country so naturally seeks among the opportunities and excitements of
the city.

There was one thing, however, that Mr. Talbot had never done. He had
never taken Mr. Belcher to his home. Mrs. Talbot did not wish to see
him, and Mr. Talbot did not wish to have her see him. He knew that Mr.
Belcher, after his business was completed, wanted something besides a
quiet dinner with women and children. His leanings were not toward
virtue, but toward safe and half-reputable vice; and exactly what he
wanted consistent with his safety as a business man, Mr. Talbot wished
to give him. To nurse his good-will, to make himself useful, and, as far
as possible, essential to the proprietor, and to keep him sound and make
him last, was Mr. Talbot's study and his most determined ambition.

Mr. Belcher was seated in a huge arm chair, with his back to the door
and his feet in another chair, when the second rap came, and Mr. Talbot,
with a radiant smile, entered.

"Well, Toll, my boy," said the proprietor, keeping his seat without
turning, and extending his left hand. "How are you? Glad to see you.
Come round to pay your respects to the Colonel, eh? How's business, and
how's your folks?"

Mr. Talbot was accustomed to this style of greeting from his principal,
and, responding heartily to it and the inquiries accompanying it, he
took a seat. With hat and cane in hand he sat on his little chair,
showing his handsome teeth, twirling his light mustache, and looking at
the proprietor with his keen gray eyes, his whole attitude and
physiognomy expressing the words as plainly as if he had spoken them:
"I'm your man; now, what are you up to?"

"Toll," said Mr. Belcher deliberately, "I'm going to surprise you."

"You usually do," responded the factor, laughing.

"I vow, I guess that's true! You fellows, without any blood, are apt to
get waked up when the old boys come in from the country. Toll, lock the
door."

Mr. Talbot locked the door and resumed his seat.

"Sevenoaks be hanged!" said Mr. Belcher.

"Certainly."

"It's a one-horse town."

"Certainly. Still, I have been under the impression that you owned the
horse."

"Yes, I know, but the horse is played out."

"Hasn't he been a pretty good horse, and earned you all he cost you?"

"Well, I'm tired with living where there is so much infernal babble, and
meddling with other people's business. If I sneeze, the people think
there's been an earthquake; and when I whistle, they call it a
hurricane."

"But you're the king of the roost," said Talbot.

"Yes; but a man gets tired being king of the roost, and longs for some
rooster to fight."

Mr. Talbot saw the point toward which Mr. Belcher was drifting, and
prepared himself for it. He had measured his chances for losing his
business, and when, at last, his principal came out with the frank
statement, that he had made up his mind to come to New York to live, he
was all ready with his overjoyed "No!" and with his smooth little hand
to bestow upon Mr. Belcher's heavy fi

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/15214