CALEB TRENCH

CALEB TRENCH

BY
MARY IMLAY TAYLOR
AUTHOR OF “THE REAPING,� “THE
IMPERSONATOR,� ETC.

WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
EMLEN McCONNELL

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1910

Copyright, 1910,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Published March, 1910
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.

CALEB TRENCH

CALEB TRENCH

I

DIANA ROYALL pushed back the music-rack and rose from her seat at the piano.

“Show the person in here, Kingdom.�

The negro disappeared, and Diana moved slowly to the table at the farther end of the long room, and stood there turning over some papers in her leisurely, graceful way.

“Who in the world is it now?� Mrs. Eaton asked, looking up from her solitaire, “a book agent?�

“Caleb Trench,� Diana replied carelessly, “the shopkeeper at Eshcol.�

“The storekeeper?� Mrs. Eaton looked as if Diana had said the chimney-sweep. “What in the world does he want of you, my dear?�

Diana laughed. “How should I know?� she retorted, with a slight scornful elevation of her brows; “we always pay cash there.�

“I wonder that you receive him in the drawing-room,� Mrs. Eaton remonstrated, shuffling her cards with delicate, much be-ringed fingers, and that indefinable manner which lingers with some old ladies, like their fine old lace and their ancestors, and is at once a definition and classification. Thus, one could see, at a glance, that Mrs. Eaton had been a belle before the war, for, as we all know, the atmosphere of belledom is as difficult to dissipate and forget as the poignant aroma of a moth-ball in an old fur coat, though neither of them may have served the purposes of preservation.

The girl made no reply, and the older woman was instinctively aware of her indifference to her opinions, uttered or unexpressed. There were times when Diana’s absorption of mood, her frank inattention, affected her worldly mentor as sharply as a slap in the face, yet, the next moment, she fell easily under the spell of her personality. Mrs. Eaton always felt that no one could look at her youthful relative without feeling that her soul must be as beautiful as her body, though she herself had never been able to form any estimate of that soul. Diana hid it with a reserve and a mental strength which folded it away as carefully as the calyx of a cactus guards the delicate bloom with its thorns. But the fact that Mrs. Eaton overlooked was still more apparent, the fact that a great many people never thought of Diana’s soul at all, being quite content to admire the long and exquisite curves of her tall figure, the poise of her graceful head, with the upward wave of its bright hair, and the level glance of her dear eyes under their thick dark lashes. There was something fine about her vitality, her freshness, the perfection of her dress and her bearing, which seemed so harmoniously accentuated by the subdued elegance of the charming old room. Nature had specialized her by the divine touch of a beauty that apparently proclaimed the possession of an equally beautiful spirit; not even the flesh and blood surface seemed always impenetrable, but rather delicately transparent to every spiritual variation, like the crystal sphere of the magician. But Mrs. Eaton, pondering on her young cousin’s personality from a more frivolous standpoint, took alarm most readily at her independence, and was overcome now with the impropriety of receiving a village shopkeeper in the drawing-room after dinner.

“My dear,� she remonstrated again, “hadn’t you better speak to him in the hall?�

Diana looked up from her paper, slightly bored. “In that case, Cousin Jinny, you couldn’t hear what he said,� she remarked composedly.

Mrs. Eaton reddened and put a three spot on her ace instead of a two. “I do not care to—� she began and paused, her utterance abruptly suspended by the shock of a new perception.

For, at that moment, Kingdom-Come announced Diana’s unbidden guest and Mrs. Eaton forgot what she was going to say, forgot her manners in fact, and gazed frankly at the big man who came slowly and awkwardly into the room. His appearance, indeed, had quite a singular effect upon her. She wondered vaguely if she could be impressed, or if it was only the result of the unexpected contact with the lower class? She was fond of speaking of the Third Estate; she had found the expression somewhere during her historical peckings, and appropriated it at once as a comprehensive phrase with an aristocratic flavor, though its true meaning proved a little elusive.

Meanwhile, the unwelcome visitor was confronting Miss Royall and there was a moment of audible silence. Diana met his glance more fully than she had ever been aware of doing before, in her brief visits to his shop, and, like her elderly cousin, she received a new and vital impression, chiefly from the depth and lucidity of his gaze, which seemed to possess both composure and penetration; she felt her cheeks flush hotly, yet was conscious that his look was neither familiar nor offending, but was rather the glance of a personality as strong as her own.

“You wish to speak to me?� she said impatiently, forgetting the fine courtesy that she usually showed to an inferior.

As she spoke, her father and Jacob Eaton came in from the dining-room and, pausing within the wide low doorway, were silent spectators of the scene.

“I wished to see you, yes,� said Trench quietly, advancing to the table and deliberately putting some pennies on it. “When you bought that piece of muslin this morning I gave you the wrong change. After you left the shop I found I owed you six cents. I walked over with it this evening as soon as I closed the doors. I would have left it with your servant at the door, but he insisted that I must see you in person.� He added this gravely, deliberately allowing her to perceive that he understood his reception.

Diana bit her lip to suppress a smile, and was conscious that Jacob Eaton was openly hilarious. She was half angry, too, because Trench had put her in the wrong by recognizing her discourtesy and treating it courteously. Beyond the circle of the lamplight was the critical audience of her home-life, her father’s stately figure and white head, Mrs. Eaton’s elderly elegance, and Jacob’s worldly wisdom. She looked at Trench with growing coldness.

“Thank you,� she said, “shall I give you a receipt?�

He met her eye an instant, and she saw that he was fully cognizant of her sarcasm. “As you please,� he replied unmoved.

She felt herself rebuked again, and her anger kindled unreasonably against the man who was smarting under her treatment. She went to the table, and taking a sheet of folded note-paper wrote a receipt and signed it, handing it to him with a slight haughty inclination of the head which was at once an acknowledgment and a dismissal.

But again he met her with composure. He took the paper, folded it twice and put it in his pocketbook, then he bade her good evening and, passing Eaton with scarcely a glance, bowed to Colonel Royall and went out, his awkward figure in its rough tweed suit having made a singular effect in the old-fashioned elegance of Colonel Royall’s house, an effect that fretted Diana’s pride, for it had seemed to her that, as he passed, he had overshadowed her own father and dwarfed Jacob Eaton. Yet, at the time, she thought of none of these things. She pushed the offending pennies across the table.

“Cousin Jinny,� she said carelessly, “there are some Peter pence for your dago beggars.�

Cousin Jinny gathered up the pennies and dropped them thoughtfully into the little gold-linked purse on her chatelaine. For years she had been contributing a yearly subsidy to the ever increasing family of a former gondolier, the unforgotten grace of whose slender legs had haunted her memory for twenty years, during which period she had been the recipient of annual announcements of twins and triplets, whose arrivals invariably punctuated peculiarly unremunerative years.

“That man,� she said, referring to Trench and not the gondolier, “that man is an anarchist.�

Mrs. Eaton had a settled conviction that all undesirable persons were anarchists. To her nebulous vision innumerable immigrant ships were continually unloading anarchists in bulk, as merchantmen might unship consignments of Sea Island cotton or Jamaica rum; and every fresh appearance of the social unwashed was to her an advent of an atom from these incendiary cargoes.

“I hope you were careful about your receipt, Diana,� said Jacob Eaton, stopping to light a cigarette at the tall candelabrum on the piano. “How far did your admirer walk to bring that consignment of pennies?�

“My admirer?� Diana shot a scornful glance at him. “I call it an intrusion.�

“Did he walk over from that little shop at Cross-Roads?� Mrs. Eaton asked. “I seem to remember a shop there.�

“It’s seven miles,� said Colonel Royall, speaking for the first time, “and the roads are bad. I think he is merely scrupulously honest, Diana,� he added; “I was watching his face.�

Diana flushed under her father’s eye. “I suppose he is,� she said reluctantly, “but, pshaw—six cents! He could have handed it to a servant.�

“Do you send the servants there?� Colonel Royall asked pointedly.

“No,� she admitted reluctantly, “I suppose he rarely sees any one from here, but there was Kingdom at the door.�

“Who insisted on his seeing you, you remember,� objected her father; “the soul of Kingdom-Come is above six pennies.�

“Well, so is mine!� exclaimed Diana pettishly.

“Seven miles in red clay mud to see you,� mocked Jacob Eaton, smiling at her.

“Nonsense!� she retorted.

“I don’t see why you take that tone, Jacob,� warned his mother a little nervously. “I call it bad taste; he couldn’t presume to—to—�

“To walk seven miles?� her son laughed “My dear lady, I’d walk seventeen to see Diana.�

“My dear courtier, throw down your cloak in the mud and let me walk upon it,� retorted Diana scornfully.

“I have thrown down, instead, my heart,� he replied in a swift undertone.

But Diana was watching her father and apparently did not hear him. Colonel Royall had moved to his usual big chair by the hearth. A few logs were kindling there, for, though it was early in April, it was a raw chill evening. The firelight played on the noble and gentle lines of the colonel’s old face, on his white hair and moustache and in the mild sweetness of his absent-minded eyes. His daughter, looking at him fondly, thought him peculiarly sad, and wondered if it was because they were approaching an anniversary in that brief sad married life which seemed to have left a scar too deep for even her tender touch.

“I don’t mind about the amount—six cents may be as sacred to him as six dollars,� he was saying. “The man has a primitive face, the lines are quite remarkable, and—� he leaned back and looked over at the young man by the piano—“Jacob, I’ve heard of this Caleb Trench three times this week in politics.�

“A village orator?� mocked Eaton, without dropping his air of nonchalant superiority, an air that nettled Colonel Royall as much as a heat-rash.

He shook his head impatiently. “Ask Mahan,� he said. “I don’t know, but twice I’ve been told that Caleb Trench could answer this or that, and yesterday—� he leaned back, shading his eyes with his hand as he looked into the fire—“yesterday—what was it? Oh—� he stopped abruptly, and a delicate color, almost a woman’s blush, went up to his hair.

“And yesterday?� asked Eaton, suddenly alert, his mocking tone lost, the latent shrewdness revealing itself through the thin mask of his commonplace good looks.

“Well, I heard that he was opposed to Aylett’s methods,� Colonel Royall said, with evident reluctance, “and that he favored Yarnall.�

Mrs. Eaton started violently and dropped her pack of cards, and Diana and she began to gather them up again, Cousin Jinny’s fingers trembling so much that the girl had to find them all.

Jacob stood listening, his eyelids drooping over his eyes and his upper lip twitching a little at the corners like a dog who is puckering his lip to show his fangs. “Yarnall is a candidate for governor,� he said coolly.

Colonel Royall frowned slightly. “I’d rather keep Aylett,� he rejoined.

“Yarnall had no strength a week ago, but to-day the back counties are supporting him,� said Eaton, “why, heaven knows! Some one must be organizing them, but who?�

Colonel Royall drummed on the arm of his chair with his fingers. “Since the war there’s been an upheaval,� he said thoughtfully. “It was like a whirlpool, stirred the mud up from the bottom, and we’re getting it now. No one can predict anything; it isn’t the day for an old-fashioned gentleman in politics.�

“Which is an admission that shopkeepers ought to be in them,� suggested Jacob, without emotion.

Colonel Royall laughed. “Maybe it is,� he admitted, “anyway I’m not proud of my own party out here. I’m willing to stand by my colors, but I’m usually heartily ashamed of the color bearer. It’s not so much the color of one’s political coat as the lining of one’s political pockets. I wish I had Abe Lincoln’s simple faith. What we need now is a man who isn’t afraid to speak the truth; he’d loom up like Saul among the prophets.�

“Again let me suggest the shopkeeper at the Cross-Roads,� said Jacob Eaton.

Colonel Royall smiled sadly. “Why not?� he said. “Lincoln was a barefoot boy. Why not Caleb Trench? Since he’s honest over little things, he might be over great things.�

“Is he a Democrat?� Jacob asked suavely.

“On my word, I don’t know,� replied Colonel Royall. “He’s in Judge Hollis’ office reading law, so William Cheyney told me.�

“That old busybody!� Jacob struck the ashes from his cigarette viciously.

“Hush!� said Diana, “treason! Don’t you say a word against Dr. Cheyney. I’ve loved him these many years.�

“A safe sentiment,� said Jacob. “I’m content to be his rival. Alas, if he were the only one!�

“What did you say Caleb Trench was doing in the judge’s office, pa?� Diana asked, ignoring her cousin.

“Reading law, my dear,� the colonel answered.

“I thought he was a poor shopkeeper,� objected Mrs. Eaton.

“So he is, Jinny,� said the colonel; “but he’s reading law at night. It’s all mightily to his credit.�

“He’s altogether too clever, then,� said Mrs. Eaton firmly; “it is just as I said, he’s an anarchist!�

“Dear me, let’s talk of some one else,� Diana protested. “The man must have hoodooed us; we’ve discussed nothing else since he left.�

“Though lost to sight, to memory dear,� laughed Jacob, throwing back his sleek dark head, and blowing his cigarette smoke into rings before his face: he was still leaning against the piano, and his attitude displayed his well-knit, rather slight figure. His mother, gazing at him with an admiration not unlike the devotion the heathen extends to his favorite deity, regarded him as a supreme expression of the best in manhood and wisdom. To her Jacob was little short of a divinity and nothing short of a tyrant, under whose despotic rule she had trembled since he was first able to express himself in the cryptic language of the cradle, which had meant with him an unqualified and unrestrained shriek for everything he wanted. She thought he showed to peculiar advantage, too, in the setting of the old room with its two centers of light, the lamp on the table and the fire on the hearth, with the well-worn Turkey rugs, its darkly polished floor, the rare pieces of Chippendale, and the equally rare old paintings on the walls. There was a fine, richly toned portrait of Colonel Royall’s grandfather, who had been with Washington at Yorktown, and there was a Corot and a Van Dyke, originals that had cost the colonel’s father a small fortune in his time. Best of all, perhaps, was the Greuze, for there was something in the shadowy beauty of the head which suggested Diana.

Colonel Royall himself had apparently forgotten Jacob and his attitude. The old man was gazing absently into the fire, and the latent tenderness in his expression, the fine droop of eyes and lips seemed to suggest some deeper current of thought which the light talk stirred and brought to the surface. There was a reminiscent sadness in his glance which ignored the present and warned his daughter of the shoals. She leaned forward and held her hands out to the blaze.

“If it’s fine next week, I’m going up to Angel Pass to see if the anemones are not all in bloom,� she said abruptly.

Colonel Royall rose, and walking to the window, drew aside the heavy curtains and looked out. “The night is superb,� he said. “Come here, Di, and see Orion’s golden sword. If it is like this, we will go to-morrow.�

But Diana, going to him, laid a gentle hand on his arm. “To-morrow was mother’s birthday, pa,� she said softly.

Mrs. Eaton looked up and caught her son’s eye, and turned her face carefully from the two in the bay window. “Think of it,� she murmured, with a look of horrified disapproval, “think of keeping Letty’s birthday here!�

But Jacob, glancing at Diana’s unconscious back, signed to her to be silent.

II

IT was the end of another day when Caleb Trench and his dog, Shot, came slowly down the long white road from Paradise Ridge. It is a shell road, exceeding white and hard, and below it, at flood-tide, the river meadows lie half submerged; it turns the corner below the old mill and passes directly through the center of Eshcol to the city. Behind the mill, the feathery green of spring clouded the low hills in a mist of buds and leafage. The slender stem of a silver birch showed keen against a group of red cedars. A giant pine thrust its height above its fellows, its top stripped by lightning and hung with a squirrel’s nest.

Trench and his dog, a rough yellow outcast that he had adopted, were approaching the outskirts of Eshcol. Here and there was a farmhouse, but the wayside was lonely, and he heard only the crows in the tree-tops. It was past five o’clock and the air was sweet. He smelt the freshly turned earth in the fields where the robins were hunting for grubs. Beyond the river the woods were drifted white with wild cucumber. Yonder, in the corner of a gray old fence, huddled some of Aaron Todd’s sheep. The keen atmosphere was mellowing at the far horizon to molten gold; across it a drifting flight of swallows was sharply etched, an eddying maelstrom of graceful wings.

In the middle of the road Caleb Trench was suddenly aware of a small figure, which might have been three years old, chubby and apparently sexless, for it was clad in a girl’s petticoats and a boy’s jacket, its face round and smeared with jelly.

“Sammy,� said Trench kindly, “how did you get here?�

“Penny,� said Sammy, “wants penny!�

To Sammy the tall man with the homely face and clear gray eyes was a mine of pennies and consequently of illicit candy; the soul of Sammy was greedy as well as his stomach. Trench thrust his hand into his pocket and produced five pennies. Sammy’s dirty little fist closed on them with the grip of the nascent financier.

“Sammy tired,� he sobbed, “wants go to candy man’s!�

Trench stooped good-naturedly and lifted the bundle of indescribable garments; he had carried it before, and the candy man was only a quarter of a mile away. He was raising the child to his shoulder when the growth of pokeberry bushes at the roadside shook and a woman darted out from behind it. She was scarcely more than a girl and pitifully thin and wan. Her garments, too, were sexless; she wore a girl’s short skirt and a man’s waistcoat; a man’s soft felt hat rested on a tangled mass of hair,—the coarse and abundant hair of peasant ancestry. She ran up to him and snatched the child out of his arms.

“You shan’t have him!� she cried passionately; “you shan’t touch him—he’s mine!�

Sammy screamed dismally, clutching his pennies.

“Never mind, Jean,� said Trench quietly. “I know he’s yours.�

“He’s mine!� She was stamping her foot in passion, her thin face crimson, the veins standing out on her forehead. “He’s mine—you may try ter get him, but you won’t—you won’t—you won’t!� she screamed.

The child was frightened now, and clasped both arms around her neck, screaming too.

“I was only offering to carry him to the candy man’s, Jean,� Trench said; “don’t get so excited. I know the child is yours.�

“He’s mine!� she cried again, “mine! That’s my shame, they call it, and preach at me, and try ter take him away. They want ’er steal him, but they shan’t; they shan’t touch him any more’n you shall! He’s mine; God gave him ter me, and I’ll keep him. You can kill me, but you shan’t have him noways!� She was quivering from head to foot, her wild eyes flashing, her face white now with the frenzy that swept away every other thought.

“Hush,� said Trench sternly, “no one wants to steal the child, Jean; it’s only your fancy. Be quiet.�

He spoke with such force that the girl fell back, leaning against the fence, holding the sobbing child tight, her eyes devouring the man’s strong, clean-featured face. Her clouded mind was searching for memories. She had lost her wits when Sammy was born without a father to claim him. Trench still stood in the middle of the road, and his figure was at once striking and homely. He was above the average height, big-boned and lean, the fineness of his head and the power of his face not less notable because of a certain awkwardness that, at first, disguised the real power of the man, a power so vital that it grew upon you until his personality seemed to stand out in high relief against the commonplace level of humanity. He had the force and vitality of a primitive man.

The girl crouched against the fence, and the two looked at each other. Suddenly she put the child down and, coming cautiously nearer, pointed with one hand, the other clenched against her flat chest.

“I know you,� she whispered, in a strange penetrating voice, “I know you at last—you’re him.�

Trench regarded her a moment in speechless amazement, then the full significance of her words was borne in upon him by the wild rage in her eyes. He knew she was half crazed and saw his peril if this belief became fixed in her mind. Often as he had seen her she had never suggested such a delusion as was then taking root in her demented brain.

“You are mistaken,� he said gently, slowly, persuasively, trying to impress her, as he might a child; “you have forgotten; I only came to Eshcol four years ago. You have not known me two years, Jean; you are thinking of some one else.�

A look of cunning succeeded the fury in her eyes, as she peered at him. “It’s like you ter say it,� she cried triumphantly at last, “it’s like you ter hide. You’re afeard, you were always afeard—coward, coward!�

Trench laid his powerful hand on her shoulder and almost shook her. “Be still,� he said authoritatively, “it is false. You know it’s false. I am not he.�

She wrenched away from him, laughing and crying together. “’Tis him,� she repeated; “I know him by this!� and she suddenly snatched at the plain signet ring that he wore on his left hand.

Trench drew his hand away in anger, his patience exhausted. “Jean,� he said harshly, “you’re mad.�

“No!� she shook her head, still pointing at him, “no—it is you!�

She was pointing, her wild young face rigid, as a carriage came toward them. Trench looked up and met the calm gaze of Colonel Royall and Diana, who occupied the back seat. In front, beside the negro coachman, Jacob Eaton leaned forward and stared rudely at the group in the dust.

“What is the matter, Jacob?� the old man asked, as the carriage passed.

The young one laughed. “The old story, I reckon, Colonel,� he said affably, “begging Diana’s pardon.�

“You needn’t beg my pardon. It was Jean Bartlett, pa,� she added, blushing suddenly.

“Poor girl!� The colonel touched his lips thoughtfully. “By gad, I wish I knew who was the father of her child—I’d make him keep her from starving.�

“You do that, pa,� said Diana quietly.

“I reckon the father’s there now,� said Jacob Eaton, with a slight sneer.

Diana flashed a look at the back of his head which ought to have scorched it. “It is only the shopkeeper at Eshcol,� she said haughtily.

“Are shopkeepers immune, Diana?� asked Jacob Eaton, chuckling.

“I am immune from such conversations,� replied Diana superbly.

Jacob apologized.

Meanwhile, the group by the wayside had drawn nearer together. “I will take your child home, for you are tired,� said Trench sternly, “but I tell you that I do not know your story and you don’t know me. If you accuse me of being that child’s father, you are telling a falsehood. Do you understand what a falsehood is, Jean?�

His face was so stern that the girl cowered.

“No,� she whimpered, “I—I won’t tell, I swore it, I won’t tell his name.�

“Neither will you take mine in vain,� said Caleb Trench, and he lifted the sobbing Sammy.

Cowed, Jean followed, and the strange procession trailed down the white road. Overhead the tall hickories were in flower. The carriage of Colonel Royall had cast dust on Trench’s gray tweed suit and it had powdered Shot’s rough hair. The dog trailed jealously at his heels, not giving precedence to Jean Bartlett. The girl walked droopingly, and now that the fire of conviction had died out of her face, it was shrunken again, like a thin paper mask from behind which there had flashed, for a moment, a Hallowe’en candle. They began to pass people. Aaron Todd, stout farmer and lumberman, rode by in his wagon and nodded to Trench, staring at the child. Jean he knew. Then came two more farmers, and later a backwoodsman, who greeted Trench as he galloped past on his lean, mud-bespattered horse. Then two women passed on the farther side. They spoke to Trench timidly, for he was a reserved man and they did not know him well, but they drew away their skirts from Jean, who was the Shameful Thing at Paradise Ridge.

Strange thoughts beset Caleb; suddenly the girl’s accusation went home; suppose he had been the father of this child on his arm,—would they pass him and speak, and pass her with skirts drawn aside? God knew. He thought it only too probable, knowing men—and women. He was a just man on occasions, but at heart a passionate one. Inwardly he stormed, outwardly he was calm. The dog trailed behind him; so did the girl, a broken thing, who had just sense enough to feel the women’s eyes. They passed more people. Again Caleb answered salutations, again he heard the girl whimper as if she shrank from a blow.

At her own door, which was her grandmother’s, he set down the child. A shrill voice began screaming. “Is the hussy there? Come in with you, you thing of shame; what d’ye walk in the road for? The Ridge is fair screamin’ with your disgrace, you trollop. Jean, Jean!�

The old woman was childish, but she knew the tale and retained it. There was also a half-foolish brother; it seemed as if, in the making of this luckless family, the usual three pints of wits had been spilled to a half pint and then diluted to go around. Zeb Bartlett came to the door, shambling and dirty, but grinning at the sight of Trench. Sammy ran from him shrieking, for he feared the theft of his spoils. Zeb towered in righteous wrath as Jean appeared.

“Get in, Shameless!� he commanded.

The girl shrank past him sobbing.

“My God!� said Caleb Trench and turned away.

He did not heed an appeal for help to get work that Zeb shouted after him; he was, for the moment, deaf. Before him lay the broad fields and sloping hills, the beauty of earth and sky, drenched in sunset; behind lay a girl’s purgatory. He forgot his anger at her senseless accusation, he forgot the peril of it, in his wrath; he hated injustice. Only the yellow dog followed at his heels and his heart was full of strange thoughts. Five years of isolation and injustice must tell in a man’s life, and the purposes born there in solitude are grim. The great trial that was to divide Eshcol against itself was growing, growing out of the sweet spring twilight, growing beyond the song of the thrush and the cheep of the woodpecker, growing in the heart of a man.

Meanwhile, Jacob Eaton had called Trench the father of Jean Bartlett’s child, and old Scipio, who drove the colonel’s bays, heard it and told it to Kingdom-Come Carter, who had been butler at Broad Acres for fifty years, and had carried Diana in his arms when she was two weeks old. Kingdom-Come told it to Aunt Charity and Uncle Juniper, coal-black negroes of the cabin, and thus by kitchens and alley-doors the story traveled, as a needle will travel through the body and work its way to the surface. The reputation of a man is but the breath on a servant’s lips, as man himself is compared to grass and the flower of it.

III

TRENCH walked slowly homeward. Colonel Royall’s place, the largest of its kind in the neighborhood of Eshcol, was on a hill above the town, and Trench’s nearest path lay not by the highroad but past the Colonel’s gates along a lovely trail that led through a growth of stunted cedars out into the open ground above the river, and thence by a solitary and wooded path known sometimes as the Trail of the Cedar-bird, because those little birds haunted it at certain seasons of the year.

It was now broad moonlight, and Trench, who was peculiarly susceptible to the sights and sounds of Nature, was aware of the beauty of every tremulous shadow. The chill spring air was sweet with the aromatic perfume of pines and cedars, and, as he turned the shoulder of the hill, his eye swept the new-plowed fields. He could smell the grapevines that were blooming in masses by the wayside, promising a full harvest of those great purple grapes that had given the settlement its name. Below him the river forked, and in its elbow nestled the center of the village, the church at the Cross-Roads, and the little red schoolhouse where Peter Mahan had fought Jacob Eaton and whipped him at the age of twelve, long before Caleb Trench had even heard of Eshcol. To the left was the Friends’ Meeting-House, Judge Hollis’ home, and the lane which led to Trench’s shop and office. Beyond, he discerned the little old white house where Dr. William Cheyney lived, but that was where Eshcol lapped over on to Little Paradise, for they had bridged the creek ten years before. Across the river lay the city, big and smoky and busy, its spires rising above its shining roofs.

A light mist, diaphanous and shimmering, floated over the lowlands by the water, and above it the dark green of the young foliage and the lovely slope of clovered fields seemed to assume a new and beautiful significance, to suggest mysterious unfoldings, buds and blossoming time, the gathered promise of a hundred springs, that mysterious awakening of life which stirred the lonely man’s imagination with a thrill of pleasure as poignant as it was unusual. To him these lonely walks at sunrise and moonrise had been his greatest solace, and there was a companionship in the slight hushed sounds of woodland life which approached his inner consciousness more nearly than the alien existence that circumstances had forced upon him. He was a stranger in almost a strange land. He had been born and brought up in Philadelphia, and his family belonged to the Society of Friends. Personally, Caleb Trench was not orthodox, but the bias of his early training held, and the poverty that had followed his father’s business failure had tended to increase the simplicity of the boy’s narrowed life. When death had intervened and taken first his father, whom business ruin had broken, and then his mother and sister, Caleb had severed the last tie that bound him to the East and started West to make his fortune, with the boundless confidence of youth that he would succeed. The lodestar that has drawn so many on that fantastic quest had drawn him, and failing in first one venture and then another, because it is easier to buy experience than to accumulate wealth, he had come at last to the little shop at Eshcol and the study of law. Wherein lay the touchstone of his life, though he knew it not.

Pausing now, a moment, to view his favorite scene, the lowlands by the river under their silvery mantle of vapor, he turned and took the sharp descent from the bluff to the old turnpike. A cherry tree in full bloom stood like a ghost at the corner of Judge Hollis’ orchard, and the long lane was white with the falling petals. A light shone warmly through the crimson curtains of Judge Hollis’ library window, and Caleb took the familiar path to the side door. The latch was usually down, but to-night he had to knock, and the judge’s sister, Miss Sarah, opened the door.

“Is that you, Caleb?� she said, in her high thin voice; “wipe your feet. I wish men folks were all made like cherubs anyway, then there wouldn’t be all this mud tracked over my carpets.�

“We might moult our wing feathers, Miss Sarah,� Caleb ventured unsmilingly, while he obeyed his instructions to the letter.

“I’d as lief have feathers as pipe ashes,� she retorted; “in fact I’d rather—I could make pillows of ’em.�

“You can’t complain of my pipe ashes, Miss Sarah,� Trench said, a slow laugh dawning in the depths of his gray eyes. “Is the judge at home?�

“Can’t you smell tobacco smoke?� she replied, moving in front of him across the entry, her tall figure, in its plain green poplin with the turn-down collar of Irish lace, recalling to Trench, in the most extreme of contrasts, the other tall figure in its beautiful evening dress, that had stood so haughtily in Colonel Royall’s drawing-room, seeming to him the most perfect expression of beauty and charming grace that he had ever seen, though he still felt the sting of Diana’s glance and the sarcasm of her receipt. He had carried the money back in good faith, for his Quaker training made six cents as significant to him as six hundred cents, but, under all his strong and apparently unmoved exterior, there was a quick perception of the attitude of others toward his views and toward himself. In the strength of his own virile character he had not fully realized where he stood in her eyes, but after that night he did not forget it. Meanwhile, Miss Sarah had opened the study door.

“Judge,� she called to her brother, “Caleb’s here.�

There was no response, and she went away, leaving Caleb to find his own welcome. He went in and closed the door. Judge Hollis was sitting at his desk smoking a long black pipe and writing carefully in a hand as fine and accurate as a steel engraving.

The room was low, papered with old-fashioned bandbox paper and filled with bookcases with glass doors, every one of which hung open. In the corner was a life-sized bust of Daniel Webster. As Caleb entered, the judge swung around in his revolving chair and eyed him over his spectacles. He was a big man with a large head covered with abundant white hair, a clean-shaven face with a huge nose, shaped like a hawk’s and placed high between the deep-set eyes.

“Trench,� he said abruptly, “if they elect Aylett they’ll have to stuff the ballot-boxes. What’ll you do then?�

“Take the stuffing out of them, Judge,� Trench replied promptly and decisively.

The judge looked at him, a grim smile curling the corners of his large mouth. “They’ll tar and feather you,� he said.

Trench sat down and took up a calf-bound volume. “I’m enough of a Quaker still to speak out in meeting,� he observed.

“The only thing I know about Quakers makes ’em seem like Unitarians,� said the judge, “and a Unitarian is a kind of stylish Jew. What have you been doing with the backwoodsmen, Caleb? Mahan tells me they’re organized—� the judge smiled outright now—“I don’t believe it.�

Caleb Trench smiled too. “I don’t know much about organizing, Judge,� he said simply. “When men come into my shop and ask questions I answer them; that’s all there is about it.�

“We’ll have to shut up that shop, I reckon,� the judge said, “but then you’ll open your darned law office and give ’em sedition by the brief instead of by the yard. I deserve hanging for letting you read law here. I’ve been a Democrat for seventy years, and you’re a black Republican.�

Trench closed the law book on his finger. “Judge,� he said slowly, “I’m a man of my own convictions. My father wouldn’t stand for anything I do, yet he was the best man I ever knew, and I’d like to be true to him. It isn’t in me to follow in the beaten track, that’s all.�

The judge twinkled. “You’re an iconoclast,� he said, “and so’s Sarah, yet women, as a rule, are safe conservatives. They’ll hang on to an old idea as close as a hen to a nest-egg. Perhaps I’m the same. Anyway I can’t stand for your ways; I wash my hands of it all. I wish they’d drop Yarnall; his nomination means blood on the face of the moon. There’s the feud with the Eatons, and I wouldn’t trust Jacob Eaton to forget it, not by a darned sight; he’s too pesky cold-blooded,—the kind of man that holds venom as long as a rattler.�

“Then, if you don’t like Yarnall, why not vote for Mahan?� Trench was beginning to enjoy himself. He leaned back in his chair with his head against a shelf of the bookcase, the light from the judge’s lamp falling full on his remarkable face, clean-shaven like his host’s, on the strong line of the jaw, and on the mouth that had the faculty of locking itself in granite lines.

“Because, damn it, I’m a Democrat!� said the old man angrily.

“By conviction or habit?�

The judge scowled. “By conviction first, sir, and by habit last, and for good and all, anyway!�

Caleb Trench laughed softly. “Judge,� he said, “what of Jacob Eaton?�

The judge shot a quick look from under scowling brows. “Seen him lately?�

The younger man thought a moment. “Yes, last night. I owed Miss Royall some change and took it to the house. Eaton was there.�

“How much change?� asked Hollis abruptly.

“Six cents.�

“What!�

Trench reddened. “Six cents,� he repeated doggedly.

“And you took it up there and paid Diana Royall?�

“Certainly, Judge, in the drawing-room; she gave me a receipt.�

The judge exploded with laughter; he roared and slapped his knee.

Caleb Trench bore it well, but the color of his eyes, which was blue-gray, became more gray than blue. “I owed it,� he said.

At which the judge laughed more. Then he dropped back into his old attitude and wiped his eyes. “You walked up there—seven miles—to see Diana?�

Trench stiffened. “No,� he said flatly, “I did not; I’ve got more sense. I know perfectly how Miss Royall estimates a shopkeeper,� he added, with a bitterness which he could not suppress.

The judge looked at him curiously. “How do you know?� he asked.

Trench returned his look without a word, and Judge Hollis colored; it was not the first time that the young man had rebuked him and let him know that he could not trespass on forbidden ground. The old lawyer fingered his brief an instant in annoyed silence, then he spoke of something else.

“I’ll tell you about the feud,� he said irrelevantly; “it began seventy years ago over a piece of ground that lay between the two properties; Christopher Yarnall claimed it and so did Jacob Eaton, this man’s grandfather. There was a fence war for years, then Yarnall won. Winfield Mahan, Peter’s grandfather, won by a fifteen-hour speech. They said the jurymen all fell asleep in the box and voted in a nightmare. Anyway he got it, and Mahan got more money for the case than the whole place was worth. That was the beginning. Chris Yarnall’s son married a pretty girl from Lexington, and she fell in love with Eaton, Jacob’s father. There was a kind of fatality about the way those two families got mixed up. Everybody saw how things were going except Jinny Eaton, his wife. She was playing belle at Memphis, and Jacob was about a year old. Eaton tried to run away with Mrs. Yarnall, that’s the size of it, and Yarnall shot him. There was a big trial and the Eatons claimed that Eaton was innocent. Young Mrs. Yarnall swore he was, and fainted on the stand, but the Yarnalls knew he wasn’t innocent, and they got Yarnall off. He wouldn’t live with his wife after that; there was a divorce and he married a Miss Sarah Garnett. This Garnett Yarnall, they want to run, is his son. Of course the whole Eaton clan hate the Yarnalls like the devil, and Jacob hates Garnett worse than that, because he’s never been able to run him. Jacob likes to run things in a groove; he’s a smart fellow, is Jacob.�

Trench said nothing; he had filled his pipe and sat smoking, the law book closed on his finger. The judge swung back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.

“Of course he’ll marry Diana Royall. They’re fourth cousins; Jinny is the colonel’s second cousin, on his mother’s side; there’s a good deal of money in the family, and I reckon they want to keep it there. Anyway, Jacob’s set his mind—I’m not saying his heart, for I don’t know that he’s got one—on getting Diana; that’s as plain as the nose on a man’s face, but Diana—well, there’s a proposition for you!� and the judge chuckled.

Trench knocked the ashes from his pipe very carefully into a little cracked china plate that Miss Sarah provided for the judge, and the judge never used. “Eaton is interested in some speculating schemes, isn’t he?� he asked, without referring to Diana.

The judge nodded. “He’s president of a company developing some lands in Oklahoma, and he’s connected in Wall Street; Jacob’s a smart fellow.�

“Colonel Royall is interested, too, I suppose,� Trench suggested tentatively.

“Yep, got pretty much all his spare cash in, I reckon; the colonel loves to speculate. It’s in the blood, one way or another. His grandfather kept the finest race-horses in the South, and his father lost a small fortune on them. Of course David has to dip in, but he’s never been much for horses. Besides, he had a blow; his wife—� The judge stopped abruptly and looked up.

The door of the study had been opening softly and closing again for the last few minutes. As he paused it opened wider, and a woolly head came in cautiously.

“What is it, Juniper?� he asked impatiently. “Don’t keep a two-inch draught on my back; come in or stay out.�

The old negro opened the door wide enough to squeeze his lean body through and closed it behind him.

“Evenin’, Jedge,� he said; “evenin’, Marse Trench.�

“What do you want now?� demanded the judge, taking off his spectacles to polish them. There was the ghost of a smile about his grim lips.

Juniper turned his hat around slowly and looked into the crown; it was a battered old gray felt and he saw the pattern of the carpet through a hole in it. “I’ve laid off ter ask yo’ how much it wud cost ter git er divorce, suh?�

Judge Hollis put on his spectacles and looked at him thoughtfully. “Depends on the circumstances, Juniper,� he replied. “I suppose Aunt Charity is tired of you at last?�

“No, suh, she ain’t, but I ez,� said Juniper indignantly; “she done b’haved so onerary dat I’se sho gwine ter be divorced, I ez, ef it don’ cost too much,� he added dolefully.

The judge’s eyes twinkled. “You’ll have to pay her alimony,� he said.

“What’s dat?� Juniper demanded with anxiety.

“So much a week out of your wages,� explained Trench, catching the judge’s eye.

“I ain’t gwine ter do it, noways,� said Juniper firmly.

“Don’t you have to support her now?� Trench asked mildly.

Juniper looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “I’se allus been proud ob de way she done washin’, suh,� he said; “she sho do mek money dat away, an’ I ain’t gwine ter complain ob noffin but de way she behaved ’bout Miss Eaton’s silver teapot, dat Miss Jinny done gib me fo’ a birthday present.�

“Silver teapot?� Caleb Trench looked questioningly at the judge.

“Juniper had a birthday,� Judge Hollis explained grimly, “and Aunt Charity gave him a birthday party. I reckon we all sent Juniper something, but Jinny Eaton gave him a silver-plated teapot, and there have been squalls ever since. Who’s got that teapot now, Juniper?�

“She hab,� said Juniper indignantly. “I locked dat teapot in my trunk, Judge, an’ I done tole her dat she couldn’t hab it when I died bekase she’d gib it ter dat mean trash son ob hers, Lysander, an’ when I wus out she done got a locksmith ter gib her a key ter fit dat trunk, an’ she got dat teapot, an’ she’s gwine ter gib tea ter Deacon Plato Eaton, an’ he hab er wife already, not sayin’ noffin ’bout concubines. I ain’t gwine ter hab him drinkin’ no tea outen dat silver teapot dat Miss Jinny done gib me. I’se gwine ter git divorcement an’ I wants dat teapot.�

“Why don’t you settle it with Uncle Plato?� asked the judge. “Assault and battery is cheaper than divorce.�

Juniper rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully. “De fact ez, Jedge,� he said, “I ain’t sho dat I’se gwine ter whip him.�

“Juniper,� said the judge, “you tell Uncle Plato from me that if he drinks tea out of that teapot you’ll sue him for ten thousand dollars damages for alienating your wife’s affections.�

Juniper looked at him admiringly. “I sho will, Jedge,� he said. “Alyanatying her ’fections! I sho will! Dat sounds mos’ ez bad ez settin’ fire ter de cou’t-house. I ’low Plato ain’t gwine ter cotch et ef he kin help it. I sho ez grateful ter yo’ all, Jedge.�

The judge swung his revolving chair around to his desk. “Very good,� he said grimly; “you can go now, Juniper.�

The old man turned and shuffled back to the door; as he opened it he bowed again. “Alyanatying her ’fections! I ’low I ain’t gwine ter fergit dat. Evenin’, gentermen,� and he closed the door.

The judge looked across at Caleb. “That’s one of the Eaton faction,� he remarked grimly. “Yarnall has to contend with that kind of cattle. Juniper’s sold, body and soul, to the Eatons, and that old fool, Jinny Eaton, gave him a silver-plated teapot for his birthday. You might as well give a nigger a diamond sunburst or a tame bear. He and his wife have been at swords’ points ever since, but as sure as the first Tuesday in November comes, that whole black horde will vote the Eaton ticket.�

Caleb Trench regarded the judge thoughtfully. “You’d like to disfranchise the negro,� he remarked.

Hollis grunted. “You’re a black Republican,� he said bitingly.

Trench shook his head. “No, sir, a conservative,� he replied, “but an honest man, I hope. I haven’t much more use for the ignorant black vote than you have, but that question isn’t the one that hits me, Judge.�

The judge looked keenly at the grim composure of the face opposite. “What does?�

“Dishonesty, fraud, and intimidation,� Trench answered.

“And you propose to oppose and expose them?� The old man was keenly interested, his heavy brows drawn down, his eyes sparkling.

“I do.�

Judge Hollis rose and went over to the younger man. He laid his hand on his shoulder. “You’re a poor man, Trench; they’ll ruin you.�

“So be it.�

“You’re alone; they’ll kill you,� warned the judge.

Trench rose, and as his tall figure towered, the fine width of his brow and the peculiar lucidity of his glance had never seemed more striking. Judge Hollis watched him in grim admiration.

“I’ve got but one life,� he said, “and, as God sees me, I’ll live that life in fear of no man.�

The judge walked slowly back to his seat, took off his spectacles and laid them down beside his brief. “Reckon Jacob Eaton’s got his match at last,� he said, “and, by the Lord Harry, I’m glad of it!�

IV

DIANA ROYALL turned her horse’s head from the highroad and began to descend the Trail of the Cedar-bird. It was late afternoon, and the glory of the west was suddenly obscured with a bank of purple clouds; the distant rumble of thunder jarred the stillness, and a moisture, the promise of heavy rain, filled the air. Long streamers of angry clouds drifted across the upper sky, and far off the tall pines stirred restlessly.

Regardless of these threatenings of Nature, Diana rode on, under the interlacing boughs, swaying forward sometimes in her saddle to avoid a sweeping branch, while her horse picked his way in the narrow path, often sending a loose stone rolling ahead of them or crackling a fallen limb. Through long aisles of young green she caught glimpses of the river; now and then a frightened rabbit scurried across the path or a squirrel chattered overhead. She loved the voices of the wild things, the fragrant stillness of the pinewoods, the perfume of young blossomings. She brought her horse to a walk, passing slowly along the trail; even the soft young leaves that brushed against her shoulder were full of friendships. She loved the red tips of the maples, and the new buds of the hemlocks; she knew where she ought to hear the sweet call—“Bob White!�—and once, before the clouds threatened so darkly, she caught the note of a song-sparrow. Life was sweet; there was a joy merely in living, and she tried to crowd out of her mind that little angry prick of mortification that had stung her ever since she met the eyes of Caleb Trench across her receipt. He had known that she mocked him, had scorned to notice it, and had showed that he was stronger mentally than she was. In that single instant Diana had felt herself small, malicious, discourteous, and the thought of it was like the taste of wormwood. She resented it, and resenting it, blamed herself less than she blamed Trench. Why had he come on such a silly errand? Why had he tempted her to rudeness? The question had fretted her for weeks; for weeks she had avoided passing the little old house at the Cross-Roads where Caleb had lived now for three years. Yet, when she came to the opening in the cedars, she drew near unconsciously and looked down at the old worn gable of his roof. It faced northeast, and there was moss on its shingles; she saw a little thin trail of smoke clinging close to the lip of the chimney, for the atmosphere was heavy.

Then she turned impatiently in the saddle, breaking her vagrant thoughts away from the solitary man, secretly angry that she had thought of him at all. Her glance fell on a mass of blossoming wild honeysuckle, and the loveliness of its rose tintings drew her; she slipped to the ground and patting her horse, left the bridle loose on his neck. She had to gather up her skirts and thread her way through a bracken of ferns before she reached the tempting flowers and began to gather them. She broke off a few sprays and clustered them in her hands, pausing to look out across the newly plowed fields to her right; they had been sown to oats, and it seemed to her that she saw the first faint drift of green on the crests of the furrows. The next moment a crash of thunder shook the air, the trees overhead cracked and bent low before the onrush of the sudden gust. Her horse, a restive creature, shied violently and stood shivering with fear. Diana, grasping her flowers, started through the ferns, calling to him, but a blinding flash followed by more thunder forestalled her; the horse rose on his haunches and stood an instant, quivering, a beautiful untamed creature, his mane flying in the wind, and then plunged forward and galloped down the trail.

Diana called to him again helplessly and foolishly, for her voice was lost in the crackling of boughs and the boom of thunder; she was alone in the lonely spot, with the wind whistling in her ears. It ripped the leaves from the trees overhead and she stood in a hail of green buds. The fury of the gale increased, the black clouds advanced across the heavens with long streamers flying ahead of them, the light in the upper sky went out, darkness increased; suddenly the woods were twilight and she heard no sound but the mighty rush of the wind. As yet no rain fell, only leaves, broken twigs, and, at last, great branches crashed. The lightning tore the clouds apart in fearful rents.

It was a long way home, seven and a half miles, and already big drops spattered through the trees. Strangely enough, a thought of Caleb’s walk with the six cents flashed in upon her and she resented it. Yet the nearest shelter was the little shop at the Cross-Roads. It made no difference, she would face the storm; and she started boldly down the trail though the bushes whipped against her skirt and the boughs threatened her. Once a rolling stone nearly threw her down, but she kept resolutely on. If the horse went home riderless, what would they think? She could only dimly conjecture Colonel Royall’s distress, but she would not go to the little shop to telephone; she would walk home!

She kept steadily on. Twice the force of the wind almost drove her back; twice she had to stop and steady herself against a tree trunk. The thought came to her that she had been foolish to stay out so long, but she scarcely heeded it now, for the wind had torn her hat off and loosened her hair, and it was whipping her clothes about and tearing at her like a malicious spirit. She reached the end of the path and came into the turnpike just as the rain came in a blinding sheet, white as sea-spray, and closed down around her with a rush of water like a cloudburst. She kept on with difficulty now, scarcely seeing her way, and another rolling stone caught her foot. She stumbled and nearly fell, straightening herself with an agony darting through her ankle; she had given it a sharp twist and it no longer bore her weight without anguish. She reeled against a fence at the wayside and held to it, trying to be sure that she was in the road. Then another flash showed her the shop at the Cross-Roads, not twenty feet away. An hour before she could not have imagined her joy at seeing it, now she had only the hope that she could reach it. The pain in her ankle increased, and her drenched clothes clung to her; she pulled herself forward slowly, clinging to the fence. The roar of the wind filled the world, and the rain drove in her face.

She did not see the man in the door of the shop; she did not know that, looking at the storm, he saw a figure clinging to the fence, but she suddenly felt herself lifted from the ground and borne forward in strong arms. Then something seemed to snap in her brain, she swam in darkness for a moment, with the throb of pain reaching up to her heart, before she lost even the consciousness of that.

Afterwards, when light began to filter back, she was being carried still, and almost instantly full comprehension returned. She was aware that it was Caleb Trench who carried her, and that he did it easily, though she was no light burden. He was taking her from the shop into his office beyond when she recovered, and she roused herself with an effort and tried to slip to the floor.

“Be careful,� he said quickly, with an authority in his tone which, even at that moment, reached her; “you may have sprained or broken your ankle, I do not know which.� And he carried her to a plain old leather lounge in the corner and put her gently down. “Are you in pain?� he asked, turning up the lamp which he had already lighted.

The light fell on his face as well as upon hers, and as she looked up, Diana was impressed with the vivid force, the directness, the self-absorption of the man’s look. If her presence there meant anything to him, if he had felt her beauty and her charm as she lay helpless in his arms, he gave no sign. It was a look of power, of reserve, of iron will; she was suddenly conscious of an impulse to answer him as simply as a child.

“It is nothing,� she said; “I don’t believe I’m even hurt much. Where did you find me?�

“Almost at my door,� he replied, moving quietly to a kind of cupboard at the other side of the room and pouring some brandy into a glass. “You must drink this; your clothing is soaked through and I have nothing dry to offer you, but if you can, come to the fire.�

Diana took the liquor and drank it obediently, unconsciously yielding to the calm authority of his manner. Then she tried to rise, but once on her feet, staggered, and would have fallen but for his arm. He caught her and held her erect a moment, then gathered her up without a word, and carried her to a seat by the little open stove into which he had already thrown some wood. Diana sank into his old armchair with crimson cheeks. She was half angry, half amused; he was treating her like an injured child, and with as little heed of her grand-dame manners as if she had been six years old.

“I have telephoned to Dr. Cheyney,� he said simply, “but, of course, this storm will delay him.�

“I am not ill,� Diana protested. “I am not even badly hurt; my horse ran away, and I—I think I sprained my ankle.�

“You were clinging to the fence,� Trench said, without apparent emotion, “and you fainted when I lifted you.�

She sickened at the memory, yet was woman enough to resent the man’s indifference. “I’m sorry you ’phoned for poor old Dr. Cheyney,� she said stiffly; “please ’phone to my people to send for me.�

“I tried,� he replied, undisturbed by her hauteur, “but the storm must have interfered. I can’t get them, and now I can’t get Dr. Cheyney.�

“How long was I unconscious?� she asked quickly, trying to piece together her recovery and all that he had done.

“Ten minutes,� he answered. “I saw the horse going by riderless and went out to look. It seemed a long time before I saw you coming and carried you into the shop. I thought you were not coming to, and you were so soaked with water that I had lifted you to bring you to the fire when you recovered.�

“I hope Jerry got home,� she said thoughtfully. “It was my folly; I saw how black the clouds were, and I ought to have gone home.�

Trench stooped for more wood and fed the fire, the glow lighting up his face again. “Where were you?� he asked simply, and then “I beg your pardon—�

“I was up the trail,� she said quietly. “I stayed too long. It was beautiful; all the young things are budding. I dismounted to gather some wild honeysuckle—and it is gone!�

For the first time his eyes met hers with a glow of understanding. “Did you notice the turn above the river?� he asked, still feeding the fire.

She smiled reluctantly. “How white the cucumber is,� she answered, “and did you see the red tips of the maples? How glossy the new green leaves look!�

“There is a place there, where the old hickory fell, where you can see the orchard and that low meadow by the lane—� His face was almost boyish, eager for sympathy, awakened, changed.

“It is beautiful,� Diana replied, nodding, “and one hears the Bob White there.�

“Ah!� he breathed softly, “you noticed?�

Diana leaned her elbow on the worn arm of his chair and nestled her chin in her hand, watching him. After all, what manner of man was he?

The storm, still raging in all its fury, shook the house to its foundation; a deafening crash of thunder seemed to demolish all other sounds. She glanced covertly about the little room, seeking some explanation there. A village shopkeeper who was by nature a poet and a mystic, and of whom men spoke as a politician—there was a paradox. Something like amusement touched the edge of her thought, but she tried for the first time to understand. The room was small and lined on two sides with rough bookshelves made of unstained pine, yet there was a picturesqueness in the medley of old books, grouped carelessly about them. There were a few old worn leather chairs and the lounge, a faded rug, a table littered with papers and pens around the shaded lamp, beside which lay his pipe. His dog, Shot, a yellow nondescript, lay across the threshold, nose between paws, watching her suspiciously. The place was homely yet severe, clean but disorderly, and the strangest touch of all was the big loose bunch of apple-blossoms in an old earthen jar in the corner, the pink and white of the fragile blooms contrasting charmingly with the dull tintings of the earthenware, and bringing the fragrance of spring into the little room. Their grouping, and the corner in which he had placed them, where the light just caught the beauty of the delicate petals, arrested Diana’s thought.

“You are an artist,� she remarked approvingly; “or else—was it an accident?�

He followed her glance and smiled, and she noticed that, in spite of the rugged strength and homeliness of his face, his rare smile had almost the sweetness of a woman’s. “Not altogether accident,� he said, “but the falling of the light which seems to lift them out of the shadows behind them. Isn’t it fair that I should have something beautiful in this shabby place?�

Diana colored; had he noticed her survey and again thought her discourteous? She could say nothing to refute its shabbiness and, for the moment, her usual tact deserted her. She sat looking at the apple-blossoms in silence while he rose from his place as fire-feeder, and, going to the kitchen, came back with a cup of hot tea.

“You had better drink this,� he advised quietly; “I’m afraid you’ll take cold. I hope the tea will be right; you see I am ‘the cook and the captain too.’�

She took the cup, obediently again, and feeling like a naughty child. “It is excellent,� she said, tasting it; “I didn’t know a mere man could make such good tea.�

He laughed. “Once or twice, you know, men have led a forlorn hope. I sometimes feel like that when I attack the domestic mysteries.�

“Courage has its own rewards—even in tea, then!� she retorted, wondering if all the men who lived thus alone knew how to do so many things for themselves? In her experience it had been the other way. Colonel Royall was as helpless as a baby and needed almost as much care, and Jacob Eaton had a scornful disregard of domestic details, only demanding his own comforts, and expecting that his adoring mother would provide them without annoying him with even the ways and means. It occurred to Diana that, perhaps, it was the wide difference in social position, that gentlemen might be helpless in matters where the humbler denizens of the earth had to be accomplished; that, in short, Caleb Trench must make his own tea or go without, while Jacob Eaton could pay for the making of an indefinite succession of cups of tea. Yet, was this man entirely out of her class? Diana tasted the tea, with a critical appreciation of its admirable qualities, and quietly viewed the tea-maker. He was seated again now in the old armchair by the table, and she observed the strong lines of his long-fingered muscular hands, the pose and firmness of the unquestionably intellectual head. There was nothing commonplace, nothing unrefined in his aspect, yet all her training went to place between them an immeasurable social chasm. She regarded him curiously, as one might regard the habitant of another and an inferior hemisphere, and he was poignantly aware of her mental attitude. Neither spoke for a while, and nothing was audible in the room but the crash and uproar of the storm without. In contrast, the light and shelter of the little place seemed like a flower-scented refuge from pandemonium. Diana looked over her teacup at the silent man, who seemed less ill at ease than she was.

“I think you are a stranger here, Mr. Trench,� she said, in her soft voice; “at least, we who have been here twenty years call every one else a stranger and a sojourner in the land.�

“I have been here only three years,� he replied, “but I do not feel myself altogether a stranger—to backwoodsmen,� he added ironically.

She glanced up quickly, recalling the talk between her father and Jacob Eaton. “Is it you who are organizing them?� she asked lightly.

Her question took him by surprise, and he showed it; it seemed like an echo of old Judge Hollis. “I’m no organizer, Miss Royall,� he replied simply, stooping to caress the dog, who had come to lay his rough head against his knee.

She smiled; something in his manner, an indefinable distinction and fineness, began to make her feel at ease with him. “Is that mere modesty?� she asked. “I wish you would tell me—I love politics and,� she laughed gently, “I’m profoundly ignorant.�

His rare smile lighted the repose of his strong face again. “I am not a desirable teacher for you, Miss Royall,� he replied; “I’m that abnormal thing, that black sheep in the neighborhood, a Republican.�

She leaned over and set her empty cup on the table. “I am immensely interested,� she said. “A Republican is almost as curious as the famed ‘Jabberwock.’ It isn’t possible that you are making Republicans up in the timberlands?�

“Some one must have told you so,� he retorted quietly, a flicker of humor in his grave eyes; “they look upon me here as they would on a fox in a chicken-yard.�

She colored; she did not want to speak of her father or her cousin. “You see what a busy thing rumor is,� she said.

“You divine how harmless I am,� he went on, stooping again to throw another stick into the blaze; “a single Republican in a wilderness of Democrats. I’m no better than one old woodchuck in a cornfield.�

“A little leaven will leaven the whole lump,� she laughed.

Her new tone, which was easy now and almost friendly, touched him and melted his reserve; he looked up smiling and caught her beauty and warmth, the lovely contour of her face. Her hat had been lost, and the fire was drying her moist hair, which was loosened in soft curls about her forehead. Her presence there began to reach the man’s inner consciousness, from which he had been trying to shut her out. He was fighting to bar his thought against her, and her lovely presence in his room seemed to diffuse a warmth and color and happiness that made his pulses throb more quickly. Even the dog felt her benign influence and looked up at her approvingly. Trench steadied his mind to answer her banter in her own tone.

“The lump will reject the leaven first, I fear,� he said lightly; “I never dreamed of such vivid convictions with so little knowledge,� he added. “I come from a race of calm reasoners; my people were Quakers.�

“Oh!� She blushed as the exclamation escaped her, for she had suddenly remembered the six cents and understood the absurdity of his seven-mile walk; it was the Quaker in him. “I know nothing in the world about Quakers beyond their—their—�

“Hats?� he laughed; “like cardinals, they have that distinction.�

“Do you think me very ignorant?� she asked, unconscious that she was bridging the social chasm again and again, that she had, indeed, forgotten it in her interest in the man. His dog had come over now and laid his head in Diana’s lap, and she caressed it unconsciously; the dumb overture of friendship always touched her.

Trench turned. The firelight was on both their faces, and he met her eyes with that luminous glance which seemed to compel hers. “It would be very difficult for me to tell you what I think of you,� he said deliberately, but with a humorous kindness in his voice.

Diana drew back; she was not sure that she was annoyed. It was new, it was almost delightful to meet a primitive person like this. She could not be sure of social banalities here; he might say something new, something that stirred her pulses at any moment. It was an alarming but distinctly pleasurable sensation, this excursion into another sphere; it was almost as exciting as stealing pears. She looked at him with sparkling eyes.

“Couldn’t you try?� she asked daringly, and felt a tremulous hope that he would, though she could not believe it possible that he would calmly cross the social Rubicon again, and make her feel that all men were and are “of necessity free and equal.�

“You do not really wish me to try,� he retorted; “to you this is an adventure, and I�—he smiled, but a deeper emotion darkened his eyes—“I am the dancing bear.�

Her cheeks reddened yet more deeply, and her breath came quickly. What had she done? Opened the way for a dilemma? This man would not be led; he was a new and alarming problem. She was trying to collect her thoughts to answer him, to put back the old tone of trivial banter, to restore the lost equilibrium, but happily she was spared the task. The tempest had lulled unnoticed, while they talked, and they were suddenly aware that the shop-door had opened and closed again, and some one was coming toward them. The next moment Dr. Cheyney appeared at the threshold, and Diana sank back into the shelter of the old chair with a feeling of infinite relief.

V

HALF an hour later Caleb Trench was helping his two guests into the doctor’s old-fashioned, high-topped buggy.

“That’ll do, Caleb; I’ve got her safely tucked in,� Dr. Cheyney said, as he gathered the reins up and disentangled them from old Henk’s tail. “I reckon Henk and I can carry her all right; she isn’t any more delicate than a basket of eggs.�

Diana smiled in her corner of the carriage. “Thank you again, Mr. Trench,� she said gently; “it’s nice to have some one considerate. Dr. Cheyney has always scolded me, and I suppose he always will.�

“Think likely,� the doctor twinkled; “you mostly deserve it, Miss Royall.�

“He’s worse when he calls me names,� Diana lamented, and bowed her head again to Caleb as old Henk started deliberately upon his way.

The hood of the vehicle shut off her view, and she did not know that Trench stood bareheaded in the rain to watch the receding carriage, until the drenched green boughs locking over the road closed his last glimpse of it in a mist-wreathed perspective, beautiful with wind-beaten showers of dogwood bloom.

The two inside the buggy were rather silent for a while. Diana was watching the light rainfall. The sun was breaking through the clouds, and the atmosphere became wonderfully translucent. Great branches were strewn by the way, and a tall pine, cleft from tip to root, showed the course of a thunderbolt. The stream was so swollen that old Henk forded with cautious feet, and the water lapped above the carriage step.

“Drowned out most of the young crops,� Dr. Cheyney remarked laconically.

“What sort of a man is Caleb Trench?� Diana asked irrelevantly.

Dr. Cheyney looked around at her with quizzical eyes. “A shopkeeper,� he replied. “I reckon that’s about as far as you got before to-day, wasn’t it?�

She colored. “I suppose it was,� she admitted, and then added, “Not quite, doctor; I saw that he was odd.�

The old man smiled. “Di,� he said, “when you were no higher than my knee you’d have been more truthful. You know, as well as I do, that the man is above the average; he’s keeping shop and reading law down at Judge Hollis’ office, and he’s trying to teach the backwoodsmen honest politics. Taken out a pretty large contract, eh?�

Diana looked down at her fine strong hands lying crossed in her lap; her face was deeply thoughtful. “I suppose he’s bent on rising in politics,� she said, with a touch of scorn in her voice; “the typical self-made man.�

“You didn’t happen to know that he was a gentleman,� Dr. Cheyney remarked dryly.

She met his eye and smiled unwillingly. “I did,� she said; “I saw it—to-night.�

“Oh, you did, did you?� The old man slapped Henk with the reins. “Well, what else did you see?�

“Very little, I imagine,� she replied. “I suppose I thought he had ‘a story’; that’s the common thing, isn’t it?�

“Maybe,� admitted the doctor, “but it isn’t so, as far as I know. Caleb Trench comes of good old stock in Pennsylvania. His father lost a fortune just before Caleb left college; the old man’s dead, and his wife, too. Trench has had to work and work hard. He couldn’t take his law course, and he’s never complained. He got together a little money and had to pay it all out for his sister; she was dying of some spinal trouble, and had to be nursed through a long illness and buried. Trench gave every cent; now he’s making a new start. Hollis likes him, so does Miss Sarah.�

Diana smiled. “It’s something to please Miss Sarah.�