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Beauty and the Beast, and Tales of Home

by Bayard Taylor · English · Gutenberg #292 · 503,566 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Beauty and the Beast, and Tales of Home

Author: Bayard Taylor


        
Release date: June 29, 2008 [eBook #292]
                Most recently updated: March 16, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/292

Credits: Produced by Mike Lough and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, AND TALES OF HOME ***




Produced by Mike Lough





BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

AND TALES OF HOME

By Bayard Taylor.





CONTENTS.

     BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
     THE STRANGE FRIEND
     JACOB FLINT'S JOURNEY
     CAN A LIFE HIDE ITSELF?
     TWIN-LOVE
     THE EXPERIENCES OF THE A. C.
     FRIEND ELI'S DAUGHTER
     MISS BARTRAM'S TROUBLE
     MRS. STRONGITHARM'S REPORT




BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

A STORY OF OLD RUSSIA.




I.

We are about to relate a story of mingled fact and fancy. The facts are
borrowed from the Russian author, Petjerski; the fancy is our own. Our
task will chiefly be to soften the outlines of incidents almost too
sharp and rugged for literary use, to supply them with the necessary
coloring and sentiment, and to give a coherent and proportioned shape
to the irregular fragments of an old chronicle. We know something, from
other sources, of the customs described, something of the character of
the people from personal observation, and may therefore the more freely
take such liberties as we choose with the rude, vigorous sketches of the
Russian original. One who happens to have read the work of Villebois can
easily comprehend the existence of a state of society, on the banks of
the Volga, a hundred years ago, which is now impossible, and will soon
become incredible. What is strangest in our narrative has been declared
to be true.




II.


We are in Kinesma, a small town on the Volga, between Kostroma and
Nijni-Novgorod. The time is about the middle of the last century, and
the month October.

There was trouble one day, in the palace of Prince Alexis, of Kinesma.
This edifice, with its massive white walls, and its pyramidal roofs of
green copper, stood upon a gentle mound to the eastward of the town,
overlooking it, a broad stretch of the Volga, and the opposite shore. On
a similar hill, to the westward, stood the church, glittering with
its dozen bulging, golden domes. These two establishments divided the
sovereignty of Kinesma between them.

Prince Alexis owned the bodies of the inhabitants, (with the exception
of a few merchants and tradesmen,) and the Archimandrite Sergius owned
their souls. But the shadow of the former stretched also over other
villages, far beyond the ring of the wooded horizon. The number of his
serfs was ten thousand, and his rule over them was even less disputed
than theirs over their domestic animals.

The inhabitants of the place had noticed with dismay that the
slumber-flag had not been hoisted on the castle, although it was half an
hour after the usual time. So rare a circumstance betokened sudden wrath
or disaster, on the part of Prince Alexis. Long experience had prepared
the people for anything that might happen, and they were consequently
not astonished at the singular event which presently transpired.

The fact is, that in the first place, the dinner had been prolonged full
ten minutes beyond its accustomed limit, owing to a discussion between
the Prince, his wife, the Princess Martha, and their son Prince Boris.
The last was to leave for St. Petersburg in a fortnight, and wished to
have his departure preceded by a festival at the castle. The Princess
Martha was always ready to second the desires of her only child. Between
the two they had pressed some twenty or thirty thousand rubles out
of the old Prince, for the winter diversions of the young one. The
festival, to be sure, would have been a slight expenditure for a noble
of such immense wealth as Prince Alexis; but he never liked his wife,
and he took a stubborn pleasure in thwarting her wishes. It was no
satisfaction that Boris resembled her in character. That weak successor
to the sovereignty of Kinesma preferred a game of cards to a bear hunt,
and could never drink more than a quart of vodki without becoming dizzy
and sick.

“Ugh!” Prince Alexis would cry, with a shudder of disgust, “the whelp
barks after the dam!”

A state dinner he might give; but a festival, with dances, dramatic
representations, burning tar-barrels, and cannon,--no! He knitted
his heavy brows and drank deeply, and his fiery gray eyes shot such
incessant glances from side to side that Boris and the Princess Martha
could not exchange a single wink of silent advice. The pet bear, Mishka,
plied with strong wines, which Prince Alexis poured out for him into
a golden basin, became at last comically drunk, and in endeavoring to
execute a dance, lost his balance, and fell at full length on his back.

The Prince burst into a yelling, shrieking fit of laughter. Instantly
the yellow-haired serfs in waiting, the Calmucks at the hall-door, and
the half-witted dwarf who crawled around the table in his tow shirt,
began laughing in chorus, as violently as they could. The Princess
Martha and Prince Boris laughed also; and while the old man's eyes were
dimmed with streaming tears of mirth, quickly exchanged nods. The sound
extended all over the castle, and was heard outside of the walls.

“Father!” said Boris, “let us have the festival, and Mishka shall
perform again. Prince Paul of Kostroma would strangle, if he could see
him.”

“Good, by St. Vladimir!” exclaimed Prince Alexis. “Thou shalt have
it, my Borka! [1] Where's Simon Petrovitch? May the Devil scorch that
vagabond, if he doesn't do better than the last time! Sasha!”

A broad-shouldered serf stepped forward and stood with bowed head.

“Lock up Simon Petrovitch in the southwestern tower. Send the tailor and
the girls to him, to learn their parts. Search every one of them
before they go in, and if any one dares to carry vodki to the beast,
twenty-five lashes on the back!”


Sasha bowed again and departed. Simon Petrovitch was the court-poet of
Kinesma. He had a mechanical knack of preparing allegorical diversions
which suited the conventional taste of society at that time; but he had
also a failing,--he was rarely sober enough to write. Prince Alexis,
therefore, was in the habit of locking him up and placing a guard over
him, until the inspiration had done its work. The most comely young
serfs of both sexes were selected to perform the parts, and the
court-tailor arranged for them the appropriate dresses. It depended very
much upon accident--that is to say, the mood of Prince Alexis--whether
Simon Petrovitch was rewarded with stripes or rubles.

The matter thus settled, the Prince rose from the table and walked out
upon an overhanging balcony, where an immense reclining arm-chair of
stuffed leather was ready for his siesta. He preferred this indulgence
in the open air; and although the weather was rapidly growing cold,
a pelisse of sables enabled him to slumber sweetly in the face of the
north wind. An attendant stood with the pelisse outspread; another held
the halyards to which was attached the great red slumber-flag, ready to
run it up and announce to all Kinesma that the noises of the town must
cease; a few seconds more, and all things would have been fixed in their
regular daily courses. The Prince, in fact, was just straightening his
shoulders to receive the sables; his eyelids were dropping, and his
eyes, sinking mechanically with them, fell upon the river-road, at the
foot of the hill. Along this road walked a man, wearing the long cloth
caftan of a merchant.

Prince Alexis started, and all slumber vanished out of his eyes. He
leaned forward for a moment, with a quick, eager expression; then a loud
roar, like that of an enraged wild beast, burst from his mouth. He gave
a stamp that shook the balcony.

“Dog!” he cried to the trembling attendant, “my cap! my whip!”

The sables fell upon the floor, the cap and whip appeared in a
twinkling, and the red slumber-flag was folded up again for the first
time in several years, as the Prince stormed out of the castle. The
traveller below had heard the cry,--for it might have been heard half a
mile. He seemed to have a presentiment of evil, for he had already set
off towards the town at full speed.

To explain the occurrence, we must mention one of the Prince's many
peculiar habits. This was, to invite strangers or merchants of the
neighborhood to dine with him, and, after regaling them bountifully, to
take his pay in subjecting them to all sorts of outrageous tricks, with
the help of his band of willing domestics. Now this particular merchant
had been invited, and had attended; but, being a very wide-awake, shrewd
person, he saw what was coming, and dexterously slipped away from
the banquet without being perceived. The Prince vowed vengeance, on
discovering the escape, and he was not a man to forget his word.

Impelled by such opposite passions, both parties ran with astonishing
speed. The merchant was the taller, but his long caftan, hastily
ungirdled, swung behind him and dragged in the air.

The short, booted legs of the Prince beat quicker time, and he grasped
his short, heavy, leathern whip more tightly as he saw the space
diminishing. They dashed into the town of Kinesma a hundred yards apart.
The merchant entered the main street, or bazaar, looking rapidly to
right and left, as he ran, in the hope of espying some place of refuge.
The terrible voice behind him cried,--

“Stop, scoundrel! I have a crow to pick with you!”

And the tradesmen in their shops looked on and laughed, as well they
might, being unconcerned spectators of the fun. The fugitive, therefore,
kept straight on, notwithstanding a pond of water glittered across the
farther end of the street.

Although Prince Alexis had gained considerably in the race, such
violent exercise, after a heavy dinner, deprived him of breath. He again
cried,--

“Stop!”

“But the merchant answered,--

“No, Highness! You may come to me, but I will not go to you.”

“Oh, the villian!” growled the Prince, in a hoarse whisper, for he had
no more voice.

The pond cut of all further pursuit. Hastily kicking off his loose
boots, the merchant plunged into the water, rather than encounter
the princely whip, which already began to crack and snap in fierce
anticipation. Prince Alexis kicked off his boots and followed; the pond
gradually deepened, and in a minute the tall merchant stood up to
his chin in the icy water, and his short pursuer likewise but out of
striking distance. The latter coaxed and entreated, but the victim kept
his ground.

“You lie, Highness!” he said, boldly. “If you want me, come to me.”

“Ah-h-h!” roared the Prince, with chattering teeth, “what a stubborn
rascal you are! Come here, and I give you my word that I will not hurt
you. Nay,”--seeing that the man did not move,--“you shall dine with me
as often as you please. You shall be my friend; by St. Vladimir, I like
you!”

“Make the sign of the cross, and swear it by all the Saints,” said the
merchant, composedly.

With a grim smile on his face, the Prince stepped back and shiveringly
obeyed. Both then waded out, sat down upon the ground and pulled on
their boots; and presently the people of Kinesma beheld the dripping
pair walking side by side up the street, conversing in the most cordial
manner. The merchant dried his clothes FROM WITHIN, at the castle table;
a fresh keg of old Cognac was opened; and although the slumber-flag was
not unfurled that afternoon, it flew from the staff and hushed the town
nearly all the next day.




III.


The festival granted on behalf of Prince Boris was one of the grandest
ever given at the castle. In character it was a singular cross between
the old Muscovite revel and the French entertainments which were then
introduced by the Empress Elizabeth.

All the nobility, for fifty versts around, including Prince Paul and the
chief families of Kostroma, were invited. Simon Petrovitch had been so
carefully guarded that his work was actually completed and the parts
distributed; his superintendence of the performance, however, was still
a matter of doubt, as it was necessary to release him from the tower,
and after several days of forced abstinence he always manifested a
raging appetite. Prince Alexis, in spite of this doubt, had been assured
by Boris that the dramatic part of the entertainment would not be a
failure. When he questioned Sasha, the poet's strong-shouldered guard,
the latter winked familiarly and answered with a proverb,--

“I sit on the shore and wait for the wind,”--which was as much as to say
that Sasha had little fear of the result.

The tables were spread in the great hall, where places for one hundred
chosen guests were arranged on the floor, while the three or four
hundred of minor importance were provided for in the galleries above.
By noon the whole party were assembled. The halls and passages of the
castle were already permeated with rich and unctuous smells, and a
delicate nose might have picked out and arranged, by their finer or
coarser vapors, the dishes preparing for the upper and lower tables. One
of the parasites of Prince Alexis, a dilapidated nobleman, officiated
as Grand Marshal,--an office which more than compensated for the
savage charity he received, for it was performed in continual fear and
trembling. The Prince had felt the stick of the Great Peter upon his own
back, and was ready enough to imitate any custom of the famous monarch.

An orchestra, composed principally of horns and brass instruments,
occupied a separate gallery at one end of the dining-hall. The guests
were assembled in the adjoining apartments, according to their rank; and
when the first loud blast of the instruments announced the beginning of
the banquet, two very differently attired and freighted processions of
servants made their appearance at the same time. Those intended for the
princely table numbered two hundred,--two for each guest. They were
the handsomest young men among the ten thousand serfs, clothed in loose
white trousers and shirts of pink or lilac silk; their soft golden
hair, parted in the middle, fell upon their shoulders, and a band of
gold-thread about the brow prevented it from sweeping the dishes
they carried. They entered the reception-room, bearing huge trays of
sculptured silver, upon which were anchovies, the finest Finnish caviar,
sliced oranges, cheese, and crystal flagons of Cognac, rum, and kummel.
There were fewer servants for the remaining guests, who were gathered
in a separate chamber, and regaled with the common black caviar, onions,
bread, and vodki. At the second blast of trumpets, the two companies set
themselves in motion and entered the dining-hall at opposite ends. Our
business, however, is only with the principal personages, so we will
allow the common crowd quietly to mount to the galleries and satisfy
their senses with the coarser viands, while their imagination is
stimulated by the sight of the splendor and luxury below.

Prince Alexis entered first, with a pompous, mincing gait, leading the
Princess Martha by the tips of her fingers. He wore a caftan of green
velvet laced with gold, a huge vest of crimson brocade, and breeches
of yellow satin. A wig, resembling clouds boiling in the confluence of
opposing winds, surged from his low, broad forehead, and flowed upon
his shoulders. As his small, fiery eyes swept the hall, every servant
trembled: he was as severe at the commencement as he was reckless at
the close of a banquet. The Princess Martha wore a robe of pink
satin embroidered with flowers made of small pearls, and a train and
head-dress of crimson velvet.

Her emeralds were the finest outside of Moscow, and she wore them all.
Her pale, weak, frightened face was quenched in the dazzle of the green
fires which shot from her forehead, ears, and bosom, as she moved.

Prince Paul of Kostroma and the Princess Nadejda followed; but on
reaching the table, the gentlemen took their seats at the head, while
the ladies marched down to the foot. Their seats were determined
by their relative rank, and woe to him who was so ignorant or so
absent-minded as to make a mistake! The servants had been carefully
trained in advance by the Grand Marshal; and whoever took a place above
his rank or importance found, when he came to sit down, that his chair
had miraculously disappeared, or, not noticing the fact, seated himself
absurdly and violently upon the floor. The Prince at the head of the
table, and the Princess at the foot, with their nearest guests of equal
rank, ate from dishes of massive gold; the others from silver. As soon
as the last of the company had entered the hall, a crowd of jugglers,
tumblers, dwarfs, and Calmucks followed, crowding themselves into the
corners under the galleries, where they awaited the conclusion of the
banquet to display their tricks, and scolded and pummelled each other in
the mean time.

On one side of Prince Alexis the bear Mishka took his station. By order
of Prince Boris he had been kept from wine for several days, and his
small eyes were keener and hungrier than usual. As he rose now and then,
impatiently, and sat upon his hind legs, he formed a curious contrast to
the Prince's other supporter, the idiot, who sat also in his tow-shirt,
with a large pewter basin in his hand. It was difficult to say whether
the beast was most man or the man most beast. They eyed each other and
watched the motions of their lord with equal jealousy; and the dismal
whine of the bear found an echo in the drawling, slavering laugh of
the idiot. The Prince glanced form one to the other; they put him in a
capital humor, which was not lessened as he perceived an expression of
envy pass over the face of Prince Paul.

The dinner commenced with a botvinia--something between a soup and a
salad--of wonderful composition. It contained cucumbers, cherries, salt
fish, melons, bread, salt, pepper, and wine. While it was being served,
four huge fishermen, dressed to represent mermen of the Volga, naked to
the waist, with hair crowned with reeds, legs finned with silver tissue
from the knees downward, and preposterous scaly tails, which dragged
helplessly upon the floor, entered the hall, bearing a broad, shallow
tank of silver. In the tank flapped and swam four superb sterlets, their
ridgy backs rising out of the water like those of alligators. Great
applause welcomed this new and classical adaptation of the old custom
of showing the LIVING fish, before cooking them, to the guests at the
table. The invention was due to Simon Petrovitch, and was (if the truth
must be confessed) the result of certain carefully measured supplies of
brandy which Prince Boris himself had carried to the imprisoned poet.

After the sterlets had melted away to their backbones, and the roasted
geese had shrunk into drumsticks and breastplates, and here and there a
guest's ears began to redden with more rapid blood, Prince Alexis judged
that the time for diversion had arrived. He first filled up the idiot's
basin with fragments of all the dishes within his reach,--fish, stewed
fruits, goose fat, bread, boiled cabbage, and beer,--the idiot grinning
with delight all the while, and singing, “Ne uyesjai golubchik moi,”
 (Don't go away, my little pigeon), between the handfuls which he crammed
into his mouth. The guests roared with laughter, especially when a
juggler or Calmuck stole out from under the gallery, and pretended to
have designs upon the basin. Mishka, the bear, had also been well fed,
and greedily drank ripe old Malaga from the golden dish. But, alas! he
would not dance. Sitting up on his hind legs, with his fore paws hanging
before him, he cast a drunken, languishing eye upon the company, lolled
out his tongue, and whined with an almost human voice. The domestics,
secretly incited by the Grand Marshal, exhausted their ingenuity in
coaxing him, but in vain. Finally, one of them took a goblet of wine in
one hand, and, embracing Mishka with the other, began to waltz. The
bear stretched out his paw and clumsily followed the movements, whirling
round and round after the enticing goblet. The orchestra struck up, and
the spectacle, though not exactly what Prince Alexis wished, was comical
enough to divert the company immensely.

But the close of the performance was not upon the programme. The
impatient bear, getting no nearer his goblet, hugged the man violently
with the other paw, striking his claws through the thin shirt. The
dance-measure was lost; the legs of the two tangled, and they fell to
the floor, the bear undermost. With a growl of rage and disappointment,
he brought his teeth together through the man's arm, and it might have
fared badly with the latter, had not the goblet been refilled by some
one and held to the animal's nose.

Then, releasing his hold, he sat up again, drank another bottle, and
staggered out of the hall.

Now the health of Prince Alexis was drunk,--by the guests on the floor
of the hall in Champagne, by those in the galleries in kislischi and
hydromel. The orchestra played; a choir of serfs sang an ode by Simon
Petrovitch, in which the departure of Prince Boris was mentioned; the
tumblers began to posture; the jugglers came forth and played their
tricks; and the cannon on the ramparts announced to all Kinesma, and far
up and down the Volga, that the company were rising from the table.

Half an hour later, the great red slumber-flag floated over the castle.
All slept,--except the serf with the wounded arm, the nervous Grand
Marshal, and Simon Petrovich with his band of dramatists, guarded by the
indefatigable Sasha. All others slept,--and the curious crowd outside,
listening to the music, stole silently away; down in Kinesma, the
mothers ceased to scold their children, and the merchants whispered to
each other in the bazaar; the captains of vessels floating on the Volga
directed their men by gestures; the mechanics laid aside hammer and axe,
and lighted their pipes. Great silence fell upon the land, and continued
unbroken so long as Prince Alexis and his guests slept the sleep of the
just and the tipsy.

By night, however, they were all awake and busily preparing for the
diversions of the evening. The ball-room was illuminated by thousands of
wax-lights, so connected with inflammable threads, that the wicks could
all be kindled in a moment. A pyramid of tar-barrels had been erected
on each side of the castle-gate, and every hill or mound on the opposite
bank of the Volga was similarly crowned. When, to a stately march,--the
musicians blowing their loudest,--Prince Alexis and Princess Martha led
the way to the ball-room, the signal was given: candles and tar-barrels
burst into flame, and not only within the castle, but over the landscape
for five or six versts, around everything was bright and clear in the
fiery day. Then the noises of Kinesma were not only permitted, but
encouraged. Mead and qvass flowed in the very streets, and the castle
trumpets could not be heard for the sound of troikas and balalaikas.

After the Polonaise, and a few stately minuets, (copied from the court
of Elizabeth), the company were ushered into the theatre. The hour of
Simon Petrovitch had struck: with the inspiration smuggled to him by
Prince Boris, he had arranged a performance which he felt to be his
masterpiece. Anxiety as to its reception kept him sober. The overture
had ceased, the spectators were all in their seats, and now the curtain
rose. The background was a growth of enormous, sickly toad-stools,
supposed to be clouds. On the stage stood a girl of eighteen, (the
handsomest in Kinesma), in hoops and satin petticoat, powdered hair,
patches, and high-heeled shoes. She held a fan in one hand, and a bunch
of marigolds in the other. After a deep and graceful curtsy to the
company, she came forward and said,--

“I am the goddess Venus. I have come to Olympus to ask some questions of
Jupiter.”

Thunder was heard, and a car rolled upon the stage. Jupiter sat therein,
in a blue coat, yellow vest, ruffled shirt and three-cornered hat. One
hand held a bunch of thunderbolts, which he occasionally lifted and
shook; the other, a gold-headed cane.

“Here am, I Jupiter,” said he; “what does Venus desire?”

A poetical dialogue then followed, to the effect that the favorite of
the goddess, Prince Alexis of Kinesma, was about sending his son, Prince
Boris, into the gay world, wherein himself had already displayed all the
gifts of all the divinities of Olympus. He claimed from her, Venus, like
favors for his son: was it possible to grant them? Jupiter dropped his
head and meditated. He could not answer the question at once: Apollo,
the Graces, and the Muses must be consulted: there were few precedents
where the son had succeeded in rivalling the father,--yet the father's
pious wishes could not be overlooked. Venus said,--

“What I asked for Prince Alexis was for HIS sake: what I ask for the son
is for the father's sake.”

Jupiter shook his thunderbolt and called “Apollo!”

Instantly the stage was covered with explosive and coruscating
fires,--red, blue, and golden,--and amid smoke, and glare, and fizzing
noises, and strong chemical smells, Apollo dropped down from above. He
was accustomed to heat and smoke, being the cook's assistant, and was
sweated down to a weight capable of being supported by the invisible
wires. He wore a yellow caftan, and wide blue silk trousers. His yellow
hair was twisted around and glued fast to gilded sticks, which stood out
from his head in a circle, and represented rays of light. He first bowed
to Prince Alexis, then to the guests, then to Jupiter, then to Venus.
The matter was explained to him.

He promised to do what he could towards favoring the world with a second
generation of the beauty, grace, intellect, and nobility of character
which had already won his regard. He thought, however, that their gifts
were unnecessary, since the model was already in existence, and nothing
more could be done than to IMITATE it.

(Here there was another meaning bow towards Prince Alexis,--a bow in
which Jupiter and Venus joined. This was the great point of the evening,
in the opinion of Simon Petrovitch. He peeped through a hole in one
of the clouds, and, seeing the delight of Prince Alexis and the
congratulations of his friends, immediately took a large glass of
Cognac).

The Graces were then summoned, and after them the Muses--all in hoops,
powder, and paint. Their songs had the same burden,--intense admiration
of the father, and good-will for the son, underlaid with a delicate
doubt. The close was a chorus of all the deities and semi-deities in
praise of the old Prince, with the accompaniment of fireworks. Apollo
rose through the air like a frog, with his blue legs and yellow arms
wide apart; Jupiter's chariot rolled off; Venus bowed herself back
against a mouldy cloud; and the Muses came forward in a bunch, with a
wreath of laurel, which they placed upon the venerated head.

Sasha was dispatched to bring the poet, that he might receive his
well-earned praise and reward. But alas for Simon Petrovitch? His legs
had already doubled under him. He was awarded fifty rubles and a new
caftan, which he was not in a condition to accept until several days
afterward.

The supper which followed resembled the dinner, except that there were
fewer dishes and more bottles. When the closing course of sweatmeats had
either been consumed or transferred to the pockets of the guests,
the Princess Martha retired with the ladies. The guests of lower rank
followed; and there remained only some fifteen or twenty, who were
thereupon conducted by Prince Alexis to a smaller chamber, where he
pulled off his coat, lit his pipe, and called for brandy. The others
followed his example, and their revelry wore out the night.

Such was the festival which preceded the departure of Prince Boris for
St. Petersburg.




IV.


Before following the young Prince and his fortunes, in the capital, we
must relate two incidents which somewhat disturbed the ordered course of
life in the castle of Kinesma, during the first month or two after his
departure.

It must be stated, as one favorable trait in the character of Prince
Alexis, that, however brutally he treated his serfs, he allowed no other
man to oppress them. All they had and were--their services, bodies,
lives--belonged to him; hence injustice towards them was disrespect
towards their lord. Under the fear which his barbarity inspired lurked a
brute-like attachment, kept alive by the recognition of this quality.

One day it was reported to him that Gregor, a merchant in the bazaar at
Kinesma, had cheated the wife of one of his serfs in the purchase of a
piece of cloth. Mounting his horse, he rode at once to Gregor's booth,
called for the cloth, and sent the entire piece to the woman, in the
merchant's name, as a confessed act of reparation.

“Now, Gregor, my child,” said he, as he turned his horse's head, “have
a care in future, and play me no more dishonest tricks. Do you hear? I
shall come and take your business in hand myself, if the like happens
again.”

Not ten days passed before the like--or something fully as bad--did
happen. Gregor must have been a new comer in Kinesma, or he would not
have tried the experiment. In an hour from the time it was announced,
Prince Alexis appeared in the bazaar with a short whip under his arm.

He dismounted at the booth with an ironical smile on his face, which
chilled the very marrow in the merchant's bones.

“Ah, Gregor, my child,” he shouted, “you have already forgotten my
commands. Holy St. Nicholas, what a bad memory the boy has! Why, he
can't be trusted to do business: I must attend to the shop myself. Out
of the way! march!”

He swung his terrible whip; and Gregor, with his two assistants, darted
under the counter, and made their escape. The Prince then entered the
booth, took up a yard-stick, and cried out in a voice which could be
heard from one end of the town to the other,--“Ladies and gentlemen,
have the kindness to come and examine our stock of goods! We have silks
and satins, and all kinds of ladies' wear; also velvet, cloth, cotton,
and linen for the gentlemen. Will your Lordships deign to choose? Here
are stockings and handkerchiefs of the finest. We understand how to
measure, your Lordships, and we sell cheap. We give no change, and take
no small money. Whoever has no cash may have credit. Every thing sold
below cost, on account of closing up the establishment. Ladies and
gentlemen, give us a call?”

Everybody in Kinesma flocked to the booth, and for three hours Prince
Alexis measured and sold, either for scant cash or long credit, until
the last article had been disposed of and the shelves were empty. There
was great rejoicing in the community over the bargains made that day.
When all was over, Gregor was summoned, and the cash received paid into
his hands.

“It won't take you long to count it,” said the Prince; “but here is a
list of debts to be collected, which will furnish you with pleasant
occupation, and enable you to exercise your memory. Would your Worship
condescend to take dinner to-day with your humble assistant? He would
esteem it a favor to be permitted to wait upon you with whatever his
poor house can supply.”

Gregor gave a glance at the whip under the Prince's arm, and begged to
be excused. But the latter would take no denial, and carried out the
comedy to the end by giving the merchant the place of honor at his
table, and dismissing him with the present of a fine pup of his favorite
breed. Perhaps the animal acted as a mnemonic symbol, for Gregor was
never afterwards accused of forgetfulness.

If this trick put the Prince in a good humor, some thing presently
occurred which carried him to the opposite extreme. While taking his
customary siesta one afternoon, a wild young fellow--one of his noble
poor relations, who “sponged” at the castle--happened to pass along a
corridor outside of the very hall where his Highness was snoring. Two
ladies in waiting looked down from an upper window. The young fellow
perceived them, and made signs to attract their attention. Having
succeeded in this, he attempted, by all sorts of antics and grimaces, to
make them laugh or speak; but he failed, for the slumber-flag waved
over them, and its fear was upon them. Then, in a freak of incredible
rashness, he sang, in a loud voice, the first line of a popular ditty,
and took to his heels.

No one had ever before dared to insult the sacred quiet. The Prince was
on his feet in a moment, and rushed into the corridor, (dropping his
mantle of sables by the way,) shouting.--

“Bring me the wretch who sang!”

The domestics scattered before him, for his face was terrible to look
upon. Some of them had heard the voice, indeed, but not one of them
had seen the culprit, who al ready lay upon a heap of hay in one of the
stables, and appeared to be sunk in innocent sleep.

“Who was it? who was it?” yelled the Prince, foaming at the mouth with
rage, as he rushed from chamber to chamber.

At last he halted at the top of the great flight of steps leading into
the court-yard, and repeated his demand in a voice of thunder.

The servants, trembling, kept at a safe distance, and some of them
ventured to state that the offender could not be discovered. The Prince
turned and entered one of the state apartments, whence came the sound
of porcelain smashed on the floor, and mirrors shivered on the walls.
Whenever they heard that sound, the immates of the castle knew that a
hurricane was let loose.

They deliberated hurriedly and anxiously. What was to be done? In his
fits of blind animal rage, there was nothing of which the Prince was not
capable, and the fit could be allayed only by finding a victim. No one,
however, was willing to be a Curtius for the others, and meanwhile the
storm was increasing from minute to minute. Some of the more active
and shrewd of the household pitched upon the leader of the band, a
simple-minded, good-natured serf, named Waska. They entreated him
to take upon himself the crime of having sung, offering to have his
punishment mitigated in every possible way. He was proof against their
tears, but not against the money which they finally offered, in order to
avert the storm. The agreement was made, although Waska both scratched
his head and shook it, as he reflected upon the probable result.

The Prince, after his work of destruction, again appeared upon the
steps, and with hoarse voice and flashing eyes, began to announce that
every soul in the castle should receive a hundred lashes, when a noise
was heard in the court, and amid cries of “Here he is!” “We've got him,
Highness!” the poor Waska, bound hand and foot, was brought forward.
They placed him at the bottom of the steps. The Prince descended until
the two stood face to face. The others looked on from courtyard, door,
and window. A pause ensued, during which no one dared to breathe.

At last Prince Alexis spoke, in a loud and terrible voice--

“It was you who sang it?”

“Yes, your Highness, it was I,” Waska replied, in a scarcely audible
tone, dropping his head and mechanically drawing his shoulders together,
as if shrinking from the coming blow.

It was full three minutes before the Prince again spoke. He still held
the whip in his hand, his eyes fixed and the muscles of his face rigid.
All at once the spell seemed to dissolve: his hand fell, and he said in
his ordinary voice--

“You sing remarkably well. Go, now: you shall have ten rubles and an
embroidered caftan for your singing.”

But any one would have made a great mistake who dared to awaken Prince
Alexis a second time in the same manner.




V.


Prince Boris, in St. Petersburg, adopted the usual habits of his class.
He dressed elegantly; he drove a dashing troika; he played, and lost
more frequently than he won; he took no special pains to shun any
form of fashionable dissipation. His money went fast, it is true; but
twenty-five thousand rubles was a large sum in those days, and Boris did
not inherit his father's expensive constitution. He was presented to the
Empress; but his thin face, and mild, melancholy eyes did not make much
impression upon that ponderous woman. He frequented the salons of
the nobility, but saw no face so beautiful as that of Parashka, the
serf-maiden who personated Venus for Simon Petrovitch. The fact is, he
had a dim, undeveloped instinct of culture, and a crude, half-conscious
worship of beauty,--both of which qualities found just enough
nourishment in the life of the capital to tantalize and never satisfy
his nature. He was excited by his new experience, but hardly happier.

Although but three-and-twenty, he would never know the rich, vital glow
with which youth rushes to clasp all forms of sensation.

He had seen, almost daily, in his father's castle, excess in its most
excessive development. It had grown to be repulsive, and he knew not
how to fill the void in his life. With a single spark of genius, and a
little more culture, he might have become a passable author or artist;
but he was doomed to be one of those deaf and dumb natures that see the
movements of the lips of others, yet have no conception of sound. No
wonder his savage old father looked upon him with contempt, for even his
vices were without strength or character.

The dark winter days passed by, one by one, and the first week of Lent
had already arrived to subdue the glittering festivities of the court,
when the only genuine adventure of the season happened to the young
Prince. For adventures, in the conventional sense of the word, he was
not distinguished; whatever came to him must come by its own force, or
the force of destiny.

One raw, gloomy evening, as dusk was setting in, he saw a female figure
in a droschky, which was about turning from the great Morskoi into the
Gorokhovaya (Pea) Street. He noticed, listlessly, that the lady
was dressed in black, closely veiled, and appeared to be urging the
istvostchik (driver) to make better speed. The latter cut his horse
sharply: it sprang forward, just at the turning, and the droschky,
striking a lamp-post was instantly overturned. The lady, hurled with
great force upon the solidly frozen snow, lay motionless, which the
driver observing, he righted the sled and drove off at full speed,
without looking behind him. It was not inhumanity, but fear of the knout
that hurried him away.

Prince Boris looked up and down the Morskoi, but perceived no one near
at hand. He then knelt upon the snow, lifted the lady's head to his
knee, and threw back her veil. A face so lovely, in spite of its deadly
pallor, he had never before seen. Never had he even imagined so perfect
an oval, such a sweet, fair forehead, such delicately pencilled brows,
so fine and straight a nose, such wonderful beauty of mouth and chin. It
was fortunate that she was not very severely stunned, for Prince Boris
was not only ignorant of the usual modes of restoration in such cases,
but he totally forgot their necessity, in his rapt contemplation of
the lady's face. Presently she opened her eyes, and they dwelt,
expressionless, but bewildering in their darkness and depth, upon his
own, while her consciousness of things slowly returned.

She strove to rise, and Boris gently lifted and supported her. She would
have withdrawn from his helping arm, but was still too weak from the
shock. He, also, was confused and (strange to say) embarrassed; but he
had self-possession enough to shout, “Davei!” (Here!) at random. The
call was answered from the Admiralty Square; a sled dashed up the
Gorokhovaya and halted beside him. Taking the single seat, he lifted her
gently upon his lap and held her very tenderly in his arms.

“Where?” asked the istvostchik.

Boris was about to answer “Anywhere!” but the lady whispered in a voice
of silver sweetness, the name of a remote street, near the Smolnoi
Church.

As the Prince wrapped the ends of his sable pelisse about her, he
noticed that her furs were of the common foxskin worn by the middle
classes. They, with her heavy boots and the threadbare cloth of her
garments, by no means justified his first suspicion,--that she was a
grande dame, engaged in some romantic “adventure.” She was not more than
nineteen or twenty years of age, and he felt--without knowing what
it was--the atmosphere of sweet, womanly purity and innocence which
surrounded her. The shyness of a lost boyhood surprised him.

By the time they had reached the Litenie, she had fully recovered her
consciousness and a portion of her strength. She drew away from him as
much as the narrow sled would allow.

“You have been very kind, sir, and I thank you,” she said; “but I am now
able to go home without your further assistance.”

“By no means, lady!” said the Prince. “The streets are rough, and
here are no lamps. If a second accident were to happen, you would be
helpless. Will you not allow me to protect you?”

She looked him in the face. In the dusky light, she saw not the peevish,
weary features of the worldling, but only the imploring softness of his
eyes, the full and perfect honesty of his present emotion. She made no
further objection; perhaps she was glad that she could trust the elegant
stranger.

Boris, never before at a loss for words, even in the presence of
the Empress, was astonished to find how awkward were his attempts at
conversation. She was presently the more self-possessed of the two, and
nothing was ever so sweet to his ears as the few commonplace remarks she
uttered. In spite of the darkness and the chilly air, the sled seemed to
fly like lightning. Before he supposed they had made half the way, she
gave a sign to the istvostchik, and they drew up before a plain house of
squared logs.

The two lower windows were lighted, and the dark figure of an old man,
with a skull-cap upon his head, was framed in one of them. It vanished
as the sled stopped; the door was thrown open and the man came forth
hurriedly, followed by a Russian nurse with a lantern.

“Helena, my child, art thou come at last? What has befallen thee?”

He would evidently have said more, but the sight of Prince Boris caused
him to pause, while a quick shade of suspicion and alarm passed over his
face. The Prince stepped forward, instantly relieved of his unaccustomed
timidity, and rapidly described the accident. The old nurse Katinka, had
meanwhile assisted the lovely Helena into the house.

The old man turned to follow, shivering in the night-air. Suddenly
recollecting himself, he begged the Prince to enter and take some
refreshments, but with the air and tone of a man who hopes that his
invitation will not be accepted. If such was really his hope, he was
disappointed; for Boris instantly commanded the istvostchik to wait for
him, and entered the humble dwelling.

The apartment into which he was ushered was spacious, and plainly,
yet not shabbily furnished. A violoncello and clavichord, with several
portfolios of music, and scattered sheets of ruled paper, proclaimed the
profession or the taste of the occupant. Having excused himself a moment
to look after his daughter's condition, the old man, on his return,
found Boris turning over the leaves of a musical work.

“You see my profession,” he said. “I teach music?”

“Do you not compose?” asked the Prince.

“That was once my ambition. I was a pupil of Sebastian Bach.
But--circumstances--necessity--brought me here. Other lives changed the
direction of mine. It was right!”

“You mean your daughter's?” the Prince gently suggested.

“Hers and her mother's. Our story was well known in St. Petersburg
twenty years ago, but I suppose no one recollects it now. My wife was
the daughter of a Baron von Plauen, and loved music and myself better
than her home and a titled bridegroom. She escaped, we united our lives,
suffered and were happy together,--and she died. That is all.”

Further conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Helena,
with steaming glasses of tea. She was even lovelier than before. Her
close-fitting dress revealed the symmetry of her form, and the quiet,
unstudied grace of her movements. Although her garments were of
well-worn material, the lace which covered her bosom was genuine point
d'Alencon, of an old and rare pattern. Boris felt that her air
and manner were thoroughly noble; he rose and saluted her with the
profoundest respect.

In spite of the singular delight which her presence occasioned him,
he was careful not to prolong his visit beyond the limits of strict
etiquette. His name, Boris Alexeivitch, only revealed to his guests the
name of his father, without his rank; and when he stated that he was
employed in one of the Departments, (which was true in a measure, for he
was a staff officer,) they could only look upon him as being, at best,
a member of some family whose recent elevation to the nobility did not
release them from the necessity of Government service. Of course he
employed the usual pretext of wishing to study music, and either by that
or some other stratagem managed to leave matters in such a shape that a
second visit could not occasion surprise.

As the sled glided homewards over the crackling snow, he was obliged
to confess the existence of a new and powerful excitement. Was it the
chance of an adventure, such as certain of his comrades were continually
seeking? He thought not; no, decidedly not. Was it--could it be--love?
He really could not tell; he had not the slightset idea what love was
like.





VI.

It was something at least, that the plastic and not un-virtuous nature
of the young man was directed towards a definite object. The elements
out of which he was made, although somewhat diluted, were active enough
to make him uncomfortable, so long as they remained in a confused state.
He had very little power of introversion, but he was sensible that his
temperament was changing,--that he grew more cheerful and contented with
life,--that a chasm somewhere was filling up,--just in proportion as
his acquaintance with the old music-master and his daughter became more
familiar. His visits were made so brief, were so adroitly timed and
accounted for by circumstances, that by the close of Lent he could feel
justified in making the Easter call of a friend, and claim its attendant
privileges, without fear of being repulsed.

That Easter call was an era in his life. At the risk of his wealth and
rank being suspected, he dressed himself in new and rich garments, and
hurried away towards the Smolnoi. The old nurse, Katinka, in her scarlet
gown, opened the door for him, and was the first to say, “Christ is
arisen!” What could he do but give her the usual kiss? Formerly he had
kissed hundreds of serfs, men and women, on the sacred anniversary, with
a passive good-will. But Katinka's kiss seemed bitter, and he secretly
rubbed his mouth after it. The music-master came next: grisly though
he might be, he was the St. Peter who stood at the gate of heaven. Then
entered Helena, in white, like an angel. He took her hand, pronounced
the Easter greeting, and scarcely waited for the answer, “Truly he has
arisen!” before his lips found the way to hers. For a second they warmly
trembled and glowed together; and in another second some new and sweet
and subtle relation seemed to be established between their natures.

That night Prince Boris wrote a long letter to his “chere maman,” in
piquantly misspelt French, giving her the gossip of the court, and such
family news as she usually craved. The purport of the letter, however,
was only disclosed in the final paragraph, and then in so negative a way
that it is doubtful whether the Princess Martha fully understood it.

“Poing de mariajes pour moix!” he wrote,--but we will drop the
original,--“I don't think of such a thing yet. Pashkoff dropped a hint,
the other day, but I kept my eyes shut. Perhaps you remember her?--fat,
thick lips, and crooked teeth. Natalie D---- said to me, 'Have you ever
been in love, Prince?” HAVE I, MAMAN? I did not know what answer to
make. What is love? How does one feel, when one has it? They laugh at it
here, and of course I should not wish to do what is laughable. Give me a
hint: forewarned is forearmed, you know,'”--etc., etc.

Perhaps the Princess Martha DID suspect something; perhaps some word
in her son's letter touched a secret spot far back in her memory, and
renewed a dim, if not very intelligible, pain. She answered his question
at length, in the style of the popular French romances of that day. She
had much to say of dew and roses, turtledoves and the arrows of Cupid.

“Ask thyself,” she wrote, “whether felicity comes with her presence,
and distraction with her absence,--whether her eyes make the morning
brighter for thee, and her tears fall upon thy heart like molten
lava,--whether heaven would be black and dismal without her company, and
the flames of hell turn into roses under her feet.”

It was very evident that the good Princess Martha had never felt--nay,
did not comprehend--a passion such as she described.

Prince Boris, however, whose veneration for his mother was unbounded,
took her words literally, and applied the questions to himself. Although
he found it difficult, in good faith and sincerity, to answer all of
them affirmatively (he was puzzled, for instance, to know the sensation
of molten lava falling upon the heart), yet the general conclusion was
inevitable: Helena was necessary to his happiness.

Instead of returning to Kinesma for the summer, as had been arranged, he
determined to remain in St. Petersburg, under the pretence of devoting
himself to military studies. This change of plan occasioned more
disappointment to the Princess Martha than vexation to Prince Alexis.
The latter only growled at the prospect of being called upon to advance
a further supply of rubles, slightly comforting himself with the
muttered reflection,--

“Perhaps the brat will make a man of himself, after all.”

It was not many weeks, in fact, before the expected petition came to
hand. The Princess Martha had also foreseen it, and instructed her son
how to attack his father's weak side. The latter was furiously jealous
of certain other noblemen of nearly equal wealth, who were with him
at the court of Peter the Great, as their sons now were at that of
Elizabeth. Boris compared the splendor of these young noblemen with his
own moderate estate, fabled a few “adventures” and drinking-bouts, and
announced his determination of doing honor to the name which Prince
Alexis of Kinesma had left behind him in the capital.

There was cursing at the castle when the letter arrived. Many serfs felt
the sting of the short whip, the slumber-flag was hoisted five minutes
later than usual, and the consumption of Cognac was alarming; but no
mirror was smashed, and when Prince Alexis read the letter to his poor
relations, he even chuckled over some portions of it. Boris had boldly
demanded twenty thousand rubles, in the desperate hope of receiving half
that amount,--and he had calculated correctly.

Before midsummer he was Helena's accepted lover. Not, however, until
then, when her father had given his consent to their marriage in the
autumn, did he disclose his true rank. The old man's face lighted up
with a glow of selfish satisfaction; but Helena quietly took her lover's
hand, and said,--

“Whatever you are, Boris, I will be faithful to you.”




VII.


Leaving Boris to discover the exact form and substance of the passion of
love, we will return for a time to the castle of Kinesma.

Whether the Princess Martha conjectured what had transpired in St.
Petersburg, or was partially informed of it by her son, cannot now
be ascertained. She was sufficiently weak, timid, and nervous, to be
troubled with the knowledge of the stratagem in which she had assisted
in order to procure money, and that the ever-present consciousness
thereof would betray itself to the sharp eyes of her husband. Certain it
is, that the demeanor of the latter towards her and his household began
to change about the end of the summer. He seemed to have a haunting
suspicion, that, in some way he had been, or was about to be,
overreached. He grew peevish, suspicious, and more violent than ever in
his excesses.

When Mishka, the dissipated bear already described, bit off one of the
ears of Basil, a hunter belonging to the castle, and Basil drew his
knife and plunged it into Mishka's heart, Prince Alexis punished the
hunter by cutting off his other ear, and sending him away to a distant
estate. A serf, detected in eating a few of the pickled cherries
intended for the Prince's botvinia, was placed in a cask, and pickled
cherries packed around him up to the chin. There he was kept until
almost flayed by the acid. It was ordered that these two delinquents
should never afterwards be called by any other names than “Crop-Ear” and
“Cherry.”

But the Prince's severest joke, which, strange to say, in no wise
lessened his popularity among the serfs, occurred a month or two later.
One of his leading passions was the chase,--especially the chase in his
own forests, with from one to two hundred men, and no one to dispute his
Lordship. On such occasions, a huge barrel of wine, mounted upon a
sled, always accompanied the crowd, and the quantity which the hunters
received depended upon the satisfaction of Prince Alexis with the game
they collected.

Winter had set in early and suddenly, and one day, as the Prince and his
retainers emerged from the forest with their forenoon's spoil, and found
themselves on the bank of the Volga, the water was already covered with
a thin sheet of ice. Fires were kindled, a score or two of hares and
a brace of deer were skinned, and the flesh placed on sticks to broil;
skins of mead foamed and hissed into the wooden bowls, and the cask of
unbroached wine towered in the midst. Prince Alexis had a good appetite;
the meal was after his heart; and by the time he had eaten a hare and
half a flank of venison, followed by several bowls of fiery wine, he was
in the humor for sport. He ordered a hole cut in the upper side of the
barrel, as it lay; then, getting astride of it, like a grisly Bacchus,
he dipped out the liquor with a ladle, and plied his thirsty serfs until
they became as recklessly savage as he.

They were scattered over a slope gently falling from the dark, dense
fir-forest towards the Volga, where it terminated in a rocky palisade,
ten to fifteen feet in height. The fires blazed and crackled merrily in
the frosty air; the yells and songs of the carousers were echoed back
from the opposite shore of the river. The chill atmosphere, the lowering
sky, and the approaching night could not touch the blood of that wild
crowd. Their faces glowed and their eyes sparkled; they were ready for
any deviltry which their lord might suggest.

Some began to amuse themselves by flinging the clean-picked bones
of deer and hare along the glassy ice of the Volga. Prince Alexis,
perceiving this diverson, cried out in ecstasy,--

“Oh, by St. Nicholas the Miracle-Worker, I'll give you better sport than
that, ye knaves! Here's the very place for a reisak,--do you hear me
children?--a reisak! Could there be better ice? and then the rocks to
jump from! Come, children, come! Waska, Ivan, Daniel, you dogs, over
with you!”

Now the reisak was a gymnastic performance peculiar to old Russia, and
therefore needs to be described. It could become popular only among a
people of strong physical qualities, and in a country where swift rivers
freeze rapidly from sudden cold. Hence we are of the opinion that
it will not be introduced into our own winter diversions. A spot is
selected where the water is deep and the current tolerably strong; the
ice must be about half an inch in thickness. The performer leaps head
foremost from a rock or platform, bursts through the ice, is carried
under by the current, comes up some distance below, and bursts through
again. Both skill and strength are required to do the feat successfully.

Waska, Ivan, Daniel, and a number of others, sprang to the brink of the
rocks and looked over. The wall was not quite perpendicular, some large
fragments having fallen from above and lodged along the base. It would
therefore require a bold leap to clear the rocks and strike the smooth
ice. They hesitated,--and no wonder.

Prince Alexis howled with rage and disappointment.

“The Devil take you, for a pack of whimpering hounds!” he cried. “Holy
Saints! they are afraid to make a reisak!”

Ivan crossed himself and sprang. He cleared the rocks, but, instead of
bursting through the ice with his head, fell at full length upon his
back.

“O knave!” yelled the Prince,--“not to know where his head is! Thinks
it's his back! Give him fifteen stripes.”

Which was instantly done.

The second attempt was partially successful. One of the hunters broke
through the ice, head foremost, going down, but he failed to come up
again; so the feat was only half performed.

The Prince became more furiously excited.

“This is the way I'm treated!” he cried. “He forgets all about finishing
the reisak, and goes to chasing sterlet! May the carps eat him up for
an ungrateful vagabond! Here, you beggars!” (addressing the poor
relations,) “take your turn, and let me see whether you are men.”

Only one of the frightened parasites had the courage to obey. On
reaching the brink, he shut his eyes in mortal fear, and made a leap
at random. The next moment he lay on the edge of the ice with one leg
broken against a fragment of rock.

This capped the climax of the Prince's wrath. He fell into a state
bordering on despair, tore his hair, gnashed his teeth, and wept
bitterly.

“They will be the death of me!” was his lament. “Not a man among them!
It wasn't so in the old times. Such beautiful reisaks as I have seen!
But the people are becoming women,--hares,--chickens,--skunks! Villains,
will you force me to kill you? You have dishonored and disgraced me; I
am ashamed to look my neighbors in the face. Was ever a man so treated?”

The serfs hung down their heads, feeling somehow responsible for their
master's misery. Some of them wept, out of a stupid sympathy with his
tears.

All at once he sprang down from the cask, crying in a gay, triumphant
tone,--

“I have it! Bring me Crop-Ear. He's the fellow for a reisak,--he can
make three, one after another.”

One of the boldest ventured to suggest that Crop-Ear had been sent away
in disgrace to another of the Prince's estates.

“Bring him here, I say? Take horses, and don't draw rein going or
coming. I will not stir from this spot until Crop-Ear comes.”

With these words, he mounted the barrel, and recommenced ladling out the
wine. Huge fires were made, for the night was falling, and the cold had
become intense. Fresh game was skewered and set to broil, and the tragic
interlude of the revel was soon forgotten.

Towards midnight the sound of hoofs was heard, and the messengers
arrived with Crop-Ear. But, although the latter had lost his ears, he
was not inclined to split his head. The ice, meanwhile, had become
so strong that a cannon-ball would have made no impression upon it.
Crop-Ear simply threw down a stone heavier than himself, and, as it
bounced and slid along the solid floor, said to Prince Alexis,--


“Am I to go back, Highness, or stay here?”

“Here, my son. Thou'rt a man. Come hither to me.”

Taking the serf's head in his hands, he kissed him on both cheeks. Then
he rode homeward through the dark, iron woods, seated astride on the
barrel, and steadying himself with his arms around Crop-Ear's and
Waska's necks.




VIII.

The health of the Princess Martha, always delicate, now began to fail
rapidly. She was less and less able to endure her husband's savage
humors, and lived almost exclusively in her own apartments. She never
mentioned the name of Boris in his presence, for it was sure to throw
him into a paroxysm of fury. Floating rumors in regard to the young
Prince had reached him from the capital, and nothing would convince him
that his wife was not cognizant of her son's doings. The poor Princess
clung to her boy as to all that was left her of life, and tried to prop
her failing strength with the hope of his speedy return. She was now
too helpless to thwart his wishes in any way; but she dreaded, more
than death, the terrible SOMETHING which would surely take place between
father and son if her conjectures should prove to be true.

One day, in the early part of November, she received a letter from
Boris, announcing his marriage. She had barely strength and presence of
mind enough to conceal the paper in her bosom before sinking in a swoon.
By some means or other the young Prince had succeeded in overcoming
all the obstacles to such a step: probably the favor of the Empress was
courted, in order to obtain her consent. The money he had received, he
wrote, would be sufficient to maintain them for a few months, though not
in a style befitting their rank. He was proud and happy; the Princess
Helena would be the reigning beauty of the court, when he should present
her, but he desired the sanction of his parents to the marriage, before
taking his place in society. He would write immediately to his father,
and hoped, that, if the news brought a storm, Mishka might be on hand to
divert its force, as on a former occasion.

Under the weight of this imminent secret, the Princess Martha could
neither eat nor sleep. Her body wasted to a shadow; at every noise in
the castle, she started and listened in terror, fearing that the news
had arrived.

Prince Boris, no doubt, found his courage fail him when he set about
writing the promised letter; for a fortnight elapsed before it made its
appearance. Prince Alexis received it on his return from the chase. He
read it hastily through, uttered a prolonged roar like that of a wounded
bull, and rushed into the castle. The sound of breaking furniture, of
crashing porcelain and shivered glass, came from the state apartments:
the domestics fell on their knees and prayed; the Princess, who heard
the noise and knew what it portended, became almost insensible from
fright.

One of the upper servants entered a chamber as the Prince was in the
act of demolishing a splendid malachite table, which had escaped all his
previous attacks. He was immediately greeted with a cry of,--

“Send the Princess to me!”

“Her Highness is not able to leave her chamber,” the man replied.

How it happened he could never afterwards describe but he found himself
lying in a corner of the room. When he arose, there seemed to be a
singular cavity in his mouth: his upper front teeth were wanting.

We will not narrate what took place in the chamber of the Princess.

The nerves of the unfortunate woman had been so wrought upon by her
fears, that her husband's brutal rage, familiar to her from long
experience, now possessed a new and alarming significance. His threats
were terrible to hear; she fell into convulsions, and before morning her
tormented life was at an end.

There was now something else to think of, and the smashing of porcelain
and cracking of whips came to an end. The Archimandrite was summoned,
and preparations, both religious and secular, were made for a funeral
worthy the rank of the deceased. Thousands flocked to Kinesma; and when
the immense procession moved away from the castle, although very few
of the persons had ever known or cared in the least, for the Princess
Martha, all, without exception, shed profuse tears. Yes, there was
one exception,--one bare, dry rock, rising alone out of the universal
deluge,--Prince Alexis himself, who walked behind the coffin, his eyes
fixed and his features rigid as stone. They remarked that his face was
haggard, and that the fiery tinge on his cheeks and nose had faded into
livid purple. The only sign of emotion which he gave was a convulsive
shudder, which from time to time passed over his whole body.

Three archimandrites (abbots) and one hundred priests headed the solemn
funeral procession from the castle to the church on the opposite hill.
There the mass for the dead was chanted, the responses being sung by
a choir of silvery boyish voices. All the appointments were of the
costliest character. Not only all those within the church, but the
thousands outside, spared not their tears, but wept until the fountains
were exhausted. Notice was given, at the close of the services, that
“baked meats” would be furnished to the multitude, and that all beggars
who came to Kinesma would be charitably fed for the space of six weeks.
Thus, by her death, the amiable Princess Martha was enabled to dispense
more charity than had been permitted to her life.

At the funeral banquet which followed, Prince Alexis placed the Abbot
Sergius at his right hand, and conversed with him in the most edifying
manner upon the necessity of leading a pure and godly life. His remarks
upon the duty of a Christian, upon brotherly love, humility, and
self-sacrifice, brought tears into the eyes of the listening priests. He
expressed his conviction that the departed Princess, by the piety of her
life, had attained unto salvation,--and added, that his own life had now
no further value unless he should devote it to religious exercises.

“Can you not give me a place in your monastery?” he asked, turning to
the Abbot. “I will endow it with a gift of forty thousand rubles, for
the privilege of occupying a monk's cell.”

“Pray, do not decide too hastily, Highness,” the Abbot replied. “You
have yet a son.”

“What!” yelled Prince Alexis, with flashing eyes, every trace of
humility and renunciation vanishing like smoke,--“what! Borka? The
infamous wretch who has ruined me, killed his mother, and brought
disgrace upon our name? Do you know that he has married a wench of no
family and without a farthing,--who would be honored, if I should allow
her to feed my hogs? Live for HIM? live for HIM? Ah-R-R-R!”

This outbreak terminated in a sound between a snarl and a bellow. The
priests turned pale, but the Abbot devoutly remarked--

“Encompassed by sorrows, Prince, you should humbly submit to the will of
the Lord.”

“Submit to Borka?” the Prince scornfully laughed. “I know what I'll
do. There's time enough yet for a wife and another child,--ay,--a dozen
children! I can have my pick in the province; and if I couldn't I'd
sooner take Masha, the goose-girl, than leave Borka the hope of stepping
into my shoes. Beggars they shall be,--beggars!”

What further he might have said was interrupted by the priests rising
to chant the Blajennon uspennie (blessed be the dead),--after which,
the trisna, a drink composed of mead, wine, and rum, was emptied to
the health of the departed soul. Every one stood during this ceremony,
except Prince Alexis, who fell suddenly prostrate before the consecrated
pictures, and sobbed so passionately that the tears of the guests flowed
for the third time. There he lay until night; for whenever any one dared
to touch him, he struck out furiously with fists and feet. Finally he
fell asleep on the floor, and the servants then bore him to his sleeping
apartment.

For several days afterward his grief continued to be so violent that the
occupants of the castle were obliged to keep out of his way. The whip
was never out of his hand, and he used it very recklessly, not always
selecting the right person. The parasitic poor relations found their
situation so uncomfortable, that they decided, one and all, to detach
themselves from the tree upon which they fed and fattened, even at the
risk of withering on a barren soil. Night and morning the serfs prayed
upon their knees, with many tears and groans, that the Saints might send
consolation, in any form, to their desperate lord.

The Saints graciously heard and answered the prayer. Word came that a
huge bear had been seen in the forest stretching towards Juriewetz. The
sorrowing Prince pricked up his ears, threw down his whip, and ordered a
chase. Sasha, the broad-shouldered, the cunning, the ready, the untiring
companion of his master, secretly ordered a cask of vodki to follow the
crowd of hunters and serfs. There was a steel-bright sky, a low, yellow
sun, and a brisk easterly wind from the heights of the Ural. As the
crisp snow began to crunch under the Prince's sled, his followers saw
the old expression come back to his face. With song and halloo and blast
of horns, they swept away into the forest.

Saint John the Hunter must have been on guard over Russia that day.

The great bear was tracked, and after a long and exciting chase, fell by
the hand of Prince Alexis himself. Halt was made in an open space in the
forest, logs were piled together and kindled on the snow, and just at
the right moment (which no one knew better than Sasha) the cask of vodki
rolled into its place. When the serfs saw the Prince mount astride of
it, with his ladle in his hand, they burst into shouts of extravagant
joy. “Slava Bogu!” (Glory be to God!) came fervently from the bearded
lips of those hard, rough, obedient children. They tumbled headlong over
each other, in their efforts to drink first from the ladle, to clasp
the knees or kiss the hands of the restored Prince. And the dawn was
glimmering against the eastern stars, as they took the way to the
castle, making the ghostly fir-woods ring with shout and choric song.

Nevertheless, Prince Alexis was no longer the same man; his giant
strength and furious appetite were broken. He was ever ready, as
formerly, for the chase and the drinking-bout; but his jovial mood no
longer grew into a crisis which only utter physical exhaustion or the
stupidity of drunkenness could overcome. Frequently, while astride the
cask, his shouts of laughter would suddenly cease, the ladle would drop
from his hand, and he would sit motionless, staring into vacancy for
five minutes at a time. Then the serfs, too, became silent, and stood
still, awaiting a change. The gloomy mood passed away as suddenly. He
would start, look about him, and say, in a melancholy voice,--

“Have I frightened you, my children? It seems to me that I am getting
old. Ah, yes, we must all die, one day. But we need not think about it,
until the time comes. The Devil take me for putting it into my head!
Why, how now? can't you sing, children?”

Then he would strike up some ditty which they all knew: a hundred voices
joined in the strain, and the hills once more rang with revelry.

Since the day when the Princess Martha was buried, the Prince had not
again spoken of marriage. No one, of course, dared to mention the name
of Boris in his presence.




IX.


The young Prince had, in reality, become the happy husband of Helena.
His love for her had grown to be a shaping and organizing influence,
without which his nature would have fallen into its former confusion. If
a thought of a less honorable relation had ever entered his mind, it was
presently banished by the respect which a nearer intimacy inspired;
and thus Helena, magnetically drawing to the surface only his best
qualities, loved, unconsciously to herself, her own work in him. Ere
long, she saw that she might balance the advantages he had conferred
upon her in their marriage by the support and encouragement which she
was able to impart to him; and this knowledge, removing all painful
sense of obligation, made her both happy and secure in her new position.

The Princess Martha, under some presentiment of her approaching death,
had intrusted one of the ladies in attendance upon her with the secret
of her son's marriage, in addition to a tender maternal message, and
such presents of money and jewelry as she was able to procure without
her husband's knowledge. These presents reached Boris very opportunely;
for, although Helena developed a wonderful skill in regulating his
expenses, the spring was approaching, and even the limited circle of
society in which they had moved during the gay season had made heavy
demands upon his purse. He became restless and abstracted, until his
wife, who by this time clearly comprehended the nature of his trouble,
had secretly decided how it must be met.

The slender hoard of the old music-master, with a few thousand rubles
from Prince Boris, sufficed for his modest maintenance. Being now free
from the charge of his daughter, he determined to visit Germany, and, if
circumstances were propitious, to secure a refuge for his old age in his
favorite Leipsic. Summer was at hand, and the court had already removed
to Oranienbaum. In a few weeks the capital would be deserted.

“Shall we go to Germany with your father?” asked Boris, as he sat at a
window with Helena, enjoying the long twilight.

“No, my Boris,” she answered; “we will go to Kinesma.”

“But--Helena,--golubchik, mon ange,--are you in earnest?”

“Yes, my Boris. The last letter from your--our cousin Nadejda convinces
me that the step must be taken. Prince Alexis has grown much older since
your mother's death; he is lonely and unhappy. He may not welcome us,
but he will surely suffer us to come to him; and we must then begin the
work of reconciliation. Reflect, my Boris, that you have keenly wounded
him in the tenderest part,--his pride,--and you must therefore cast away
your own pride, and humbly and respectfully, as becomes a son, solicit
his pardon.”

“Yes,” said he, hesitatingly, “you are right. But I know his violence
and recklessness, as you do not. For myself, alone, I am willing to
meet him; yet I fear for your sake. Would you not tremble to encounter a
maddened and brutal mujik?--then how much more to meet Alexis Pavlovitch
of Kinesma!”

“I do not and shall not tremble,” she replied. “It is not your marriage
that has estranged your father, but your marriage with ME. Having been,
unconsciously, the cause of the trouble, I shall deliberately, and as
a sacred duty, attempt to remove it. Let us go to Kinesma, as humble,
penitent children, and cast ourselves upon your father's mercy. At the
worst, he can but reject us; and you will have given me the consolation
of knowing that I have tried, as your wife, to annul the sacrifice you
have made for my sake.”

“Be it so, then!” cried Boris, with a mingled feeling of relief and
anxiety.

He was not unwilling that the attempt should be made, especially since
it was his wife's desire; but he knew his father too well to anticipate
immediate success. All threatening POSSIBILITIES suggested themselves to
his mind; all forms of insult and outrage which he had seen perpetrated
at Kinesma filled his memory. The suspense became at last worse than any
probable reality. He wrote to his father, announcing a speedy visit
from himself and his wife; and two days afterwards the pair left St.
Petersburg in a large travelling kibitka.




X.

When Prince Alexis received his son's letter, an expression of fierce,
cruel delight crept over his face, and there remained, horribly
illuminating its haggard features. The orders given for swimming
horses in the Volga--one of his summer diversions--were immediately
countermanded; he paced around the parapet of the castle-wall until near
midnight, followed by Sasha with a stone jug of vodki. The latter had
the useful habit, notwithstanding his stupid face, of picking up the
fragments of soliloquy which the Prince dropped, and answering them as
if talking to himself. Thus he improved upon and perfected many a hint
of cruelty, and was too discreet ever to dispute his master's claim to
the invention.

Sasha, we may be sure, was busy with his devil's work that night.
The next morning the stewards and agents of Prince Alexis, in castle,
village, and field, were summoned to his presence.

“Hark ye!” said he; “Borka and his trumpery wife send me word that they
will be here to-morrow. See to it that every man, woman, and child, for
ten versts out on the Moskovskoi road, knows of their coming. Let it be
known that whoever uncovers his head before them shall uncover his back
for a hundred lashes. Whomsoever they greet may bark like a dog, meeouw
like a cat, or bray like an ass, as much as he chooses; but if he speaks
a decent word, his tongue shall be silenced with stripes. Whoever shall
insult them has my pardon in advance. Oh, let them come!--ay, let them
come! Come they may: but how they go away again”----

The Prince Alexis suddenly stopped, shook his head, and walked up
and down the hall, muttering to himself. His eyes were bloodshot, and
sparkled with a strange light. What the stewards had heard was plain
enough; but that something more terrible than insult was yet held in
reserve they did not doubt. It was safe, therefore, not only to fulfil,
but to exceed, the letter of their instructions. Before night the whole
population were acquainted with their duties; and an unusual mood of
expectancy, not unmixed with brutish glee, fell upon Kinesma.

By the middle of the next forenoon, Boris and his wife, seated in
the open kibitka, drawn by post-horses, reached the boundaries of
the estate, a few versts from the village. They were both silent and
slightly pale at first, but now began to exchange mechanical remarks, to
divert each other's thoughts from the coming reception.

“Here are the fields of Kinesma at last!” exclaimed Prince Boris.
“We shall see the church and castle from the top of that hill in the
distance. And there is Peter, my playmate, herding the cattle!

“Peter! Good-day, brotherkin!”

Peter looked, saw the carriage close upon him, and, after a moment of
hesitation, let his arms drop stiffly by his sides, and began howling
like a mastiff by moonlight. Helena laughed heartily at this singular
response to the greeting; but Boris, after the first astonishment was
over, looked terrified.

“That was done by order,” said he, with a bitter smile. “The old bear
stretches his claws out. Dare you try his hug?”

“I do not fear,” she answered, her face was calm.

Every serf they passed obeyed the order of Prince Alexis according
to his own idea of disrespect. One turned his back; another made
contemptuous grimaces and noises; another sang a vulgar song; another
spat upon the ground or held his nostrils. Nowhere was a cap raised, or
the stealthy welcome of a friendly glance given.

The Princess Helena met these insults with a calm, proud indifference.
Boris felt them more keenly; for the fields and hills were prospectively
his property, and so also were the brutish peasants. It was a form of
chastisement which he had never before experienced, and knew not how to
resist. The affront of an entire community was an offence against which
he felt himself to be helpless.

As they approached the town, the demonstrations of insolence were
redoubled. About two hundred boys, between the ages of ten and fourteen,
awaited them on the hill below the church, forming themselves into files
on either side of the road. These imps had been instructed to stick
out their tongues in derision, and howl, as the carriage passed between
them. At the entrance of the long main street of Kinesma, they were
obliged to pass under a mock triumphal arch, hung with dead dogs and
drowned cats; and from this point the reception assumed an outrageous
character. Howls, hootings, and hisses were heard on all sides; bouquets
of nettles and vile weeds were flung to them; even wreaths of spoiled
fish dropped from the windows. The women were the most eager and
uproarious in this carnival of insult: they beat their saucepans, threw
pails of dirty water upon the horses, pelted the coachman with rotten
cabbages, and filled the air with screeching and foul words.

It was impossible to pass through this ordeal with indifference. Boris,
finding that his kindly greetings were thrown away,--that even his old
acquaintances in the bazaar howled like the rest,--sat with head bowed
and despair in his heart. The beautiful eyes of Helena were heavy with
tears; but she no longer trembled, for she knew the crisis was yet to
come.

As the kibitka slowly climbed the hill on its way to the castle-gate,
Prince Alexis, who had heard and enjoyed the noises in the village from
a balcony on the western tower, made his appearance on the head of the
steps which led from the court-yard to the state apartments. The dreaded
whip was in his hand; his eyes seemed about to start from their sockets,
in their wild, eager, hungry gaze; the veins stood out like cords on his
forehead; and his lips, twitching involuntarily, revealed the glare
of his set teeth. A frightened hush filled the castle. Some of the
domestics were on their knees; others watching, pale and breathless,
from the windows: for all felt that a greater storm than they had ever
experienced was about to burst. Sasha and the castle-steward had taken
the wise precaution to summon a physician and a priest, provided
with the utensils for extreme unction. Both of these persons had been
smuggled in through a rear entrance, and were kept concealed until their
services should be required.

The noise of wheels was heard outside the gate, which stood invitingly
open. Prince Alexis clutched his whip with iron fingers, and
unconsciously took the attitude of a wild beast about to spring from its
ambush. Now the hard clatter of hoofs and the rumbling, of wheels echoed
from the archway, and the kibitka rolled into the courtyard. It stopped
near the foot of the grand staircase. Boris, who sat upon the farther
side, rose to alight, in order to hand down his wife; but no sooner
had he made a movement than Prince Alexis, with lifted whip and face
flashing fire, rushed down the steps. Helena rose, threw back her veil,
let her mantle (which Boris had grasped, in his anxiety to restrain her
action,) fall behind her, and stepped upon the pavement.

Prince Alexis had already reached the last step, and but a few feet
separated them. He stopped as if struck by lightning,--his body still
retaining, in every limb, the impress of motion. The whip was in his
uplifted fist; one foot was on the pavement of the court, and the other
upon the edge of the last step; his head was bent forward, his mouth
open, and his eyes fastened upon the Princess Helena's face.

She, too, stood motionless, a form of simple and perfect grace, and met
his gaze with soft, imploring, yet courageous and trustful eyes. The
women who watched the scene from the galleries above always declared
that an invisible saint stood beside her in that moment, and surrounded
her with a dazzling glory. The few moments during which the suspense of
a hundred hearts hung upon those encountering eyes seemed an eternity.

Prince Alexis did not move, but he began to tremble from head to foot.
His fingers relaxed, and the whip fell ringing upon the pavement. The
wild fire of his eyes changed from wrath into an ecstasy as intense, and
a piercing cry of mingled wonder, admiration and delight burst from his
throat. At that cry Boris rushed forward and knelt at his feet. Helena,
clasping her fairest hands, sank beside her husband, with upturned
face, as if seeking the old man's eyes, and perfect the miracle she had
wrought.

The sight of that sweet face, so near his own, tamed the last lurking
ferocity of the beast. His tears burst forth in a shower; he lifted and
embraced the Princess, kissing her brow, her cheeks, her chin, and her
hands, calling her his darling daughter, his little white dove, his
lambkin.

“And, father, my Boris, too!” said she.

The pure liquid voice sent thrills of exquisite delight through his
whole frame. He embraced and blessed Boris, and then, throwing an arm
around each, held them to his breast, and wept passionately upon their
heads. By this time the whole castle overflowed with weeping. Tears fell
from every window and gallery; they hissed upon the hot saucepans of the
cooks; they moistened the oats in the manger; they took the starch out
of the ladies' ruffles, and weakened the wine in the goblets of the
guests. Insult was changed into tenderness in a moment. Those who had
barked or stuck out their tongues at Boris rushed up to kiss his boots;
a thousand terms of endearment were showered upon him.

Still clasping his children to his breast, Prince Alexis mounted the
steps with them. At the top he turned, cleared his throat, husky from
sobbing, and shouted--

“A feast! a feast for all Kinesma! Let there be rivers of vodki, wine
and hydromel! Proclaim it everywhere that my dear son Boris and my
dear daughter Helena have arrived, and whoever fails to welcome them to
Kinesma shall be punished with a hundred stripes! Off, ye scoundrels, ye
vagabonds, and spread the news!”

It was not an hour before the whole sweep of the circling hills
resounded with the clang of bells, the blare of horns, and the songs
and shouts of the rejoicing multitude. The triumphal arch of unsavory
animals was whirled into the Volga; all signs of the recent reception
vanished like magic; festive fir-boughs adorned the houses, and the
gardens and window-pots were stripped of their choicest flowers to make
wreaths of welcome. The two hundred boys, not old enough to comprehend
this sudden bouleversement of sentiment, did not immediately desist from
sticking out their tongues: whereupon they were dismissed with a box
on the ear. By the middle of the afternoon all Kinesma was eating,
drinking, and singing; and every song was sung, and every glass emptied
in honor of the dear, good Prince Boris, and the dear, beautiful
Princess Helena. By night all Kinesma was drunk.




XI.

In the castle a superb banquet was improvised. Music, guests, and rare
dishes were brought together with wonderful speed, and the choicest
wines of the cellar were drawn upon. Prince Boris, bewildered by this
sudden and incredible change in his fortunes, sat at his father's right
hand, while the Princess filled, but with much more beauty and dignity,
the ancient place of the Princess Martha. The golden dishes were set
before her, and the famous family emeralds--in accordance with the
command of Prince Alexis--gleamed among her dark hair and flashed around
her milk-white throat. Her beauty was of a kind so rare in Russia
that it silenced all question and bore down all rivalry. Every one
acknowledged that so lovely a creature had never before been seen.
“Faith, the boy has eyes!” the old Prince constantly repeated, as he
turned away from a new stare of admiration, down the table.

The guests noticed a change in the character of the entertainment. The
idiot, in his tow shirt, had been crammed to repletion in the kitchen,
and was now asleep in the stable. Razboi, the new bear,--the successor
of the slaughtered Mishka,--was chained up out of hearing. The jugglers,
tumblers, and Calmucks still occupied their old place under the gallery,
but their performances were of a highly decorous character. At the
least-sign of a relapse into certain old tricks, more grotesque than
refined, the brows of Prince Alexis would grow dark, and a sharp glance
at Sasha was sufficient to correct the indiscretion. Every one found
this natural enough; for they were equally impressed with the elegance
and purity of the young wife. After the healths had been drunk and the
slumber-flag was raised over the castle, Boris led her into the splendid
apartments of his mother,--now her own,--and knelt at her feet.

“Have I done my part, my Boris?” she asked.

“You are an angel!” he cried. “It was a miracle! My life was not worth
a copek, and I feared for yours. If it will only last!--if it will only
last!”

“It WILL,” said she. “You have taken me from poverty, and given me rank,
wealth, and a proud place in the world: let it be my work to keep the
peace which God has permitted me to establish between you and your
father!”

The change in the old Prince, in fact, was more radical than any one who
knew his former ways of life would have considered possible. He stormed
and swore occasionally, flourished his whip to some purpose, and rode
home from the chase, not outside of a brandy cask, as once, but with
too much of its contents inside of him: but these mild excesses were
comparative virtues. His accesses of blind rage seemed to be at an end.
A powerful, unaccustomed feeling of content subdued his strong nature,
and left its impress on his voice and features. He joked and sang
with his “children,” but not with the wild recklessness of the days of
reisaks and indiscriminate floggings. Both his exactions and his favors
diminished in quantity. Week after week passed by, and there was no sign
of any return to his savage courses.

Nothing annoyed him so much as a reference to his former way of life,
in the presence of the Princess Helena. If her gentle, questioning eyes
happened to rest on him at such times, something very like a blush rose
into his face, and the babbler was silenced with a terribly significant
look. It was enough for her to say, when he threatened an act of cruelty
and injustice, “Father, is that right?” He confusedly retracted his
orders, rather than bear the sorrow of her face.

The promise of another event added to his happiness: Helena would
soon become a mother. As the time drew near he stationed guards at
the distance of a verst around the castle, that no clattering vehicles
should pass, no dogs bark loudly, nor any other disturbance occur which
might agitate the Princess. The choicest sweetmeats and wines, flowers
from Moscow and fruits from Astrakhan, were procured for her; and it was
a wonder that the midwife performed her duty, for she had the fear
of death before her eyes. When the important day at last arrived the
slumber-flag was instantly hoisted, and no mouse dared to squeak in
Kinesma until the cannon announced the advent of a new soul.

That night Prince Alexis lay down in the corridor, outside of
Helena's door: he glared fiercely at the nurse as she entered with the
birth-posset for the young mother. No one else was allowed to pass, that
night, nor the next. Four days afterwards, Sasha, having a message to
the Princess, and supposing the old man to be asleep, attempted to step
noiselessly over his body. In a twinkle the Prince's teeth fastened
themselves in the serf's leg, and held him with the tenacity of a
bull-dog. Sasha did not dare to cry out: he stood, writhing with pain,
until the strong jaws grew weary of their hold, and then crawled away to
dress the bleeding wound. After that, no one tried to break the Prince's
guard.

The christening was on a magnificent scale. Prince Paul of Kostroma was
godfather, and gave the babe the name of Alexis. As the Prince had paid
his respects to Helena just before the ceremony, it may be presumed that
the name was not of his own inspiration. The father and mother were
not allowed to be present, but they learned that the grandfather had
comported himself throughout with great dignity and propriety. The
Archimandrite Sergius obtained from the Metropolitan at Moscow a very
minute fragment of the true cross, which was encased in a hollow bead
of crystal, and hung around the infant's neck by a fine gold chain, as a
precious amulet.

Prince Alexis was never tired of gazing at his grandson and namesake.

“He has more of his mother than of Boris,” he would say. “So much the
better! Strong dark eyes, like the Great Peter,--and what a goodly leg
for a babe! Ha! he makes a tight little fist already,--fit to handle a
whip,--or” (seeing the expression of Helena's face)--“or a sword. He'll
be a proper Prince of Kinesma, my daughter, and we owe it to you.”

Helena smiled, and gave him a grateful glance in return. She had had her
secret fears as to the complete conversion of Prince Alexis; but now she
saw in this babe a new spell whereby he might be bound. Slight as was
her knowledge of men, she yet guessed the tyranny of long-continued
habits; and only her faith, powerful in proportion as it was ignorant,
gave her confidence in the result of the difficult work she had
undertaken.




XII.


Alas! the proud predictions of Prince Alexis, and the protection of the
sacred amulet, were alike unavailing. The babe sickened, wasted away,
and died in less than two months after its birth. There was great and
genuine sorrow among the serfs of Kinesma. Each had received a shining
ruble of silver at the christening; and, moreover, they were now
beginning to appreciate the milder regime of their lord, which this blow
might suddenly terminate. Sorrow, in such natures as his, exasperates
instead of chastening: they knew him well enough to recognize the
danger.

At first the old man's grief appeared to be of a stubborn, harmless
nature. As soon as the funeral ceremonies were over he betook himself to
his bed, and there lay for two days and nights, without eating a morsel
of food. The poor Princess Helena, almost prostrated by the blow,
mourned alone, or with Boris, in her own apartments. Her influence,
no longer kept alive by her constant presence, as formerly, began to
decline. When the old Prince aroused somewhat from his stupor, it was
not meat that he demanded, but drink; and he drank to angry excess.
Day after day the habit resumed its ancient sway, and the whip and the
wild-beast yell returned with it. The serfs even began to tremble as
they never had done, so long as his vices were simply those of a strong
man; for now a fiendish element seemed to be slowly creeping in. He
became horribly profane: they shuddered when he cursed the venerable
Metropolitan of Moscow, declaring that the old sinner had deliberately
killed his grandson, by sending to him, instead of the true cross of the
Saviour, a piece of the tree to which the impenitent thief was nailed.

Boris would have spared his wife the knowledge of this miserable
relapse, in her present sorrow, but the information soon reached her in
other ways. She saw the necessity of regaining, by a powerful effort,
what she had lost. She therefore took her accustomed place at the table,
and resumed her inspection of household matters. Prince Alexis, as if
determined to cast off the yoke which her beauty and gentleness had laid
upon him, avoided looking at her face or speaking to her, as much as
possible: when he did so, his manner was cold and unfriendly. During her
few days of sad retirement he had brought back the bear Razboi and the
idiot to his table, and vodki was habitually poured out to him and his
favorite serfs in such a measure that the nights became hideous with
drunken tumult.

The Princess Helena felt that her beauty no longer possessed the potency
of its first surprise. It must now be a contest of nature with nature,
spiritual with animal power. The struggle would be perilous, she
foresaw, but she did not shrink; she rather sought the earliest occasion
to provoke it.

That occasion came. Some slight disappointment brought on one of the old
paroxysms of rage, and the ox-like bellow of Prince Alexis rang through
the castle. Boris was absent, but Helena delayed not a moment to venture
into his father's presence. She found him in a hall over-looking the
court-yard, with his terrible whip in his hand, giving orders for the
brutal punishment of some scores of serfs. The sight of her, coming thus
unexpectedly upon him, did not seem to produce the least effect.

“Father!” she cried, in an earnest, piteous tone, “what is it you do?”

“Away, witch!” he yelled. “I am the master in Kinesma, not thou! Away,
or--”

The fierceness with which he swung and cracked the whip was more
threatening than any words. Perhaps she grew a shade paler, perhaps her
hands were tightly clasped in order that they might not tremble; but she
did not flinch from the encounter. She moved a step nearer, fixed her
gaze upon his flashing eyes, and said, in a low, firm voice--

“It is true, father, you are master here. It is easy to rule over those
poor, submissive slaves. But you are not master over yourself; you are
lashed and trampled upon by evil passions, and as much a slave as any of
these. Be not weak, my father, but strong!”

An expression of bewilderment came into his face. No such words had ever
before been addressed to him, and he knew not how to reply to them. The
Princess Helena followed up the effect--she was not sure that it was
an advantage--by an appeal to the simple, childish nature which she
believed to exist under his ferocious exterior. For a minute it seemed
as if she were about to re-establish her ascendancy: then the stubborn
resistance of the beast returned.

Among the portraits in the hall was one of the deceased Princess Martha.
Pointing to this, Helena cried--

“See, my father! here are the features of your sainted wife! Think that
she looks down from her place among the blessed, sees you, listens to
your words, prays that your hard heart may be softened! Remember her
last farewell to you on earth, her hope of meeting you--”

A cry of savage wrath checked her. Stretching one huge, bony hand, as if
to close her lips, trembling with rage and pain, livid and convulsed in
every feature of his face, Prince Alexis reversed the whip in his right
hand, and weighed its thick, heavy butt for one crashing, fatal blow.
Life and death were evenly balanced. For an instant the Princess became
deadly pale, and a sickening fear shot through her heart. She could not
understand the effect of her words: her mind was paralyzed, and what
followed came without her conscious volition.

Not retreating a step, not removing her eyes from the terrible picture
before her, she suddenly opened her lips and sang. Her voice of
exquisite purity, power, and sweetness, filled the old hall and
overflowed it, throbbing in scarcely weakened vibrations through
court-yard and castle. The melody was a prayer--the cry of a tortured
heart for pardon and repose; and she sang it with almost supernatural
expression. Every sound in the castle was hushed: the serfs outside
knelt and uncovered their heads.

The Princess could never afterwards describe, or more than dimly recall,
the exaltation of that moment. She sang in an inspired trance: from the
utterance of the first note the horror of the imminent fate sank out of
sight. Her eyes were fixed upon the convulsed face, but she beheld it
not: all the concentrated forces of her life flowed into the music. She
remembered, however, that Prince Alexis looked alternately from her face
to the portrait of his wife; that he at last shuddered and grew
pale; and that, when with the closing note her own strength suddenly
dissolved, he groaned and fell upon the floor.

She sat down beside him, and took his head upon her lap. For a long time
he was silent, only shivering as if in fever.

“Father!” she finally whispered, “let me take you away!”

He sat up on the floor and looked around; but as his eyes encountered
the portrait, he gave a loud howl and covered his face with his hands.

“She turns her head!” he cried. “Take her away,--she follows me with her
eyes! Paint her head black, and cover it up!”

With some difficulty he was borne to his bed, but he would not rest
until assured that his orders had been obeyed, and the painting covered
for the time with a coat of lamp-black. A low, prolonged attack of fever
followed, during which the presence of Helena was indispensable to his
comfort. She ventured to leave the room only while he slept. He was like
a child in her hands; and when she commended his patience or his good
resolutions, his face beamed with joy and gratitude. He determined (in
good faith, this time) to enter a monastery and devote the rest of his
life to pious works.

But, even after his recovery, he was still too weak and dependent on his
children's attentions to carry out this resolution. He banished from the
castle all those of his poor relations who were unable to drink vodki in
moderation; he kept careful watch over his serfs, and those who
became intoxicated (unless they concealed the fact in the stables and
outhouses) were severely punished: all excess disappeared, and a reign
of peace and gentleness descended upon Kinesma.

In another year another Alexis was born, and lived, and soon grew strong
enough to give his grandfather the greatest satisfaction he had ever
known in his life, by tugging at his gray locks, and digging the small
fingers into his tamed and merry eyes. Many years after Prince Alexis
was dead the serfs used to relate how they had seen him, in the bright
summer afternoons, asleep in his armchair on the balcony, with the rosy
babe asleep on his bosom, and the slumber-flag waving over both.

Legends of the Prince's hunts, reisaks, and brutal revels are still
current along the Volga; but they are now linked to fairer and more
gracious stories; and the free Russian farmers (no longer serfs) are
never tired of relating incidents of the beauty, the courage, the
benevolence, and the saintly piety of the Good Lady of Kinesma.





TALES OF HOME.




THE STRANGE FRIEND.


It would have required an intimate familiarity with the habitual
demeanor of the people of Londongrove to detect in them an access of
interest (we dare not say excitement), of whatever kind. Expression with
them was pitched to so low a key that its changes might be compared to
the slight variations in the drabs and grays in which they were clothed.
Yet that there was a moderate, decorously subdued curiosity present in
the minds of many of them on one of the First-days of the Ninth-month,
in the year 1815, was as clearly apparent to a resident of the
neighborhood as are the indications of a fire or a riot to the member of
a city mob.

The agitations of the war which had so recently come to an end had
hardly touched this quiet and peaceful community. They had stoutly
“borne their testimony,” and faced the question where it could not be
evaded; and although the dashing Philadelphia militia had been stationed
at Camp Bloomfield, within four miles of them, the previous year, these
good people simply ignored the fact. If their sons ever listened to the
trumpets at a distance, or stole nearer to have a peep at the uniforms,
no report of what they had seen or heard was likely to be made at home.
Peace brought to them a relief, like the awakening from an uncomfortable
dream: their lives at once reverted to the calm which they had breathed
for thirty years preceding the national disturbance. In their ways they
had not materially changed for a hundred years. The surplus produce of
their farms more than sufficed for the very few needs which those farms
did not supply, and they seldom touched the world outside of their sect
except in matters of business. They were satisfied with themselves and
with their lot; they lived to a ripe and beautiful age, rarely “borrowed
trouble,” and were patient to endure that which came in the fixed course
of things. If the spirit of curiosity, the yearning for an active,
joyous grasp of life, sometimes pierced through this placid temper,
and stirred the blood of the adolescent members, they were persuaded
by grave voices, of almost prophetic authority, to turn their hearts
towards “the Stillness and the Quietness.”

It was the pleasant custom of the community to arrive at the
meeting-house some fifteen or twenty minutes before the usual time of
meeting, and exchange quiet and kindly greetings before taking their
places on the plain benches inside. As most of the families had lived
during the week on the solitude of their farms, they liked to see their
neighbors' faces, and resolve, as it were, their sense of isolation into
the common atmosphere, before yielding to the assumed abstraction
of their worship. In this preliminary meeting, also, the sexes were
divided, but rather from habit than any prescribed rule. They were
already in the vestibule of the sanctuary; their voices were subdued and
their manner touched with a kind of reverence.

If the Londongrove Friends gathered together a few minutes earlier on
that September First-day; if the younger members looked more frequently
towards one of the gates leading into the meeting-house yard than
towards the other; and if Abraham Bradbury was the centre of a larger
circle of neighbors than Simon Pennock (although both sat side by
side on the highest seat of the gallery),--the cause of these slight
deviations from the ordinary behavior of the gathering was generally
known. Abraham's son had died the previous Sixth-month, leaving a widow
incapable of taking charge of his farm on the Street Road, which
was therefore offered for rent. It was not always easy to obtain a
satisfactory tenant in those days, and Abraham was not more relieved
than surprised on receiving an application from an unexpected quarter. A
strange Friend, of stately appearance, called upon him, bearing a letter
from William Warner, in Adams County, together with a certificate from
a Monthly Meeting on Long Island. After inspecting the farm and making
close inquiries in regard to the people of the neighborhood, he accepted
the terms of rent, and had now, with his family, been three or four days
in possession.

In this circumstance, it is true, there was nothing strange, and the
interest of the people sprang from some other particulars which had
transpired. The new-comer, Henry Donnelly by name, had offered, in place
of the usual security, to pay the rent annually in advance; his
speech and manner were not, in all respects, those of Friends, and he
acknowledged that he was of Irish birth; and moreover, some who had
passed the wagons bearing his household goods had been struck by the
peculiar patterns of the furniture piled upon them. Abraham Bradbury
had of course been present at the arrival, and the Friends upon the
adjoining farms had kindly given their assistance, although it was
a busy time of the year. While, therefore, no one suspected that the
farmer could possibly accept a tenant of doubtful character, a general
sentiment of curious expectancy went forth to meet the Donnelly family.

Even the venerable Simon Pennock, who lived in the opposite part of the
township, was not wholly free from the prevalent feeling. “Abraham,” he
said, approaching his colleague, “I suppose thee has satisfied thyself
that the strange Friend is of good repute.”

Abraham was assuredly satisfied of one thing--that the three hundred
silver dollars in his antiquated secretary at home were good and lawful
coin. We will not say that this fact disposed him to charity, but will
only testify that he answered thus:

“I don't think we have any right to question the certificate from Islip,
Simon; and William Warner's word (whom thee knows by hearsay) is that of
a good and honest man. Henry himself will stand ready to satisfy thee,
if it is needful.”

Here he turned to greet a tall, fresh-faced youth, who had quietly
joined the group at the men's end of the meeting-house. He was
nineteen, blue-eyed, and rosy, and a little embarrassed by the grave,
scrutinizing, yet not unfriendly eyes fixed upon him.

“Simon, this is Henry's oldest son, De Courcy,” said Abraham.

Simon took the youth's hand, saying, “Where did thee get thy outlandish
name?”

The young man colored, hesitated, and then said, in a low, firm voice,
“It was my grandfather's name.”

One of the heavy carriages of the place and period, new and shiny, in
spite of its sober colors, rolled into the yard. Abraham Bradbury and De
Courcy Donnelly set forth side by side, to meet it.

Out of it descended a tall, broad-shouldered figure--a man in the prime
of life, whose ripe, aggressive vitality gave his rigid Quaker garb
the air of a military undress. His blue eyes seemed to laugh above the
measured accents of his plain speech, and the close crop of his hair
could not hide its tendency to curl. A bearing expressive of energy and
the habit of command was not unusual in the sect, strengthening, but
not changing, its habitual mask; yet in Henry Donnelly this bearing
suggested--one could scarcely explain why--a different experience.
Dress and speech, in him, expressed condescension rather than fraternal
equality.

He carefully assisted his wife to alight, and De Courcy led the horse to
the hitching-shed. Susan Donnelly was a still blooming woman of forty;
her dress, of the plainest color, was yet of the richest texture; and
her round, gentle, almost timid face looked forth like a girl's from the
shadow of her scoop bonnet. While she was greeting Abraham Bradbury,
the two daughters, Sylvia and Alice, who had been standing shyly by
themselves on the edge of the group of women, came forward. The latter
was a model of the demure Quaker maiden; but Abraham experienced as much
surprise as was possible to his nature on observing Sylvia's costume.
A light-blue dress, a dark-blue cloak, a hat with ribbons, and hair in
curls--what Friend of good standing ever allowed his daughter thus to
array herself in the fashion of the world?

Henry read the question in Abraham's face, and preferred not to answer
it at that moment. Saying, “Thee must make me acquainted with the rest
of our brethren,” he led the way back to the men's end. When he had
been presented to the older members, it was time for them to assemble in
meeting.

The people were again quietly startled when Henry Donnelly deliberately
mounted to the third and highest bench facing them, and sat down beside
Abraham and Simon. These two retained, possibly with some little inward
exertion, the composure of their faces, and the strange Friend became
like unto them. His hands were clasped firmly in his lap; his full,
decided lips were set together, and his eyes gazed into vacancy from
under the broad brim. De Courcy had removed his hat on entering the
house, but, meeting his father's eyes, replaced it suddenly, with a
slight blush.

When Simon Pennock and Ruth Treadwell had spoken the thoughts which had
come to them in the stillness, the strange Friend arose. Slowly, with
frequent pauses, as if waiting for the guidance of the Spirit, and with
that inward voice which falls so naturally into the measure of a chant,
he urged upon his hearers the necessity of seeking the Light and walking
therein. He did not always employ the customary phrases, but neither did
he seem to speak the lower language of logic and reason; while his tones
were so full and mellow that they gave, with every slowly modulated
sentence, a fresh satisfaction to the ear. Even his broad a's and the
strong roll of his r's verified the rumor of his foreign birth, did not
detract from the authority of his words. The doubts which had preceded
him somehow melted away in his presence, and he came forth, after the
meeting had been dissolved by the shaking of hands, an accepted tenant
of the high seat.

That evening, the family were alone in their new home. The plain
rush-bottomed chairs and sober carpet, in contrast with the dark, solid
mahogany table, and the silver branched candle-stick which stood upon
it, hinted of former wealth and present loss; and something of the same
contrast was reflected in the habits of the inmates. While the father,
seated in a stately arm-chair, read aloud to his wife and children,
Sylvia's eyes rested on a guitar-case in the corner, and her fingers
absently adjusted themselves to the imaginary frets. De Courcy twisted
his neck as if the straight collar of his coat were a bad fit, and
Henry, the youngest boy, nodded drowsily from time to time.

“There, my lads and lasses!” said Henry Donnelly, as he closed the book,
“now we're plain farmers at last,--and the plainer the better, since it
must be. There's only one thing wanting--”

He paused; and Sylvia, looking up with a bright, arch determination,
answered: “It's too late now, father,--they have seen me as one of
the world's people, as I meant they should. When it is once settled as
something not to be helped, it will give us no trouble.”

“Faith, Sylvia!” exclaimed De Courcy, “I almost wish I had kept you
company.”

“Don't be impatient, my boy,” said the mother, gently. “Think of the
vexations we have had, and what a rest this life will be!”

“Think, also,” the father added, “that I have the heaviest work to do,
and that thou'lt reap the most of what may come of it. Don't carry the
old life to a land where it's out of place. We must be what we seem to
be, every one of us!”

“So we will!” said Sylvia, rising from her seat,--“I, as well as the
rest. It was what I said in the beginning, you--no, THEE knows, father.
Somebody must be interpreter when the time comes; somebody must remember
while the rest of you are forgetting. Oh, I shall be talked about, and
set upon, and called hard names; it won't be so easy. Stay where you
are, De Courcy; that coat will fit sooner than you think.”

Her brother lifted his shoulders and made a grimace. “I've an
unlucky name, it seems,” said he. “The old fellow--I mean Friend
Simon--pronounced it outlandish. Couldn't I change it to Ezra or
Adonijah?”

“Boy, boy--”

“Don't be alarmed, father. It will soon be as Sylvia says; thee's right,
and mother is right. I'll let Sylvia keep my memory, and start fresh
from here. We must into the field to-morrow, Hal and I. There's no need
of a collar at the plough-tail.”

They went to rest, and on the morrow not only the boys, but their father
were in the field. Shrewd, quick, and strong, they made available what
they knew of farming operations, and disguised much of their ignorance,
while they learned. Henry Donnelly's first public appearance had made
a strong public impression in his favor, which the voice of the older
Friends soon stamped as a settled opinion. His sons did their share, by
the amiable, yielding temper they exhibited, in accommodating themselves
to the manners and ways of the people. The graces which came from a
better education, possibly, more refined associations, gave them an
attraction, which was none the less felt because it was not understood,
to the simple-minded young men who worked with the hired hands in their
fathers' fields. If the Donnelly family had not been accustomed, in
former days, to sit at the same table with laborers in shirt-sleeves,
and be addressed by the latter in fraternal phrase, no little
awkwardnesses or hesitations betrayed the fact. They were anxious to
make their naturalization complete, and it soon became so.

The “strange Friend” was now known in Londongrove by the familiar
name of “Henry.” He was a constant attendant at meeting, not only on
First-days, but also on Fourth-days, and whenever he spoke his words
were listened to with the reverence due to one who was truly led towards
the Light. This respect kept at bay the curiosity that might still have
lingered in some minds concerning his antecedent life. It was known
that he answered Simon Pennock, who had ventured to approach him with a
direct question, in these words:

“Thee knows, Friend Simon, that sometimes a seal is put upon our mouths
for a wise purpose. I have learned not to value the outer life except
in so far as it is made the manifestation of the inner life, and I
only date my own from the time when I was brought to a knowledge of the
truth. It is not pleasant to me to look upon what went before; but
a season may come when it shall be lawful for me to declare all
things--nay, when it shall be put upon me as a duty.

“Thee must suffer me to wait the call.”

After this there was nothing more to be said. The family was on terms
of quiet intimacy with the neighbors; and even Sylvia, in spite of her
defiant eyes and worldly ways, became popular among the young men
and maidens. She touched her beloved guitar with a skill which seemed
marvellous to the latter; and when it was known that her refusal to
enter the sect arose from her fondness for the prohibited instrument,
she found many apologists among them. She was not set upon, and called
hard names, as she had anticipated. It is true that her father, when
appealed to by the elders, shook his head and said, “It is a cross to
us!”--but he had been known to remain in the room while she sang “Full
high in Kilbride,” and the keen light which arose in his eyes was
neither that of sorrow nor anger.

At the end of their first year of residence the farm presented evidences
of much more orderly and intelligent management than at first, although
the adjoining neighbors were of the opinion that the Donnellys had
hardly made their living out of it. Friend Henry, nevertheless, was
ready with the advance rent, and his bills were promptly paid. He
was close at a bargain, which was considered rather a merit than
otherwise,--and almost painfully exact in observing the strict letter of
it, when made.

As time passed by, and the family became a permanent part and parcel
of the remote community, wearing its peaceful color and breathing
its untroubled atmosphere, nothing occurred to disturb the esteem and
respect which its members enjoyed. From time to time the postmaster at
the corner delivered to Henry Donnelly a letter from New York, always
addressed in the same hand. The first which arrived had an “Esq.” added
to the name, but this “compliment” (as the Friends termed it) soon
ceased. Perhaps the official may have vaguely wondered whether there was
any connection between the occasional absence of Friend Henry--not at
Yearly-Meeting time--and these letters. If he had been a visitor at the
farm-house he might have noticed variations in the moods of its inmates,
which must have arisen from some other cause than the price of stock or
the condition of the crops. Outside of the family circle, however, they
were serenely reticent.

In five or six years, when De Courcy had grown to be a hale, handsome
man of twenty-four, and as capable of conducting a farm as any to the
township born, certain aberrations from the strict line of discipline
began to be rumored. He rode a gallant horse, dressed a little more
elegantly than his membership prescribed, and his unusually high,
straight collar took a knack of falling over. Moreover, he was
frequently seen to ride up the Street Road, in the direction of Fagg's
Manor, towards those valleys where the brick Presbyterian church
displaces the whitewashed Quaker meeting-house.

Had Henry Donnelly not occupied so high a seat, and exercised such
an acknowledged authority in the sect, he might sooner have received
counsel, or proffers of sympathy, as the case might be; but he heard
nothing until the rumors of De Courcy's excursions took a more definite
form.

But one day, Abraham Bradbury, after discussing some Monthly-Meeting
matters, suddenly asked: “Is this true that I hear, Henry,--that thy son
De Courcy keeps company with one of the Alison girls?”

“Who says that?” Henry asked, in a sharp voice.

“Why, it's the common talk! Surely, thee's heard of it before?”

“No!”

Henry set his lips together in a manner which Abraham understood.
Considering that he had fully performed his duty, he said no more.

That evening, Sylvia, who had been gently thrumming to herself at the
window, began singing “Bonnie Peggie Alison.” Her father looked at De
Courcy, who caught his glance, then lowered his eyes, and turned to
leave the room.

“Stop, De Courcy,” said the former; “I've heard a piece of news about
thee to-day, which I want thee to make clear.”

“Shall I go, father?” asked Sylvia.

“No; thee may stay to give De Courcy his memory. I think he is beginning
to need it. I've learned which way he rides on Seventh-day evenings.”

“Father, I am old enough to choose my way,” said De Courcy.

“But no such ways NOW, boy! Has thee clean forgotten? This was among
the things upon which we agreed, and you all promised to keep watch and
guard over yourselves. I had my misgivings then, but for five years I've
trusted you, and now, when the time of probation is so nearly over--”

He hesitated, and De Courcy, plucking up courage, spoke again. With
a strong effort the young man threw off the yoke of a self-taught
restraint, and asserted his true nature. “Has O'Neil written?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“Then, father,” he continued, “I prefer the certainty of my present life
to the uncertainty of the old. I will not dissolve my connection with
the Friends by a shock which might give thee trouble; but I will slowly
work away from them. Notice will be taken of my ways; there will be
family visitations, warnings, and the usual routine of discipline, so
that when I marry Margaret Alison, nobody will be surprised at my being
read out of meeting. I shall soon be twenty-five, father, and this thing
has gone on about as long as I can bear it. I must decide to be either a
man or a milksop.”

The color rose to Henry Donnelly's cheeks, and his eyes flashed, but he
showed no signs of anger. He moved to De Courcy's side and laid his hand
upon his shoulder.

“Patience, my boy!” he said. “It's the old blood, and I might have known
it would proclaim itself. Suppose I were to shut my eyes to thy ridings,
and thy merry-makings, and thy worldly company. So far I might go; but
the girl is no mate for thee. If O'Neil is alive, we are sure to hear
from him soon; and in three years, at the utmost, if the Lord favors
us, the end will come. How far has it gone with thy courting? Surely,
surely, not too far to withdraw, at least under the plea of my
prohibition?”

De Courcy blushed, but firmly met his father's eyes. “I have spoken
to her,” he replied, “and it is not the custom of our family to break
plighted faith.”

“Thou art our cross, not Sylvia. Go thy ways now. I will endeavor to
seek for guidance.”

“Sylvia,” said the father, when De Courcy had left the room, “what is to
be the end of this?”

“Unless we hear from O'Neil, father, I am afraid it cannot be prevented.
De Courcy has been changing for a year past; I am only surprised that
you did not sooner notice it. What I said in jest has become serious
truth; he has already half forgotten. We might have expected, in the
beginning, that one of two things would happen: either he would become
a plodding Quaker farmer or take to his present courses. Which would be
worse, when this life is over,--if that time ever comes?”

Sylvia sighed, and there was a weariness in her voice which did not
escape her father's ear. He walked up and down the room with a troubled
air. She sat down, took the guitar upon her lap, and began to sing
the verse, commencing, “Erin, my country, though sad and forsaken,”
 when--perhaps opportunely--Susan Donnelly entered the room.

“Eh, lass!” said Henry, slipping his arm around his wife's waist, “art
thou tired yet? Have I been trying thy patience, as I have that of
the children? Have there been longings kept from me, little rebellions
crushed, battles fought that I supposed were over?”

“Not by me, Henry,” was her cheerful answer. “I have never have been
happier than in these quiet ways with thee. I've been thinking, what if
something has happened, and the letters cease to come? And it has seemed
to me--now that the boys are as good farmers as any, and Alice is such a
tidy housekeeper--that we could manage very well without help. Only for
thy sake, Henry: I fear it would be a terrible disappointment to thee.
Or is thee as accustomed to the high seat as I to my place on the
women's side?”

“No!” he answered emphatically. “The talk with De Courcy has set my
quiet Quaker blood in motion. The boy is more than half right; I am sure
Sylvia thinks so too. What could I expect? He has no birthright, and
didn't begin his task, as I did, after the bravery of youth was over.
It took six generations to establish the serenity and content of our
brethren here, and the dress we wear don't give us the nature. De Courcy
is tired of the masquerade, and Sylvia is tired of seeing it. Thou, my
little Susan, who wert so timid at first, puttest us all to shame now!”

“I think I was meant for it,--Alice, and Henry, and I,” said she.

No outward change in Henry Donnelly's demeanor betrayed this or any
other disturbance at home. There were repeated consultations between the
father and son, but they led to no satisfactory conclusion. De Courcy
was sincerely attached to the pretty Presbyterian maiden, and found
livelier society in her brothers and cousins than among the grave,
awkward Quaker youths of Londongrove.

With the occasional freedom from restraint there awoke in him a desire
for independence--a thirst for the suppressed license of youth. His
new acquaintances were accustomed to a rigid domestic regime, but of a
different character, and they met on a common ground of rebellion. Their
aberrations, it is true, were not of a very formidable character, and
need not have been guarded but for the severe conventionalities of both
sects. An occasional fox-chase, horse-race, or a “stag party” at some
outlying tavern, formed the sum of their dissipation; they sang, danced
reels, and sometimes ran into little excesses through the stimulating
sense of the trespass they were committing.

By and by reports of certain of these performances were brought to
the notice of the Londongrove Friends, and, with the consent of
Henry Donnelly himself, De Courcy received a visit of warning and
remonstrance. He had foreseen the probability of such a visit and
was prepared. He denied none of the charges brought against him, and
accepted the grave counsel offered, simply stating that his nature was
not yet purified and chastened; he was aware he was not walking in the
Light; he believed it to be a troubled season through which he must
needs pass. His frankness, as he was shrewd enough to guess, was
a source of perplexity to the elders; it prevented them from
excommunicating him without further probation, while it left him free
to indulge in further recreations.

Some months passed away, and the absence from which Henry Donnelly
always returned with a good supply of ready money did not take place.
The knowledge of farming which his sons had acquired now came into play.
It was necessary to exercise both skill and thrift in order to keep up
the liberal footing upon which the family had lived; for each member of
it was too proud to allow the community to suspect the change in their
circumstances. De Courcy, retained more than ever at home, and bound
to steady labor, was man enough to subdue his impatient spirit for the
time; but he secretly determined that with the first change for the
better he would follow the fate he had chosen for himself.

Late in the fall came the opportunity for which he had longed. One
evening he brought home a letter, in the well-known handwriting. His
father opened and read it in silence.

“Well, father?” he said.

“A former letter was lost, it seems. This should have come in the
spring; it is only the missing sum.”

“Does O'Neil fix any time?”

“No; but he hopes to make a better report next year.”

“Then, father,” said De Courcy, “it is useless for me to wait longer; I
am satisfied as it is. I should not have given up Margaret in any case;
but now, since thee can live with Henry's help, I shall claim her.”

“MUST it be, De Courcy?”

“It must.”

But it was not to be. A day or two afterwards the young man, on his
mettled horse, set off up the Street Road, feeling at last that the
fortune and the freedom of his life were approaching. He had become, in
habits and in feelings, one of the people, and the relinquishment of the
hope in which his father still indulged brought him a firmer courage, a
more settled content. His sweetheart's family was in good circumstances;
but, had she been poor, he felt confident of his power to make and
secure for her a farmer's home. To the past--whatever it might have
been--he said farewell, and went carolling some cheerful ditty, to look
upon the face of his future.

That night a country wagon slowly drove up to Henry Donnelly's door. The
three men who accompanied it hesitated before they knocked, and, when
the door was opened, looked at each other with pale, sad faces, before
either spoke. No cries followed the few words that were said, but
silently, swiftly, a room was made ready, while the men lifted from the
straw and carried up stairs an unconscious figure, the arms of which
hung down with a horrible significance as they moved. He was not dead,
for the heart beat feebly and slowly; but all efforts to restore his
consciousness were in vain. There was concussion of the brain the
physician said. He had been thrown from his horse, probably alighting
upon his head, as there were neither fractures nor external wounds.
All that night and next day the tenderest, the most unwearied care was
exerted to call back the flickering gleam of life. The shock had been
too great; his deadly torpor deepened into death.

In their time of trial and sorrow the family received the fullest
sympathy, the kindliest help, from the whole neighborhood. They had
never before so fully appreciated the fraternal character of the society
whereof they were members. The plain, plodding people living on the
adjoining farms became virtually their relatives and fellow-mourners.
All the external offices demanded by the sad occasion were performed for
them, and other eyes than their own shed tears of honest grief over De
Courcy's coffin. All came to the funeral, and even Simon Pennock, in
the plain yet touching words which he spoke beside the grave, forgot the
young man's wandering from the Light, in the recollection of his frank,
generous, truthful nature.

If the Donnellys had sometimes found the practical equality of life in
Londongrove a little repellent they were now gratefully moved by the
delicate and refined ways in which the sympathy of the people sought to
express itself. The better qualities of human nature always develop a
temporary good-breeding. Wherever any of the family went, they saw the
reflection of their own sorrow; and a new spirit informed to their eyes
the quiet pastoral landscapes.

In their life at home there was little change. Abraham Bradbury had
insisted on sending his favorite grandson, Joel, a youth of twenty-two,
to take De Courcy's place for a few months. He was a shy quiet creature,
with large brown eyes like a fawn's, and young Henry Donnelly and he
became friends at once. It was believed that he would inherit the
farm at his grandfather's death; but he was as subservient to Friend
Donnelly's wishes in regard to the farming operations as if the latter
held the fee of the property. His coming did not fill the terrible gap
which De Courcy's death had made, but seemed to make it less constantly
and painfully evident.

Susan Donnelly soon remarked a change, which she could neither clearly
define nor explain to herself, both in her husband and in their daughter
Sylvia. The former, although in public he preserved the same grave,
stately face,--its lines, perhaps, a little more deeply marked,--seemed
to be devoured by an internal unrest. His dreams were of the old times:
words and names long unused came from his lips as he slept by her side.
Although he bore his grief with more strength than she had hoped, he
grew nervous and excitable,--sometimes unreasonably petulant, sometimes
gay to a pitch which impressed her with pain. When the spring came
around, and the mysterious correspondence again failed, as in the
previous year, his uneasiness increased. He took his place on the high
seat on First-days, as usual, but spoke no more.

Sylvia, on the other hand, seemed to have wholly lost her proud,
impatient character. She went to meeting much more frequently than
formerly, busied herself more actively about household matters,
and ceased to speak of the uncertain contingency which had been so
constantly present in her thoughts. In fact, she and her father had
changed places. She was now the one who preached patience, who held
before them all the bright side of their lot, who brought Margaret
Alison to the house and justified her dead brother's heart to his
father's, and who repeated to the latter, in his restless moods, “De
Courcy foresaw the truth, and we must all in the end decide as he did.”

“Can THEE do it, Sylvia?” her father would ask.

“I believe I have done it already,” she said. “If it seems difficult,
pray consider how much later I begin my work. I have had all your
memories in charge, and now I must not only forget for myself, but for
you as well.”

Indeed, as the spring and summer months came and went, Sylvia evidently
grew stronger in her determination. The fret of her idle force was
allayed, and her content increased as she saw and performed the possible
duties of her life. Perhaps her father might have caught something
of her spirit, but for his anxiety in regard to the suspended
correspondence. He wearied himself in guesses, which all ended in the
simple fact that, to escape embarrassment, the rent must again be saved
from the earnings of the farm.

The harvests that year were bountiful; wheat, barley, and oats stood
thick and heavy in the fields. No one showed more careful thrift or more
cheerful industry than young Joel Bradbury, and the family felt that
much of the fortune of their harvest was owing to him.

On the first day after the crops had been securely housed, all went
to meeting, except Sylvia. In the walled graveyard the sod was already
green over De Courcy's unmarked mound, but Alice had planted a little
rose-tree at the head, and she and her mother always visited the spot
before taking their seats on the women's side. The meeting-house was
very full that day, as the busy season of the summer was over, and the
horses of those who lived at a distance had no longer such need of rest.

It was a sultry forenoon, and the windows and doors of the building were
open. The humming of insects was heard in the silence, and broken lights
and shadows of the poplar-leaves were sprinkled upon the steps and
sills. Outside there were glimpses of quiet groves and orchards, and
blue fragments of sky,--no more semblance of life in the external
landscape than there was in the silent meeting within. Some quarter of
an hour before the shaking of hands took place, the hoofs of a horse
were heard in the meeting-house yard--the noise of a smart trot on the
turf, suddenly arrested.

The boys pricked up their ears at this unusual sound, and stole glances
at each other when they imagined themselves unseen by the awful faces in
the gallery. Presently those nearest the door saw a broader shadow fall
over those flickering upon the stone. A red face appeared for a moment,
and was then drawn back out of sight. The shadow advanced and receded,
in a state of peculiar restlessness. Sometimes the end of a riding-whip
was visible, sometimes the corner of a coarse gray coat. The boys who
noticed these apparitions were burning with impatience, but they dared
not leave their seats until Abraham Bradbury had reached his hand to
Henry Donnelly.

Then they rushed out. The mysterious personage was still beside the
door, leaning against the wall. He was a short, thick-set man of fifty,
with red hair, round gray eyes, a broad pug nose, and projecting mouth.
He wore a heavy gray coat, despite the heat, and a waistcoat with
many brass buttons; also corduroy breeches and riding boots. When they
appeared, he started forward with open mouth and eyes, and stared wildly
in their faces. They gathered around the poplar-trunks, and waited with
some uneasiness to see what would follow.

Slowly and gravely, with the half-broken ban of silence still hanging
over them, the people issued from the house. The strange man stood,
leaning forward, and seemed to devour each, in turn, with his eager
eyes. After the young men came the fathers of families, and lastly the
old men from the gallery seats. Last of these came Henry Donnelly.
In the meantime, all had seen and wondered at the waiting figure; its
attitude was too intense and self-forgetting to be misinterpreted. The
greetings and remarks were suspended until the people had seen for whom
the man waited, and why.

Henry Donnelly had no sooner set his foot upon the door-step than,
with something between a shout and a howl, the stranger darted forward,
seized his hand, and fell upon one knee, crying: “O my lord! my lord!
Glory be to God that I've found ye at last!”

If these words burst like a bomb on the ears of the people, what was
their consternation when Henry Donnelly exclaimed, “The Divel! Jack
O'Neil, can that be you?”

“It's me, meself, my lord! When we heard the letters went wrong last
year, I said 'I'll trust no such good news to their blasted mail-posts:
I'll go meself and carry it to his lordship,--if it is t'other side o'
the say. Him and my lady and all the children went, and sure I can go
too. And as I was the one that went with you from Dunleigh Castle, I'll
go back with you to that same, for it stands awaitin', and blessed be
the day that sees you back in your ould place!”

“All clear, Jack? All mine again?”

“You may believe it, my lord! And money in the chest beside. But where's
my lady, bless her sweet face! Among yon women, belike, and you'll help
me to find her, for it's herself must have the news next, and then the
young master--”

With that word Henry Donnelly awoke to a sense of time and place. He
found himself within a ring of staring, wondering, scandalized eyes. He
met them boldly, with a proud, though rather grim smile, took hold of
O'Neil's arm and led him towards the women's end of the house, where the
sight of Susan in her scoop bonnet so moved the servant's heart that he
melted into tears. Both husband and wife were eager to get home and
hear O'Neil's news in private; so they set out at once in their plain
carriage, followed by the latter on horseback. As for the Friends, they
went home in a state of bewilderment.

Alice Donnelly, with her brother Henry and Joel Bradbury, returned
on foot. The two former remembered O'Neil, and, although they had not
witnessed his first interview with their father, they knew enough of the
family history to surmise his errand. Joel was silent and troubled.

“Alice, I hope it doesn't mean that we are going back, don't you?” said
Henry.

“Yes,” she answered, and said no more.

They took a foot-path across the fields, and reached the farm-house
at the same time with the first party. As they opened the door Sylvia
descended the staircase dressed in a rich shimmering brocade, with
a necklace of amethysts around her throat. To their eyes, so long
accustomed to the absence of positive color, she was completely
dazzling. There was a new color on her cheeks, and her eyes seemed
larger and brighter. She made a stately courtesy, and held open the
parlor door.

“Welcome, Lord Henry Dunleigh, of Dunleigh Castle!” she cried; “welcome,
Lady Dunleigh!”

Her father kissed her on the forehead. “Now give us back our memories,
Sylvia!” he said, exultingly.

Susan Donnelly sank into a chair, overcome by the mixed emotions of the
moment.

“Come in, my faithful Jack! Unpack thy portmanteau of news, for I
see thou art bursting to show it; let us have every thing from
the beginning. Wife, it's a little too much for thee, coming so
unexpectedly. Set out the wine, Alice!”

The decanter was placed upon the table. O'Neil filled a tumbler to the
brim, lifted it high, made two or three hoarse efforts to speak, and
then walked away to the window, where he drank in silence. This little
incident touched the family more than the announcement of their good
fortune. Henry Donnelly's feverish exultation subsided: he sat down with
a grave, thoughtful face, while his wife wept quietly beside him. Sylvia
stood waiting with an abstracted air; Alice removed her mother's bonnet
and shawl; and Henry and Joel, seated together at the farther end of the
room, looked on in silent anticipation.

O'Neil's story was long, and frequently interrupted. He had been Lord
Dunleigh's steward in better days, as his father had been to the old
lord, and was bound to the family by the closest ties of interest
and affection. When the estates became so encumbered that either an
immediate change or a catastrophe was inevitable, he had been taken
into his master's confidence concerning the plan which had first been
proposed in jest, and afterwards adopted in earnest.

The family must leave Dunleigh Castle for a period of probably eight or
ten years, and seek some part of the world where their expenses could be
reduced to the lowest possible figure. In Germany or Italy there would
be the annoyance of a foreign race and language, of meeting of tourists
belonging to the circle in which they had moved, a dangerous idleness
for their sons, and embarrassing restrictions for their daughters. On
the other hand, the suggestion to emigrate to America and become Quakers
during their exile offered more advantages the more they considered it.
It was original in character; it offered them economy, seclusion,
entire liberty of action inside the limits of the sect, the best
moral atmosphere for their children, and an occupation which would not
deteriorate what was best in their blood and breeding.

How Lord Dunleigh obtained admission into the sect as plain Henry
Donnelly is a matter of conjecture with the Londongrove Friends. The
deception which had been practised upon them--although it was perhaps
less complete than they imagined--left a soreness of feeling behind
it. The matter was hushed up after the departure of the family, and one
might now live for years in the neighborhood without hearing the story.
How the shrewd plan was carried out by Lord Dunleigh and his family,
we have already learned. O'Neil, left on the estate, in the north of
Ireland, did his part with equal fidelity. He not only filled up the
gaps made by his master's early profuseness, but found means to move the
sympathies of a cousin of the latter--a rich, eccentric old bachelor,
who had long been estranged by a family quarrel. To this cousin he
finally confided the character of the exile, and at a lucky time; for
the cousin's will was altered in Lord Dunleigh's favor, and he died
before his mood of reconciliation passed away. Now, the estate was not
only unencumbered, but there was a handsome surplus in the hands of the
Dublin bankers. The family might return whenever they chose, and there
would be a festival to welcome them, O'Neil said, such as Dunleigh
Castle had never known since its foundations were laid.

“Let us go at once!” said Sylvia, when he had concluded his tale. “No
more masquerading,--I never knew until to-day how much I have hated it!
I will not say that your plan was not a sensible one, father; but I wish
it might have been carried out with more honor to ourselves. Since De
Courcy's death I have begun to appreciate our neighbors: I was resigned
to become one of these people had our luck gone the other way. Will they
give us any credit for goodness and truth, I wonder? Yes, in mother's
case, and Alice's; and I believe both of them would give up Dunleigh
Castle for this little farm.”

“Then,” her father exclaimed, “it IS time that we should return, and
without delay. But thee wrongs us somewhat, Sylvia: it has not all been
masquerading. We have become the servants, rather than the masters, of
our own parts, and shall live a painful and divided life until we get
back in our old place. I fear me it will always be divided for thee,
wife, and Alice and Henry. If I am subdued by the element which I only
meant to assume, how much more deeply must it have wrought in your
natures! Yes, Sylvia is right, we must get away at once. To-morrow we
must leave Londongrove forever!”

He had scarcely spoken, when a new surprise fell upon the family.
Joel Bradbury arose and walked forward, as if thrust by an emotion so
powerful that it transformed his whole being. He seemed to forget every
thing but Alice Donnelly's presence. His soft brown eyes were fixed on
her face with an expression of unutterable tenderness and longing. He
caught her by the hands. “Alice, O, Alice!” burst from his lips; “you
are not going to leave me?”

The flush in the girl's sweet face faded into a deadly paleness. A
moan came from her lips; her head dropped, and she would have fallen,
swooning, from the chair had not Joel knelt at her feet and caught her
upon his breast.

For a moment there was silence in the room.

Presently, Sylvia, all her haughtiness gone, knelt beside the young man,
and took her sister from his arms. “Joel, my poor, dear friend,” she
said, “I am sorry that the last, worst mischief we have done must fall
upon you.”

Joel covered his face with his hands, and convulsively uttered the
words, “MUST she go?”

Then Henry Donnelly--or, rather, Lord Dunleigh, as we must now call
him--took the young man's hand. He was profoundly moved; his strong
voice trembled, and his words came slowly. “I will not appeal to thy
heart, Joel,” he said, “for it would not hear me now.

“But thou hast heard all our story, and knowest that we must leave these
parts, never to return. We belong to another station and another mode of
life than yours, and it must come to us as a good fortune that our time
of probation is at an end. Bethink thee, could we leave our darling
Alice behind us, parted as if by the grave? Nay, could we rob her of the
life to which she is born--of her share in our lives? On the other hand,
could we take thee with us into relations where thee would always be a
stranger, and in which a nature like thine has no place? This is a case
where duty speaks clearly, though so hard, so very hard, to follow.”

He spoke tenderly, but inflexibly, and Joel felt that his fate was
pronounced. When Alice had somewhat revived, and was taken to another
room, he stumbled blindly out of the house, made his way to the barn,
and there flung himself upon the harvest-sheaves which, three days
before, he had bound with such a timid, delicious hope working in his
arm.

The day which brought such great fortune had thus a sad and troubled
termination. It was proposed that the family should start for
Philadelphia on the morrow, leaving O'Neil to pack up and remove such
furniture as they wished to retain; but Susan, Lady Dunleigh, could not
forsake the neighborhood without a parting visit to the good friends who
had mourned with her over her firstborn; and Sylvia was with her in this
wish. So two more days elapsed, and then the Dunleighs passed down the
Street Road, and the plain farm-house was gone from their eyes
forever. Two grieved over the loss of their happy home; one was almost
broken-hearted; and the remaining two felt that the trouble of the
present clouded all their happiness in the return to rank and fortune.

They went, and they never came again. An account of the great festival
at Dunleigh Castle reached Londongrove two years later, through an Irish
laborer, who brought to Joel Bradbury a letter of recommendation signed
“Dunleigh.” Joel kept the man upon his farm, and the two preserved the
memory of the family long after the neighborhood had ceased to speak
of it. Joel never married; he still lives in the house where the great
sorrow of his life befell.

His head is gray, and his face deeply wrinkled; but when he lifts the
shy lids of his soft brown eyes, I fancy I can see in their tremulous
depths the lingering memory of his love for Alice Dunleigh.




JACOB FLINT'S JOURNEY.


If there ever was a man crushed out of all courage, all self-reliance,
all comfort in life, it was Jacob Flint. Why this should have been,
neither he nor any one else could have explained; but so it was. On the
day that he first went to school, his shy, frightened face marked him as
fair game for the rougher and stronger boys, and they subjected him to
all those exquisite refinements of torture which boys seem to get by
the direct inspiration of the Devil. There was no form of their bullying
meanness or the cowardice of their brutal strength which he did not
experience. He was born under a fading or falling star,--the inheritor
of some anxious or unhappy mood of his parents, which gave its fast
color to the threads out of which his innocent being was woven.

Even the good people of the neighborhood, never accustomed to look below
the externals of appearance and manner, saw in his shrinking face and
awkward motions only the signs of a cringing, abject soul.

“You'll be no more of a man than Jake Flint!” was the reproach which
many a farmer addressed to his dilatory boy; and thus the parents, one
and all, came to repeat the sins of the children.

If, therefore, at school and “before folks,” Jacob's position was always
uncomfortable and depressing, it was little more cheering at home. His
parents, as all the neighbors believed, had been unhappily married, and,
though the mother died in his early childhood, his father remained a
moody, unsocial man, who rarely left his farm except on the 1st of April
every year, when he went to the county town for the purpose of paying
the interest upon a mortgage. The farm lay in a hollow between two
hills, separated from the road by a thick wood, and the chimneys of the
lonely old house looked in vain for a neighbor-smoke when they began to
grow warm of a morning.

Beyond the barn and under the northern hill there was a log
tenant-house, in which dwelt a negro couple, who, in the course of years
had become fixtures on the place and almost partners in it. Harry,
the man, was the medium by which Samuel Flint kept up his necessary
intercourse with the world beyond the valley; he took the horses to the
blacksmith, the grain to the mill, the turkeys to market, and through
his hands passed all the incomings and outgoings of the farm, except
the annual interest on the mortgage. Sally, his wife, took care of the
household, which, indeed, was a light and comfortable task, since the
table was well supplied for her own sake, and there was no sharp eye
to criticise her sweeping, dusting, and bed-making. The place had a
forlorn, tumble-down aspect, quite in keeping with its lonely situation;
but perhaps this very circumstance flattered the mood of its silent,
melancholy owner and his unhappy son.

In all the neighborhood there was but one person with whom Jacob felt
completely at ease--but one who never joined in the general habit of
making his name the butt of ridicule or contempt. This was Mrs. Ann
Pardon, the hearty, active wife of Farmer Robert Pardon, who lived
nearly a mile farther down the brook. Jacob had won her good-will
by some neighborly services, something so trifling, indeed, that the
thought of a favor conferred never entered his mind. Ann Pardon saw that
it did not; she detected a streak of most unconscious goodness under his
uncouth, embarrassed ways, and she determined to cultivate it. No little
tact was required, however, to coax the wild, forlorn creature into
so much confidence as she desired to establish; but tact is a native
quality of the heart no less than a social acquirement, and so she did
the very thing necessary without thinking much about it.

Robert Pardon discovered by and by that Jacob was a steady, faithful
hand in the harvest-field at husking-time, or whenever any extra labor
was required, and Jacob's father made no objection to his earning
a penny in this way; and so he fell into the habit of spending his
Saturday evenings at the Pardon farm-house, at first to talk over
matters of work, and finally because it had become a welcome relief from
his dreary life at home.

Now it happened that on a Saturday in the beginning of haying-time, the
village tailor sent home by Harry a new suit of light summer clothes,
for which Jacob had been measured a month before. After supper he tried
them on, the day's work being over, and Sally's admiration was so loud
and emphatic that he felt himself growing red even to the small of his
back.

“Now, don't go for to take 'em off, Mr. Jake,” said she. “I spec' you're
gwine down to Pardon's, and so you jist keep 'em on to show 'em all how
nice you KIN look.”

The same thought had already entered Jacob's mind. Poor fellow! It was
the highest form of pleasure of which he had ever allowed himself to
conceive. If he had been called upon to pass through the village on
first assuming the new clothes, every stitch would have pricked him as
if the needle remained in it; but a quiet walk down the brookside, by
the pleasant path through the thickets and over the fragrant meadows,
with a consciousness of his own neatness and freshness at every step,
and with kind Ann Pardon's commendation at the close, and the flattering
curiosity of the children,--the only ones who never made fun of
him,--all that was a delightful prospect. He could never, NEVER forget
himself, as he had seen other young fellows do; but to remember himself
agreeably was certainly the next best thing.

Jacob was already a well-grown man of twenty-three, and would have made
a good enough appearance but for the stoop in his shoulders, and the
drooping, uneasy way in which he carried his head. Many a time when he
was alone in the fields or woods he had straightened himself, and looked
courageously at the buts of the oak-trees or in the very eyes of the
indifferent oxen; but, when a human face drew near, some spring in his
neck seemed to snap, some buckle around his shoulders to be drawn three
holes tighter, and he found himself in the old posture. The ever-present
thought of this weakness was the only drop of bitterness in his cup, as
he followed the lonely path through the thickets.

Some spirit in the sweet, delicious freshness of the air, some voice in
the mellow babble of the stream, leaping in and out of sight between the
alders, some smile of light, lingering on the rising corn-fields beyond
the meadow and the melting purple of a distant hill, reached to the
seclusion of his heart. He was soothed and cheered; his head lifted
itself in the presentiment of a future less lonely than the past, and
the everlasting trouble vanished from his eyes.

Suddenly, at a turn of the path, two mowers from the meadow, with their
scythes upon their shoulders, came upon him. He had not heard their feet
on the deep turf. His chest relaxed, and his head began to sink; then,
with the most desperate effort in his life, he lifted it again, and,
darting a rapid side glance at the men, hastened by. They could not
understand the mixed defiance and supplication of his face; to them he
only looked “queer.”

“Been committin' a murder, have you?” asked one of them, grinning.

“Startin' off on his journey, I guess,” said the other.

The next instant they were gone, and Jacob, with set teeth and clinched
hands, smothered something that would have been a howl if he had given
it voice. Sharp lines of pain were marked on his face, and, for the
first time, the idea of resistance took fierce and bitter possession of
his heart. But the mood was too unusual to last; presently he shook his
head, and walked on towards Pardon's farm-house.

Ann wore a smart gingham dress, and her first exclamation was: “Why,
Jake! how nice you look. And so you know all about it, too?”

“About what?”

“I see you don't,” said she. “I was too fast; but it makes no
difference. I know you are willing to lend me a helping hand.”

“Oh, to be sure,” Jacob answered.

“And not mind a little company?”

Jacob's face suddenly clouded; but he said, though with an effort:
“No--not much--if I can be of any help.”

“It's rather a joke, after all,” Ann Pardon continued, speaking rapidly;
“they meant a surprise, a few of the young people; but sister Becky
found a way to send me word, or I might have been caught like Meribah
Johnson last week, in the middle of my work; eight or ten, she said,
but more may drop in: and it's moonlight and warm, so they'll be mostly
under the trees; and Robert won't be home till late, and I DO want help
in carrying chairs, and getting up some ice, and handing around; and,
though I know you don't care for merry makings, you CAN help me out, you
see--”

Here she paused. Jacob looked perplexed, but said nothing.

“Becky will help what she can, and while I'm in the kitchen she'll have
an eye to things outside,” she said.

Jacob's head was down again, and, moreover, turned on one side, but his
ear betrayed the mounting blood. Finally he answered, in a quick, husky
voice: “Well, I'll do what I can. What's first?”

Thereupon he began to carry some benches from the veranda to a grassy
bank beside the sycamore-tree. Ann Pardon wisely said no more of the
coming surprise-party, but kept him so employed that, as the visitors
arrived by twos and threes, the merriment was in full play almost before
he was aware of it. Moreover, the night was a protecting presence: the
moonlight poured splendidly upon the open turf beyond the sycamore, but
every lilac-bush or trellis of woodbine made a nook of shade, wherein he
could pause a moment and take courage for his duties. Becky Morton, Ann
Pardon's youngest sister, frightened him a little every time she came
to consult about the arrangement of seats or the distribution of
refreshments; but it was a delightful, fascinating fear, such as he had
never felt before in his life. He knew Becky, but he had never seen her
in white and pink, with floating tresses, until now. In fact, he had
hardly looked at her fairly, but now, as she glided into the moonlight
and he paused in the shadow, his eyes took note of her exceeding beauty.
Some sweet, confusing influence, he knew not what, passed into his
blood.

The young men had brought a fiddler from the village, and it was not
long before most of the company were treading the measures of reels or
cotillons on the grass. How merry and happy they all were! How freely
and unembarrassedly they moved and talked! By and by all became involved
in the dance, and Jacob, left alone and unnoticed, drew nearer and
nearer to the gay and beautiful life from which he was expelled.

With a long-drawn scream of the fiddle the dance came to an end, and the
dancers, laughing, chattering, panting, and fanning themselves, broke
into groups and scattered over the enclosure before the house. Jacob was
surrounded before he could escape. Becky, with two lively girls in her
wake, came up to him and said: “Oh Mr. Flint, why don't you dance?”

If he had stopped to consider, he would no doubt have replied very
differently. But a hundred questions, stirred by what he had seen, were
clamoring for light, and they threw the desperate impulse to his lips.

“If I COULD dance, would you dance with me?”

The two lively girls heard the words, and looked at Becky with roguish
faces.

“Oh yes, take him for your next partner!” cried one.

“I will,” said Becky, “after he comes back from his journey.”

Then all three laughed. Jacob leaned against the tree, his eyes fixed on
the ground.

“Is it a bargain?” asked one of the girls.

“No,” said he, and walked rapidly away.

He went to the house, and, finding that Robert had arrived, took his
hat, and left by the rear door. There was a grassy alley between the
orchard and garden, from which it was divided by a high hawthorn hedge.
He had scarcely taken three paces on his way to the meadow, when the
sound of the voice he had last heard, on the other side of the hedge,
arrested his feet.

“Becky, I think you rather hurt Jake Flint,” said the girl.

“Hardly,” answered Becky; “he's used to that.”

“Not if he likes you; and you might go further and fare worse.”

“Well, I MUST say!” Becky exclaimed, with a laugh; “you'd like to see me
stuck in that hollow, out of your way!”

“It's a good farm, I've heard,” said the other.

“Yes, and covered with as much as it'll bear!”

Here the girls were called away to the dance. Jacob slowly walked up
the dewy meadow, the sounds of fiddling, singing, and laughter growing
fainter behind him.

“My journey!” he repeated to himself,--“my journey! why shouldn't I
start on it now? Start off, and never come back?”

It was a very little thing, after all, which annoyed him, but the
mention of it always touched a sore nerve of his nature. A dozen years
before, when a boy at school, he had made a temporary friendship with
another boy of his age, and had one day said to the latter, in the
warmth of his first generous confidence: “When I am a little older,
I shall make a great journey, and come back rich, and buy Whitney's
place!”

Now, Whitney's place, with its stately old brick mansion, its avenue of
silver firs, and its two hundred acres of clean, warm-lying land, was
the finest, the most aristocratic property in all the neighborhood,
and the boy-friend could not resist the temptation of repeating Jacob's
grand design, for the endless amusement of the school. The betrayal hurt
Jacob more keenly than the ridicule. It left a wound that never ceased
to rankle; yet, with the inconceivable perversity of unthinking
natures, precisely this joke (as the people supposed it to be) had been
perpetuated, until “Jake Flint's Journey” was a synonyme for any absurd
or extravagant expectation. Perhaps no one imagined how much pain he was
keeping alive; for almost any other man than Jacob would have joined
in the laugh against himself and thus good-naturedly buried the joke in
time. “He's used to that,” the people said, like Becky Morton, and they
really supposed there was nothing unkind in the remark!

After Jacob had passed the thickets and entered the lonely hollow in
which his father's house lay, his pace became slower and slower.

He looked at the shabby old building, just touched by the moonlight
behind the swaying shadows of the weeping-willow, stopped, looked again,
and finally seated himself on a stump beside the path.

“If I knew what to do!” he said to himself, rocking backwards and
forwards, with his hands clasped over his knees,--“if I knew what to
do!”

The spiritual tension of the evening reached its climax: he could bear
no more. With a strong bodily shudder his tears burst forth, and the
passion of his weeping filled him from head to foot. How long he wept
he knew not; it seemed as if the hot fountains would never run dry.
Suddenly and startlingly a hand fell upon his shoulder.

“Boy, what does this mean?”

It was his father who stood before him.

Jacob looked up like some shy animal brought to bay, his eyes full of a
feeling mixed of fierceness and terror; but he said nothing.

His father seated himself on one of the roots of the old stump, laid one
hand upon Jacob's knee, and said with an unusual gentleness of manner,
“I'd like to know what it is that troubles you so much.”

After a pause, Jacob suddenly burst forth with: “Is there any reason why
I should tell you? Do you care any more for me than the rest of 'em?”

“I didn't know as you wanted me to care for you particularly,” said the
father, almost deprecatingly. “I always thought you had friends of your
own age.”

“Friends? Devils!” exclaimed Jacob. “Oh, what have I done--what is there
so dreadful about me that I should always be laughed at, and despised,
and trampled upon? You are a great deal older than I am, father: what do
you see in me? Tell me what it is, and how to get over it!”

The eyes of the two men met. Jacob saw his father's face grow pale in
the moonlight, while he pressed his hand involuntarily upon his heart,
as if struggling with some physical pain. At last he spoke, but his
words were strange and incoherent.

“I couldn't sleep,” he said; “I got up again and came out o' doors.
The white ox had broken down the fence at the corner, and would soon
have been in the cornfield. I thought it was that, maybe, but still
your--your mother would come into my head. I was coming down the edge of
the wood when I saw you, and I don't know why it was that you seemed so
different, all at once--”

Here he paused, and was silent for a minute. Then he said, in a grave,
commanding tone: “Just let me know the whole story. I have that much
right yet.”

Jacob related the history of the evening, somewhat awkwardly and
confusedly, it is true; but his father's brief, pointed questions kept
him to the narrative, and forced him to explain the full significance
of the expressions he repeated. At the mention of “Whitney's place,” a
singular expression of malice touched the old man's face.

“Do you love Becky Morton?” he asked bluntly, when all had been told.

“I don't know,” Jacob stammered; “I think not; because when I seem to
like her most, I feel afraid of her.”

“It's lucky that you're not sure of it!” exclaimed the old man with
energy; “because you should never have her.”

“No,” said Jacob, with a mournful acquiescence, “I can never have her,
or any other one.”

“But you shall--and will I when I help you. It's true I've not seemed to
care much about you, and I suppose you're free to think as you like; but
this I say: I'll not stand by and see you spit upon! 'Covered with as
much as it'll bear!' THAT'S a piece o' luck anyhow. If we're poor, your
wife must take your poverty with you, or she don't come into MY doors.
But first of all you must make your journey!”

“My journey!” repeated Jacob.

“Weren't you thinking of it this night, before you took your seat on
that stump? A little more, and you'd have gone clean off, I reckon.”

Jacob was silent, and hung his head.

“Never mind! I've no right to think hard of it. In a week we'll have
finished our haying, and then it's a fortnight to wheat; but, for that
matter, Harry and I can manage the wheat by ourselves. You may take a
month, two months, if any thing comes of it. Under a month I don't mean
that you shall come back. I'll give you twenty dollars for a start; if
you want more you must earn it on the road, any way you please. And,
mark you, Jacob! since you ARE poor, don't let anybody suppose you are
rich. For my part, I shall not expect you to buy Whitney's place; all I
ask is that you'll tell me, fair and square, just what things and what
people you've got acquainted with. Get to bed now--the matter's settled;
I will have it so.”

They rose and walked across the meadow to the house. Jacob had quite
forgotten the events of the evening in the new prospect suddenly opened
to him, which filled him with a wonderful confusion of fear and desire.
His father said nothing more. They entered the lonely house together at
midnight, and went to their beds; but Jacob slept very little.

Six days afterwards he left home, on a sparkling June morning, with
a small bundle tied in a yellow silk handkerchief under his arm. His
father had furnished him with the promised money, but had positively
refused to tell him what road he should take, or what plan of action he
should adopt. The only stipulation was that his absence from home should
not be less than a month.

After he had passed the wood and reached the highway which followed
the course of the brook, he paused to consider which course to take.
Southward the road led past Pardon's, and he longed to see his only
friends once more before encountering untried hazards; but the village
was beyond, and he had no courage to walk through its one long street
with a bundle, denoting a journey, under his arm. Northward he would
have to pass the mill and blacksmith's shop at the cross-roads. Then he
remembered that he might easily wade the stream at a point where it was
shallow, and keep in the shelter of the woods on the opposite hill until
he struck the road farther on, and in that direction two or three miles
would take him into a neighborhood where he was not known.

Once in the woods, an exquisite sense of freedom came upon him. There
was nothing mocking in the soft, graceful stir of the expanded foliage,
in the twittering of the unfrightened birds, or the scampering of the
squirrels, over the rustling carpet of dead leaves. He lay down upon the
moss under a spreading beech-tree and tried to think; but the thoughts
would not come. He could not even clearly recall the keen troubles and
mortifications he had endured: all things were so peaceful and beautiful
that a portion of their peace and beauty fell upon men and invested them
with a more kindly character.

Towards noon Jacob found himself beyond the limited geography of his
life. The first man he encountered was a stranger, who greeted him with
a hearty and respectful “How do you do, sir?”

“Perhaps,” thought Jacob, “I am not so very different from other people,
if I only thought so myself.”

At noon, he stopped at a farm-house by the roadside to get a drink of
water. A pleasant woman, who came from the door at that moment with a
pitcher, allowed him to lower the bucket and haul it up dripping with
precious coolness. She looked upon him with good-will, for he had
allowed her to see his eyes, and something in their honest, appealing
expression went to her heart.

“We're going to have dinner in five minutes,” said she; “won't you stay
and have something?”

Jacob stayed and brake bread with the plain, hospitable family. Their
kindly attention to him during the meal gave him the lacking nerve;
for a moment he resolved to offer his services to the farmer, but he
presently saw that they were not really needed, and, besides, the place
was still too near home.

Towards night he reached an old country tavern, lording it over
an incipient village of six houses. The landlord and hostler were
inspecting a drooping-looking horse in front of the stables. Now, if
there was any thing which Jacob understood, to the extent of his limited
experience, it was horse nature. He drew near, listened to the views of
the two men, examined the animal with his eyes, and was ready to answer,
“Yes, I guess so,” when the landlord said, “Perhaps, sir, you can tell
what is the matter with him.”

His prompt detection of the ailment, and prescription of a remedy which
in an hour showed its good effects, installed him in the landlord's best
graces. The latter said, “Well, it shall cost you nothing to-night,”
 as he led the way to the supper-room. When Jacob went to bed he was
surprised on reflecting that he had not only been talking for a full
hour in the bar-room, but had been looking people in the face.

Resisting an offer of good wages if he would stay and help look after
the stables, he set forward the next morning with a new and most
delightful confidence in himself. The knowledge that now nobody knew him
as “Jake Flint” quite removed his tortured self-consciousness. When
he met a person who was glum and ungracious of speech, he saw,
nevertheless, that he was not its special object. He was sometimes asked
questions, to be sure, which a little embarrassed him, but he soon hit
upon answers which were sufficiently true without betraying his purpose.

Wandering sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, he slowly
made his way into the land, until, on the afternoon of the fourth day
after leaving home, he found himself in a rougher region--a rocky, hilly
tract, with small and not very flourishing farms in the valleys. Here
the season appeared to be more backward than in the open country; the
hay harvest was not yet over.

Jacob's taste for scenery was not particularly cultivated, but something
in the loneliness and quiet of the farms reminded him of his own home;
and he looked at one house after another, deliberating with himself
whether it would not be a good place to spend the remainder of his month
of probation. He seemed to be very far from home--about forty miles, in
fact,--and was beginning to feel a little tired of wandering.

Finally the road climbed a low pass of the hills, and dropped into
a valley on the opposite side. There was but one house in view--a
two-story building of logs and plaster, with a garden and orchard on the
hillside in the rear. A large meadow stretched in front, and when the
whole of it lay clear before him, as the road issued from a wood, his
eye was caught by an unusual harvest picture.

Directly before him, a woman, whose face was concealed by a huge,
flapping sun-bonnet, was seated upon a mowing machine, guiding a span
of horses around the great tract of thick grass which was still uncut.
A little distance off, a boy and girl were raking the drier swaths
together, and a hay-cart, drawn by oxen and driven by a man, was just
entering the meadow from the side next the barn.

Jacob hung his bundle upon a stake, threw his coat and waistcoat over
the rail, and, resting his chin on his shirted arms, leaned on the
fence, and watched the hay-makers. As the woman came down the nearer
side she appeared to notice him, for her head was turned from time to
time in his direction. When she had made the round, she stopped the
horses at the corner, sprang lightly from her seat and called to the
man, who, leaving his team, met her half-way. They were nearly a furlong
distant, but Jacob was quite sure that she pointed to him, and that
the man looked in the same direction. Presently she set off across the
meadow, directly towards him.

When within a few paces of the fence, she stopped, threw back the flaps
of her sun-bonnet, and said, “Good day to you!” Jacob was so amazed to
see a bright, fresh, girlish face, that he stared at her with all his
eyes, forgetting to drop his head. Indeed, he could not have done so,
for his chin was propped upon the top rail of the fence.

“You are a stranger, I see,” she added.

“Yes, in these parts,” he replied.

“Looking for work?”

He hardly knew what answer to make, so he said, at a venture, “That's as
it happens.” Then he colored a little, for the words seemed foolish to
his ears.

“Time's precious,” said the girl, “so I'll tell you at once we want
help. Our hay MUST be got in while the fine weather lasts.”

“I'll help you!” Jacob exclaimed, taking his arms from the rail, and
looking as willing as he felt.

“I'm so glad! But I must tell you, at first, that we're not rich, and
the hands are asking a great deal now. How much do you expect?”

“Whatever you please?” said he, climbing the fence.

“No, that's not our way of doing business. What do you say to a dollar a
day, and found?”

“All right!” and with the words he was already at her side, taking long
strides over the elastic turf.

“I will go on with my mowing,” said she, when they reached the horses,
“and you can rake and load with my father. What name shall I call you
by?”

“Everybody calls me Jake.”

“'Jake!' Jacob is better. Well, Jacob, I hope you'll give us all the
help you can.”

With a nod and a light laugh she sprang upon the machine. There was
a sweet throb in Jacob's heart, which, if he could have expressed it,
would have been a triumphant shout of “I'm not afraid of her! I'm not
afraid of her!”

The farmer was a kindly, depressed man, with whose quiet ways Jacob
instantly felt himself at home. They worked steadily until sunset, when
the girl, detaching her horses from the machine, mounted one of them and
led the other to the barn. At the supper-table, the farmer's wife said:
“Susan, you must be very tired.”

“Not now, mother!” she cheerily answered. “I was, I think, but after I
picked up Jacob I felt sure we should get our hay in.”

“It was a good thing,” said the farmer; “Jacob don't need to be told how
to work.”

Poor Jacob! He was so happy he could have cried. He sat and listened,
and blushed a little, with a smile on his face which it was a pleasure
to see. The honest people did not seem to regard him in the least as a
stranger; they discussed their family interests and troubles and hopes
before him, and in a little while it seemed as if he had known them
always.

How faithfully he worked! How glad and tired he felt when night came,
and the hay-mow was filled, and the great stacks grew beside the barn!
But ah! the haying came to an end, and on the last evening, at supper,
everybody was constrained and silent. Even Susan looked grave and
thoughtful.

“Jacob,” said the farmer, finally, “I wish we could keep you until wheat
harvest; but you know we are poor, and can't afford it. Perhaps you
could--”

He hesitated; but Jacob, catching at the chance and obeying his own
unselfish impulse, cried: “Oh, yes, I can; I'll be satisfied with my
board, till the wheat's ripe.”

Susan looked at him quickly, with a bright, speaking face. “It's hardly
fair to you,” said the farmer.

“But I like to be here so much!” Jacob cried. “I like--all of you!”

“We DO seem to suit,” said the farmer, “like as one family. And that
reminds me, we've not heard your family name yet.”

“Flint.”

“Jacob FLINT!” exclaimed the farmer's wife, with sudden agitation.

Jacob was scared and troubled. They had heard of him, he thought, and
who knew what ridiculous stories? Susan noticed an anxiety on his face
which she could not understand, but she unknowingly came to his relief.

“Why, mother,” she asked, “do you know Jacob's family?”

“No, I think not,” said her mother, “only somebody of the name, long
ago.”

His offer, however, was gratefully accepted. The bright, hot summer days
came and went, but no flower of July ever opened as rapidly and richly
and warmly as his chilled, retarded nature. New thoughts and instincts
came with every morning's sun, and new conclusions were reached with
every evening's twilight. Yet as the wheat harvest drew towards the end,
he felt that he must leave the place. The month of absence had gone by,
he scarce knew how. He was free to return home, and, though he might
offer to bridge over the gap between wheat and oats, as he had already
done between hay and wheat, he imagined the family might hesitate to
accept such an offer. Moreover, this life at Susan's side was fast
growing to be a pain, unless he could assure himself that it would be so
forever.

They were in the wheat-field, busy with the last sheaves; she raking and
he binding. The farmer and younger children had gone to the barn with a
load. Jacob was working silently and steadily, but when they had reached
the end of a row, he stopped, wiped his wet brow, and suddenly said,
“Susan, I suppose to-day finishes my work here.”

“Yes,” she answered very slowly.

“And yet I'm very sorry to go.”

“I--WE don't want you to go, if we could help it.”

Jacob appeared to struggle with himself. He attempted to speak. “If I
could--” he brought out, and then paused. “Susan, would you be glad if I
came back?”

His eyes implored her to read his meaning. No doubt she read it
correctly, for her face flushed, her eyelids fell, and she barely
murmured, “Yes, Jacob.”

“Then I'll come!” he cried; “I'll come and help you with the oats. Don't
talk of pay! Only tell me I'll be welcome! Susan, don't you believe I'll
keep my word?”

“I do indeed,” said she, looking him firmly in the face.

That was all that was said at the time; but the two understood each
other tolerably well.

On the afternoon of the second day, Jacob saw again the lonely house of
his father. His journey was made, yet, if any of the neighbors had seen
him, they would never have believed that he had come back rich.

Samuel Flint turned away to hide a peculiar smile when he saw his son;
but little was said until late that evening, after Harry and Sally
had left. Then he required and received an exact account of Jacob's
experience during his absence. After hearing the story to the end, he
said, “And so you love this Susan Meadows?”

“I'd--I'd do any thing to be with her.”

“Are you afraid of her?”

“No!” Jacob uttered the word so emphatically that it rang through the
house.

“Ah, well!” said the old man, lifting his eyes, and speaking in the air,
“all the harm may be mended yet. But there must be another test.” Then
he was silent for some time.

“I have it!” he finally exclaimed. “Jacob, you must go back for the oats
harvest. You must ask Susan to be your wife, and ask her parents to let
you have her. But,--pay attention to my words!--you must tell her that
you are a poor, hired man on this place, and that she can be engaged as
housekeeper. Don't speak of me as your father, but as the owner of
the farm. Bring her here in that belief, and let me see how honest and
willing she is. I can easily arrange matters with Harry and Sally while
you are away; and I'll only ask you to keep up the appearance of the
thing for a month or so.”

“But, father,”--Jacob began.

“Not a word! Are you not willing to do that much for the sake of having
her all your life, and this farm after me? Suppose it is covered with
a mortgage, if she is all you say, you two can work it off. Not a word
more! It is no lie, after all, that you will tell her.”

“I am afraid,” said Jacob, “that she could not leave her home now. She
is too useful there, and the family is so poor.”

“Tell them that both your wages, for the first year, shall go to them.
It'll be my business to rake and scrape the money together somehow. Say,
too, that the housekeeper's place can't be kept for her--must be filled
at once. Push matters like a man, if you mean to be a complete one, and
bring her here, if she carries no more with her than the clothes on her
back!”

During the following days Jacob had time to familiarize his mind with
this startling proposal. He knew his father's stubborn will too well
to suppose that it could be changed; but the inevitable soon converted
itself into the possible and desirable. The sweet face of Susan as she
had stood before him in the wheat-field was continually present to his
eyes, and ere long, he began to place her, in his thoughts, in the old
rooms at home, in the garden, among the thickets by the brook, and in
Ann Pardon's pleasant parlor. Enough; his father's plan became his own
long before the time was out.

On his second journey everybody seemed to be an old acquaintance and an
intimate friend. It was evening as he approached the Meadows farm, but
the younger children recognized him in the dusk, and their cry of, “Oh,
here's Jacob!” brought out the farmer and his wife and Susan, with the
heartiest of welcomes. They had all missed him, they said--even the
horses and oxen had looked for him, and they were wondering how they
should get the oats harvested without him.

Jacob looked at Susan as the farmer said this, and her eyes seemed to
answer, “I said nothing, but I knew you would come.” Then, first, he
felt sufficient courage for the task before him.

He rose the next morning, before any one was stirring, and waited until
she should come down stairs. The sun had not risen when she appeared,
with a milk-pail in each hand, walking unsuspectingly to the cow-yard.
He waylaid her, took the pails in his hand and said in nervous haste,
“Susan, will you be my wife?”

She stopped as if she had received a sudden blow; then a shy, sweet
consent seemed to run through her heart. “O Jacob!” was all she could
say.

“But you will, Susan?” he urged; and then (neither of them exactly knew
how it happened) all at once his arms were around her, and they had
kissed each other.

“Susan,” he said, presently, “I am a poor man--only a farm hand, and
must work for my living. You could look for a better husband.”

“I could never find a better than you, Jacob.”

“Would you work with me, too, at the same place?”

“You know I am not afraid of work,” she answered, “and I could never
want any other lot than yours.”

Then he told her the story which his father had prompted. Her face grew
bright and happy as she listened, and he saw how from her very heart
she accepted the humble fortune. Only the thought of her parents threw
a cloud over the new and astonishing vision. Jacob, however, grew bolder
as he saw fulfilment of his hope so near. They took the pails and seated
themselves beside neighbor cows, one raising objections or misgivings
which the other manfully combated. Jacob's earnestness unconsciously ran
into his hands, as he discovered when the impatient cow began to snort
and kick.

The harvesting of the oats was not commenced that morning. The children
were sent away, and there was a council of four persons held in the
parlor. The result of mutual protestations and much weeping was, that
the farmer and his wife agreed to receive Jacob as a son-in-law; the
offer of the wages was four times refused by them, and then accepted;
and the chance of their being able to live and labor together was
finally decided to be too fortunate to let slip. When the shock and
surprise was over all gradually became cheerful, and, as the matter
was more calmly discussed, the first conjectured difficulties somehow
resolved themselves into trifles.

It was the simplest and quietest wedding,--at home, on an August
morning. Farmer Meadows then drove the bridal pair half-way on their
journey, to the old country tavern, where a fresh conveyance had been
engaged for them. The same evening they reached the farm-house in the
valley, and Jacob's happy mood gave place to an anxious uncertainty as
he remembered the period of deception upon which Susan was entering.
He keenly watched his father's face when they arrived, and was a little
relieved when he saw that his wife had made a good first impression.

“So, this is my new housekeeper,” said the old man. “I hope you will
suit me as well as your husband does.”

“I'll do my best, sir,” said she; “but you must have patience with me
for a few days, until I know your ways and wishes.”

“Mr. Flint,” said Sally, “shall I get supper ready?” Susan looked up in
astonishment at hearing the name.

“Yes,” the old man remarked, “we both have the same name. The fact is,
Jacob and I are a sort of relations.”

Jacob, in spite of his new happiness, continued ill at ease, although
he could not help seeing how his father brightened under Susan's genial
influence, how satisfied he was with her quick, neat, exact ways and the
cheerfulness with which she fulfilled her duties. At the end of a week,
the old man counted out the wages agreed upon for both, and his delight
culminated at the frank simplicity with which Susan took what she
supposed she had fairly earned.

“Jacob,” he whispered when she had left the room, “keep quiet one more
week, and then I'll let her know.”

He had scarcely spoken, when Susan burst into the room again, crying,
“Jacob, they are coming, they have come!”

“Who?”

“Father and mother; and we didn't expect them, you know, for a week
yet.”

All three went to the door as the visitors made their appearance on
the veranda. Two of the party stood as if thunderstruck, and two
exclamations came together:

“Samuel Flint!”

“Lucy Wheeler!”

There was a moment's silence; then the farmer's wife, with a visible
effort to compose herself, said, “Lucy Meadows, now.”

The tears came into Samuel Flint's eyes. “Let us shake hands, Lucy,” he
said: “my son has married your daughter.”

All but Jacob were freshly startled at these words. The two shook hands,
and then Samuel, turning to Susan's father, said: “And this is your
husband, Lucy. I am glad to make his acquaintance.”

“Your father, Jacob!” Susan cried; “what does it all mean?”

Jacob's face grew red, and the old habit of hanging his head nearly
came back upon him. He knew not what to say, and looked wistfully at his
father.

“Come into the house and sit down,” said the latter. “I think we shall
all feel better when we have quietly and comfortably talked the matter
over.”

They went into the quaint, old-fashioned parlor, which had already been
transformed by Susan's care, so that much of its shabbiness was hidden.
When all were seated, and Samuel Flint perceived that none of the others
knew what to say, he took a resolution which, for a man of his mood and
habit of life, required some courage.

“Three of us here are old people,” he began, “and the two young ones
love each other. It was so long ago, Lucy, that it cannot be laid to my
blame if I speak of it now. Your husband, I see, has an honest heart,
and will not misunderstand either of us. The same thing often turns
up in life; it is one of those secrets that everybody knows, and that
everybody talks about except the persons concerned. When I was a young
man, Lucy, I loved you truly, and I faithfully meant to make you my
wife.”

“I thought so too, for a while,” said she, very calmly.

Farmer Meadows looked at his wife, and no face was ever more beautiful
than his, with that expression of generous pity shining through it.

“You know how I acted,” Samuel Flint continued, “but our children must
also know that I broke off from you without giving any reason.
A woman came between us and made all the mischief. I was considered
rich then, and she wanted to secure my money for her daughter. I was an
innocent and unsuspecting young man, who believed that everybody else
was as good as myself; and the woman never rested until she had turned
me from my first love, and fastened me for life to another. Little by
little I discovered the truth; I kept the knowledge of the injury to
myself; I quickly got rid of the money which had so cursed me, and
brought my wife to this, the loneliest and dreariest place in the
neighborhood, where I forced upon her a life of poverty. I thought it
was a just revenge, but I was unjust. She really loved me: she was, if
not quite without blame in the matter, ignorant of the worst that had
been done (I learned all that too late), and she never complained,
though the change in me slowly wore out her life. I know now that I
was cruel; but at the same time I punished myself, and was innocently
punishing my son. But to HIM there was one way to make amends. 'I will
help him to a wife,' I said, 'who will gladly take poverty with him
and for his sake.' I forced him, against his will, to say that he was a
hired hand on this place, and that Susan must be content to be a hired
housekeeper. Now that I know Susan, I see that this proof might have
been left out; but I guess it has done no harm. The place is not so
heavily mortgaged as people think, and it will be Jacob's after I am
gone. And now forgive me, all of you,--Lucy first, for she has most
cause; Jacob next; and Susan,--that will be easier; and you, Friend
Meadows, if what I have said has been hard for you to hear.”

The farmer stood up like a man, took Samuel's hand and his wife's, and
said, in a broken voice: “Lucy, I ask you, too, to forgive him, and I
ask you both to be good friends to each other.”

Susan, dissolved in tears, kissed all of them in turn; but the happiest
heart there was Jacob's.

It was now easy for him to confide to his wife the complete story of
his troubles, and to find his growing self-reliance strengthened by her
quick, intelligent sympathy. The Pardons were better friends than
ever, and the fact, which at first created great astonishment in the
neighborhood, that Jacob Flint had really gone upon a journey and
brought home a handsome wife, began to change the attitude of the
people towards him. The old place was no longer so lonely; the nearest
neighbors began to drop in and insist on return visits. Now that Jacob
kept his head up, and they got a fair view of his face, they discovered
that he was not lacking, after all, in sense or social qualities.

In October, the Whitney place, which had been leased for several years,
was advertised to be sold at public sale. The owner had gone to the city
and become a successful merchant, had outlived his local attachments,
and now took advantage of a rise in real estate to disburden himself of
a property which he could not profitably control.

Everybody from far and wide attended the sale, and, when Jacob Flint and
his father arrived, everybody said to the former: “Of course you've
come to buy, Jacob.” But each man laughed at his own smartness, and
considered the remark original with himself.

Jacob was no longer annoyed. He laughed, too, and answered: “I'm afraid
I can't do that; but I've kept half my word, which is more than most men
do.”

“Jake's no fool, after all,” was whispered behind him.

The bidding commenced, at first very spirited, and then gradually
slacking off, as the price mounted above the means of the neighboring
farmers. The chief aspirant was a stranger, a well-dressed man with
a lawyer's air, whom nobody knew. After the usual long pauses and
passionate exhortations, the hammer fell, and the auctioneer, turning to
the stranger, asked, “What name?”

“Jacob Flint!”

There was a general cry of surprise. All looked at Jacob, whose eyes and
mouth showed that he was as dumbfoundered as the rest.

The stranger walked coolly through the midst of the crowd to Samuel
Flint, and said, “When shall I have the papers drawn up?”

“As soon as you can,” the old man replied; then seizing Jacob by the
arm, with the words, “Let's go home now!” he hurried him on.

The explanation soon leaked out. Samuel Flint had not thrown away his
wealth, but had put it out of his own hands. It was given privately to
trustees, to be held for his son, and returned when the latter should
have married with his father's consent. There was more than enough to
buy the Whitney place.

Jacob and Susan are happy in their stately home, and good as they are
happy. If any person in the neighborhood ever makes use of the phrase
“Jacob Flint's Journey,” he intends thereby to symbolize the good
fortune which sometimes follows honesty, reticence, and shrewdness.




CAN A LIFE HIDE ITSELF?


I had been reading, as is my wont from time to time, one of the many
volumes of “The New Pitaval,” that singular record of human crime and
human cunning, and also of the inevitable fatality which, in every
case, leaves a gate open for detection. Were it not for the latter fact,
indeed, one would turn with loathing from such endless chronicles
of wickedness. Yet these may be safely contemplated, when one has
discovered the incredible fatuity of crime, the certain weak mesh in
a network of devilish texture; or is it rather the agency of a power
outside of man, a subtile protecting principle, which allows the
operation of the evil element only that the latter may finally betray
itself? Whatever explanation we may choose, the fact is there, like a
tonic medicine distilled from poisonous plants, to brace our faith in
the ascendancy of Good in the government of the world.

Laying aside the book, I fell into a speculation concerning the mixture
of the two elements in man's nature. The life of an individual is
usually, it seemed to me, a series of RESULTS, the processes leading to
which are not often visible, or observed when they are so. Each act
is the precipitation of a number of mixed influences, more or less
unconsciously felt; the qualities of good and evil are so blended
therein that they defy the keenest moral analysis; and how shall we,
then, pretend to judge of any one? Perhaps the surest indication of evil
(I further reflected) is that it always tries to conceal itself, and
the strongest incitement to good is that evil cannot be concealed. The
crime, or the vice, or even the self-acknowledged weakness, becomes
a part of the individual consciousness; it cannot be forgotten or
outgrown. It follows a life through all experiences and to the uttermost
ends of the earth, pressing towards the light with a terrible, demoniac
power. There are noteless lives, of course--lives that accept obscurity,
mechanically run their narrow round of circumstance, and are lost; but
when a life endeavors to lose itself,--to hide some conscious guilt or
failure,--can it succeed? Is it not thereby lifted above the level of
common experience, compelling attention to itself by the very endeavor
to escape it?

I turned these questions over in my mind, without approaching, or indeed
expecting, any solution,--since I knew, from habit, the labyrinths into
which they would certainly lead me,--when a visitor was announced. It
was one of the directors of our county almshouse, who came on an errand
to which he attached no great importance. I owed the visit, apparently,
to the circumstance that my home lay in his way, and he could at once
relieve his conscience of a very trifling pressure and his pocket of a
small package, by calling upon me. His story was told in a few words;
the package was placed upon my table, and I was again left to my
meditations.

Two or three days before, a man who had the appearance of a “tramp” had
been observed by the people of a small village in the neighborhood. He
stopped and looked at the houses in a vacant way, walked back and forth
once or twice as if uncertain which of the cross-roads to take, and
presently went on without begging or even speaking to any one. Towards
sunset a farmer, on his way to the village store, found him sitting at
the roadside, his head resting against a fence-post. The man's face was
so worn and exhausted that the farmer kindly stopped and addressed him;
but he gave no other reply than a shake of the head.

The farmer thereupon lifted him into his light country-wagon, the man
offering no resistance, and drove to the tavern, where, his exhaustion
being so evident, a glass of whiskey was administered to him. He
afterwards spoke a few words in German, which no one understood. At the
almshouse, to which he was transported the same evening, he refused to
answer the customary questions, although he appeared to understand
them. The physician was obliged to use a slight degree of force in
administering nourishment and medicine, but neither was of any avail.
The man died within twenty-four hours after being received. His pockets
were empty, but two small leathern wallets were found under his pillow;
and these formed the package which the director left in my charge. They
were full of papers in a foreign language, he said, and he supposed I
might be able to ascertain the stranger's name and home from them.

I took up the wallets, which were worn and greasy from long service,
opened them, and saw that they were filled with scraps, fragments, and
folded pieces of paper, nearly every one of which had been carried for
a long time loose in the pocket. Some were written in pen and ink,
and some in pencil, but all were equally brown, worn, and unsavory in
appearance. In turning them over, however, my eye was caught by some
slips in the Russian character, and three or four notes in French;
the rest were German. I laid aside “Pitaval” at once, emptied all
the leathern pockets carefully, and set about examining the pile of
material.

I first ran rapidly through the papers to ascertain the dead man's name,
but it was nowhere to be found. There were half a dozen letters, written
on sheets folded and addressed in the fashion which prevailed before
envelopes were invented; but the name was cut out of the address in
every case. There was an official permit to embark on board a Bremen
steamer, mutilated in the same way; there was a card photograph, from
which the face had been scratched by a penknife. There were Latin
sentences; accounts of expenses; a list of New York addresses, covering
eight pages; and a number of notes, written either in Warsaw or Breslau.
A more incongruous collection I never saw, and I am sure that had it not
been for the train of thought I was pursuing when the director called
upon me, I should have returned the papers to him without troubling my
head with any attempt to unravel the man's story.

The evidence, however, that he had endeavored to hide his life, had been
revealed by my first superficial examination; and here, I reflected,
was a singular opportunity to test both his degree of success and my own
power of constructing a coherent history out of the detached fragments.
Unpromising as is the matter, said I, let me see whether he can conceal
his secret from even such unpractised eyes as mine.

I went through the papers again, read each one rapidly, and arranged
them in separate files, according to the character of their contents.
Then I rearranged these latter in the order of time, so far as it
was indicated; and afterwards commenced the work of picking out and
threading together whatever facts might be noted. The first thing I
ascertained, or rather conjectured, was that the man's life might be
divided into three very distinct phases, the first ending in Breslau,
the second in Poland, and the third and final one in America. Thereupon
I once again rearranged the material, and attacked that which re

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