Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/richmansrelative03clel
(University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
2. Pages 86-87 are missing. They do not appear to be critical to the story.

A RICH MAN'S RELATIVES

PRESS NOTICES

OF

"INCHBRACKEN,"

A NOVEL BY R. CLELAND

Westminster Review, October, 1883.

"Inchbracken" is a clever sketch of Scottish life and manners at the time of the "Disruption," or great secession from the Established Church of Scotland, which resulted in the formation of the Free Church. The scene of the story is a remote country parish in the north of Scotland, within a few miles of the highland line. The main interest centres in the young Free Church minister and his sister and their relations, on the one hand, with the enthusiastic supporters of the Disruption movement, mostly of the peasant or small tradesmen class, with a sprinkling of the smaller landowners; and, on the other hand, with the zealous supporters of the Established Church, represented by the Drysdales of Inchbracken, the great family of the neighbourhood. The story is well and simply told, with many a quiet touch of humour, founded on no inconsiderable knowledge of human nature.

Academy, 27th October, 1883.

There is a great deal of solid writing in "Inchbracken," and they who read it will hardly do so in vain. It is a story of the Disruption; and it sets forth, with much pains and not a little spirit, the humours and scandals of one of the communities affected by the event. The main incident of the story has nothing to do with the Disruption, it is true; but its personages are those of the time, and the uses to which they are put are such as the Disruption made possible. Roderick Brown, the enthusiastic young Free Church minister, finds on the sea-shore after wreck and storm, a poor little human waif which the sea has spared. He takes the baby home, and does his best for it. One of his parishioners has lost her character, however; and as Roderick, at the instigation of his beadle, the real author of her ruin, is good enough to give her money and help, it soon becomes evident to Inchbracken that he is the villain, and that the baby of the wreck is the fruit of an illicit amour. How it ends I shall not say. I shall do no more than note that the story of the minister's trials and the portraitures--of elders and gossips, hags and maids and village notables--with which it is enriched are (especially if you are not afraid of the broadest Scotch, written with the most uncompromising regard for the national honour) amusing and natural in no mean degree.

W. E. Henley.

Athenæum, 17th November, 1883.

"Inchbracken" will be found amusing by those who are familiar with Scotch country life. The period chosen, the "Disruption time," is an epoch in the religious and social life of Scotland, marking a revival, in an extremely modified and not altogether genuine form, of the polemic Puritanism of the early Presbyterians, and so furnishing a subject which lends itself better to literary treatment than most sides of Scottish life in this prosaic century. The author has a good descriptive gift, and makes the most of the picturesque side of the early Free Church meetings at which declaimers against Erastian patronage posed in the attitude of the Covenanters of old. The story opens on a stormy night when Roderick Brown, the young Free Church minister of Kilrundle, is summoned on a ten-mile expedition to attend a dying woman, an expedition which involves him in all the troubles which form the subject of the book. The patient has nothing on her mind of an urgent character. "No, mem! na!" says the messenger.

"My granny's a godly auld wife, tho' maybe she's gye fraxious whiles, an' money's the sair paikin' she's gi'en me; gin there was ocht to confess she kens the road to the Throne better nor maist. But ye see there's a maggit gotten intil her heid an' she says she bent to testifee afore she gangs hence."

The example of Jenny Geddes has been too much for the poor old woman:--

"Ay, an' I'm thinkin' it's that auld carline, Jenny Geddes, 'at's raised a' the fash! My granny gaed to hear Mester Dowlas whan he preached among the whins down by the shore, an' oh, but he was bonny! An' a graand screed o' doctrine he gae us. For twa hale hours he preached an expundet an' never drew breath for a' the wind was skirlin', an' the renn whiles skelpin' like wild. An' I'm thinkin' my granny's gotten her death o' ta'. But oh! an' he was grand on Jenny Geddes! an' hoo she up wi' the creepie am' heved it a the Erastian's heid. An' my granny was just fairly ta'en wi't a', an' she vooed she beut to be a mither in Israel tae, an' whan she gaed hame she out wi' the auld hugger 'at she keeps the bawbees in, aneath the hearthstane, for to buy a creepie o' her ain,--she thocht a new ane wad be best for the Lord's wark,--an' she coupet the chair whaur hung her grave claes,' at she airs fonent the fire ilika Saturday at e'en, 'an out there cam a lowe, an' scorched a hole i' the windin' sheet, an' noo, puir body, we'll hae to hap her in her muckle tartan plaid. An' aiblins she'll be a' the warmer e'y moulds for that. But, however, she says the sheet was weel waur'd, for the guid cause. An' syne she took til her bed, wi' a sair host, an' sma' winder, for there was a weet daub whaur she had been sittin' amang the whins. An' noo the host's settled on her that sair, she whiles canna draw her breath. Sae she says she maun let the creepie birlin' slide, but she beut to testifee afore some godly minister or she gangs hence. An' I'm fear'd, sir, ye maun hurry, for she's real far through."

The excuse for this long extract must be its excellence as a specimen of a long-winded statement, just such as a Scotch fisher boy would make when once the ice was broken. Not less idiomatic is the interview between Mrs. Boague, the shepherd's wife, and Mrs. Sangster "of Auchlippie," the great lady of the congregation, when the latter has had her painful experience of mountain climbing, till rescued by the "lug and the horn" at the hands of her spiritual pastor. Other good scenes are the meeting of the two old wives in mutches an the brae side, and the final discomfiture of the hypocritical scamp Joseph Smiley by his mother-in-law, Tibbie Tirpie, who rights her daughter's wrongs and the minister's reputation by a capital coup de main. Of more serious interest, though full of humour, are the trials the excellent Roderick endures at the hands of his kirk session. Ebenezer Prittie and Peter Malloch are types of many an elder minister and ministers' wives have had to groan under, and the race is not extinct. But all who are interested in such specimens of human nature should refer to Mr. Cleland, who knows his countrymen as well as he can describe his country.

A

RICH MAN'S RELATIVES.

BY

R. CLELAND,

AUTHOR OF "INCHBRACKEN."

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

F. V. WHITE AND CO.,

31, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.

1885.

PRINTED BY
KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS;
AND MIDDLE MILL KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.

CONTENTS

A RICH MAN'S RELATIVES.

CHAPTER I.

[BANKS AND BRAYS].

Ralph's satisfaction at carrying through his manœuvre with the mining company's directors amounted almost to elation. The unexpected appearance of opposition in that docile body had startled him at first, but he had been able to ride it down in so summary and highhanded a fashion that he doubted not but the spirit was quenched for ever, and congratulated himself on its having appeared at a moment when it could so easily and utterly be crushed and abolished. A meeting of the bank directors next door was now due. Glancing at his watch, he found that he was already fifteen minutes late, caught up his portfolio of bank papers in haste, and passed by way of the dressing-room into the bank, confident as an Alexander mounting his war-horse, and riding forth to new victories.

A breath of chill air blew in his face as he entered the board-room and met reserved and distant glances on every side. They had not waited for his coming, and were already deep in business. His own arm-chair, he observed--the arm-chair of pre-eminence at the end of the table, heretofore sacred to his own use, was occupied by M. Petitôt, the pork packer, vice-president of the bank, who, however, had the grace to rise apologetically, and make way, observing that they had feared Mr. Herkimer did not intend to be present, when Mr. Jowler, the bark dealer, sprang to his feet, and moved that the vice-president retain the chair for the present, M. Petipomme seconding the motion.

Ralph bit his lip, and something like a scowl passed momentarily across his face at the overt act of mutiny, which not so long before he would have quelled with a crack of the whip, and brought the unruly curs to heel with drooping neck and tail. But the moment was not opportune for the exercise of authority; his brow grew clear again, if somewhat pale, his features calm, if a trifle set, and expressionless, and he sat down in a vacant chair at the lower end of the table.

The business, however, appeared to have come to a stop; no one spoke, and each looked at his neighbour, while the vice-president moved restlessly in his chair, and twiddled his watch chain with uneasy fingers. He coughed, cleared his voice, lifted his eye-glass to his eyes, and let it drop, but still he said nothing, while Ralph looked inquiringly round the board. Several ledgers had been brought in from the bank and lay upon the table, every one open at the page headed, "Ralph Herkimer & Son;" and while he waited, a clerk entered with yet another, containing some further variety of information which he laid before the chairman, opening it and officiously pointing out the desired record, then looking up as he turned to withdraw, his eyes lighted on the president himself, when a guilty flush and a deprecatory glance betrayed that the information he had been presenting bore upon the same point as the rest.

"You appear, gentleman, to be looking into the working of my account," said Ralph, after a further period of silence; "Pray go on, don't mind me! You will find it is a profitable account, perhaps the most profitable in your books. Satisfy yourselves by all means. It is your right. But permit me to say that the time and the manner are not well chosen. There is something not altogether friendly, nor quite above-board, in this way of gratifying your curiosity. Is it honourable, gentleman, or manly, to watch till you get a man's back turned before proceeding to overhaul his account?"

"Strong language, Mr. Herkimer," said several voices at once.

"Most unwarrantable," muttered Jowler.

"It is true, gentlemen, and not a bit stronger than the facts warrant."

"Indeed, Mr. President," said Petitôt blandly--he was noted for a courteous benignity which never failed, so long at least as there remained a chance of the other side's ability to make him regret being otherwise. After that--well, after those others became too weak for it to matter, the world took little heed how he behaved, and he acted accordingly, as pleased him best--brutally, the sufferers called it. "Indeed, Mr. President, you take up the matter too seriously. The accident of your absence when the question arose was a mere coincidence. We are all, I assure you, well aware of the value of your account."

"Should think so," muttered Jowler, pleased to find how quickly they were drifting to the pith of the grievance. "It amounts to half or two-thirds of the bank's capital already, and it promises to swallow up the whole before long."

"Which would not suit you, Jowler," retorted Ralph, sneering assiduously to conceal his wrath, and perhaps his dismay. "But it might be well for the country and for the bank itself, that it should not have any funds to dissipate in the bark business. I say 'dissipate' designedly, gentlemen. I know of four cargoes of cutch and gambler now on the way for this port, with more to follow. Bark prices must collapse, and the less we have to do with the article at present, the better for us. It is well for the country, I consider, that discouragement should arise to stop the reckless destruction of our hemlock forests. If Jowler and his like are allowed their way, we shall not have a hemlock left standing in ten years' time."

"And how much better off is the bank with its tons of plumbago, which cannot be brought to market?" retorted Jowler angrily. "The plumbago paper has been renewed three times already, and the amount increased without the sanction of the board."

"Are we not drifting into a wrangle, gentlemen, and wasting time to no good purpose?" said Mr. Seebright, of the Journal. "The bank settlements are going against us week after week, and the specie reserve is running down. What are we to do? That is the question."

"Circulation going down every day," added Petipomme, with an air of wisdom.

"And pray, gentlemen, did you ever know it otherwise at this season?" cried Ralph, eager to score any point an injudicious speaker might put in his way. "Look into the government returns for last year, look into them for any year, and you will find the circulation of the country reaches its lowest points in August and February. It has several weeks to go on diminishing yet, but it is larger than it was this time last year. Wait till September, and you will see it go up and increase steadily till it reaches its highest point in November. The thing is as regular as the seasons, and no resolution this board can pass will alter it."

"All very true, President," said Seebright; "but this drain of the reserve must be stopped somehow. How do you propose to do it? We must contract--realize. Where shall we begin to prune?"

Ralph was silent. He wanted to borrow more, and with the particulars of the account actually on the table, it seemed best not to excite ill-will by proposing to impose a reduction on any one else. Jowler had taken up a share list to cover his chagrin under Ralph's attack; he now laid it down with a loud "Hillo! St. Euphrase mining shares down four per cent since yesterday! What's up, President? Things going badly?"

"I walked down street with old Mr. Premium this morning," said Petipomme--"parted from him not half-an-hour ago. He says there's something up, he could not make out what, but some villager had been to him, eager to sell out at once, and at any price. The man was very close and would say nothing, but he was so eager that Premium grew panicky and was going to unload."

"The bank has made you an advance, President, on some of that stock," cried Jowler. "Four per cent off the security at one drop! I call on you to put up a fresh margin."

"I scarcely think you will consider that necessary, gentlemen, when I tell you that, at the meeting held this morning, the directors have agreed to declare a dividend of five per cent. It will be in all the papers to-morrow. You will find the announcement on your table, Mr. Seebright, when you get back to your office, and an advertisement for to-morrow's issue."

"Five per cent?" said Petitôt, congratulating himself on not having joined in the late attempted onslaught. "Is not that unexpected? I have heard no word of it."

"It was only decided this morning, and we agreed to declare it at once, so that bonâ fide shareholders should reap the advantage rather than mere speculators."

"And it is not known yet?" asked Petitôt eagerly. "But it will be, in an hour's time," he added, answering himself. "Gentlemen! I think there is no other business before the board. I declare the meeting adjourned to this day next week;" and, seizing his hat, Mr. Petitôt was gone, and half-way across the street to his broker's before any of his brethren could have interposed a word, which, however, none of them seemed wishful to do. Such a rush for hats and general stampede had never been seen before; the assistant cashier, who wrote the minutes, found the room deserted, when he laid down his pen, by all but the president, and the roll of bills, which should have been shared among the several gentlemen, still before him--an unprecedented circumstance.

"What is to be done with this, Mr. Herkimer?"

"You and I had better share it between us, Briggs," he chuckled. "What would they say if we did? They have all skipped off to buy St. Euphrase mining shares, and they will make so much money they will never miss this--that is, not before the shares are bought. Afterwards, when they have completed their operation, they will recollect, and come asking for it. Put it in your desk for the present, it will not be long till they relieve you of the charge."

CHAPTER II.

[A CONFIDANTE].

The day came for the Misses Stanley's return to the country. Muriel's classes were over, and the streets grown hot and dusty past endurance. Life was a burden under the all-pervading glare shot from the vault overhead, and the two miles breadth of glassy river, the acres on acres of shining tin-roofs, and the heated face of limestone pavements. The breeze felt withering like breath from a furnace, hotter even than the air at rest, and cool was attainable only by ingenious contrivance, and in twilight darkness.

"Ah!" said Considine; he had been lingering in town till now, and had suddenly found out that it was time to take his yearly villagiatura at St. Euphrase, his plans coinciding with those of his friends so closely, that when the ladies reached the railway station he was already on the platform to assist them about tickets and baggage as well as to join them in the parlour car; which Miss Penelope considered quite remarkable, but most fortunate and "very nice." "Ah!" said Considine, raising a window as the train rolled into the country, "what a different air to breathe! It smells and feels of the country already."

"Yes," said Miss Matilda, "I feel myself absorbing new vitality from the verdure as we pass along. Do the woods not look seductive after the baking and withering we have suffered of late? One grudges even the delay of railway speed. What will it not be this afternoon to sit among the trees, with coolness rustling softly through the foliage--just to sit and feel one's self alive--with every breath a new deliciousness, and the sense of rest and freshness making one happy and new down to the finger-tips. You will find it delightful at Podevin's to-day, so close by the river. I can imagine you will get into a boat immediately, and go out in the stream and drift, and smoke your cigar, I dare say; you gentlemen seem always doing that, though it must spoil the flavour of a day so exquisite as this, it seems to me."

"As Podevin, whose house is full, has fitted me up the room over the boat-house for my chamber, I imagine I shall have my share of any coolness stirring; yet it would, I dare say, be pleasant to make a beginning of the freshness at full strength by getting into a boat. However, I shall not stay long, and if you will permit me, when the afternoon heat grows moderate, I will walk up to your house and learn if you and Miss Stanley are still alive--and my young friend Muriel also, though indeed, the weather appears to suit her well enough."

And truly at that moment Muriel was in perfect comfort, sitting a little apart with an escort of her own--her friend Gerald who had deserted the cares of business for her sweet company. Not that he found her difficult of access at other times, for they often met; but there is a privacy in a public railway carriage when the rumbling of the wheels drowns conversation for every ear other than the one addressed, and a safety from intrusion and interruption while the journey lasts, not easily to be found elsewhere.

Muriel sat in one corner of a sofa, with Gerald in the other, listening to his purring, and purring softly back. It may have been owing to the heat of the day, but their talk seemed less lively than at other times, and their glances drooped shyly on the ground instead of seeking and meeting each other's as they were wont. Gerald drew closer as they talked, and by-and-by his hands secured one of hers, and held it in possession. He would have slipped his hand behind her waist, perhaps, if her position in the corner of the sofa had not been beyond his reach; and as it was, she used some effort to liberate the imprisoned hand, and regained it at last. Hushing and growing pale the while in her fear of having become grouped with her companion into a tableau too interesting to escape notice. And then her eyes rose shyly to his face, and shining with a light they had not held before, and her lips parted tremulously to smile, and faltered out words which were lost in the roar and hubbub of the rattling wheels, and Gerald could not hear them; but the eyes which had looked in his a moment, the rosy flushing and the tremulous smile, were proof the unheard answer was not "no," and he was happy. When the train reached St. Euphrase Muriel was "engaged," while still it wanted a week of her sixteenth birthday.

It is not very remarkable, if, in view of his success, young Gerald stepped on the platform with something of the victor in his mein--his head thrown back, and his coat unbuttoned, flapping away from the expanded chest, while his eyes looked forth on the world at large, with the broad imperial gaze of a new-crowned conqueror, while Muriel leaned on his arm perhaps a shade more clingingly than she was aware. It struck Betsey Bunce, at least, who, according to her custom, was awaiting the city train, to espy the new arrivals, and pick up any fragments of news dropped by her acquaintance--it struck Betsey that summer day, that Gerald was a far finer and handsomer fellow than theretofore she had thought him. She bowed and waved her hand with much empressement; she even stepped forward to welcome him to St. Euphrase at that unusual hour; but Gerald did not see her. His head was in the clouds, and he inhaling that upper ether where swim the stars and the souls of the most blest, to whom the gods have granted all their desire. He was dazzled by the brightness of his own felicity--alas, that the felicity should be as fleeting as its power to dazzle--and saw little of what passed around him. Only he felt, and felt only the pressure of a slender hand resting on his arm. And so, unwittingly, he strode past Betsey Bunce; and Muriel, too, being with him, and somewhat overcome, looking down, and with her mind disturbed with new and confusing thoughts, and feelings which, if not so altogether new, were yet now first acknowledgedly to herself permitted to harbour there.

And Betsey believed herself to have been slighted, and her wrath grew hot against the young man, and her envy greener-eyed against the girl, who continued to secure so many things which in justice should have been hers; but having a "spirit," as she considered, she only tossed her head, and walked forward through the arriving passengers in search of other acquaintance.

It was the same train which carried home the directors of the mining association after their board meeting. Podevin was the first to alight. He appeared a happier man than when setting out in the morning. With him was Belmore, who had sunk through the whole gamut from confidence to despair, and whose barometer of feeling had again risen to "tranquil." His golden hopes for the future, indeed, had vanished, but he expected under Stinson's direction to sell out without loss, and by aid of the village notary to make everything snug in case of after litigation. Joe Webb alone looked troubled and oppressed. The dangers to his investment, and of his position as director, had now for the first time been disclosed to him, and he was at a loss how to act; and yet to take professional advice seemed to his scrupulous mind to be a breach of confidence towards his fellow directors, while to act with them appeared dishonest to the shareholders and the general public. It was useless to open his mind to Belmore and Podevin; they were resolved to save themselves at whatever cost to other people. He felt that he must not breathe a word among his neighbours, and at home he was a lonely bachelor with only his faithful pipe to soothe counsel and console him. It was with something akin to gratitude, therefore, that he received the friendly greeting of Betsey Bunce. Had his dog been near to lick his hand in that hour of darkness he would have been thankful; how much more when human sympathy and goodwill were offered him.

"You are back from town early to-day, Mr. Joe," cried Betsey, holding out her hand with demonstrative cordiality. She had felt snubbed before the eyes of all St. Euphrase by her "cousin Gerald," as she called him when out of hearing, not having noticed her, and she owed it to herself, she fancied, to show that she did not care, and had plenty of other young men to speak to.

"Yes," said Joe with a sigh, clasping the proffered hand as a drowning man lays hold on a straw. Anything is good to catch at when one is sinking.

"And you look tired," she added with plaintive sympathy.

"Worried, any way. Those town folks, you know. Miss Betsey, ain't like us here in the country."

"Ah! worried. I know the feeling so well; when one does not quite know, perhaps, what it is one wants, and yet is quite sure that what they would have is what we don't want. I know it, and town folks are so selfish."

It is marvellous how some big broad-shouldered fellow, with a fist of his own and the will to use it, who ruffles it among his peers and holds unabated his manly front before odds, opposition, and misfortune, will wilt and weaken into drivelling self-pity for a few soft words, spoken, mayhap, in doubtful sincerity, by some insignificant dot of a woman, and one for whom he feels no more than friendship. Is it a survival of the habit in childhood of bringing his pains and troubles to his mother's lap? Or is it that man needs woman to complete his being?--drawing courage from her sympathy in his hour of darkness, even as she needs the protection of his strength in hers? It is a fact, at least, that the bands which knit him in his pride, soften like wax before her, and bully Bottom lays his honest ass's head contentedly upon any Titania's knee, smiling in fatuous content as she twiddles his long ears between her dainty fingers.

"Town folks are very selfish," said Betsey again.

"If they were honest one would not mind that. We country folk do the best we can for ourselves, and would have both hands under, too, every time, if only we could get it."

"You are generous, Mr. Joe. I always said it of you."

"I try to be fair," he answered, looking pleased.

"And some people don't know what fairness means," rejoined Betsey, with fervour, and a glance of appreciation into his face. She did not know what she meant or was speaking about, but her companion did, and approved her sentiments, which did just as well. She had begun the conversation merely with a general desire to be pleasant, but now she was growing interested in his evident depression, and curious to learn its cause. He was not in love, that seemed certain--love always struck our tender Betsey as the trouble most natural to a fine young man. He would not be so ready, surely, to indulge his "dumps," for some other girl in her company; and if it were herself, there was no ground for dumps at all; he might have her for the asking, she half suspected, though she would not demean herself in her own eyes by considering the point until the gentleman brought it properly under her notice. Wherefore Miss Betsey went a fishing, and baiting her hook with a gentle enthusiasm, she spoke again:

"There's nothing so rare, I think, as fairness. Only the manly men are ever fair, and women never."

"I want to do what's fair. Miss Betsey, and I guess I have managed slick enough so far; but now it's a teaser to know which way to turn. Is a man bound, think you, to harm himself to save his neighbours?"

"I guess not, Mr. Webb; leastways, you know well enough they wouldn't harm themselves to benefit you--not by a good deal, and you know it."

"But what is a fellow to do? If I hold my tongue and let them walk into a trap they will be sure to say it was me ensnared them--that I being a director knew all about it."

"Director? Mr. Webb. Surely it's not your mining company you are talking about?"

Joe looked confused. He had let his cat out of the bag without meaning it. He had begun by thinking aloud, or rather by letting the oozing of his thoughts escape into his talk. Then it had occurred to him that while "naming no names," he might be able to draw a sort of sample opinion in the abstract, and learn therefrom how his position must appear in the eyes of others; and here he found himself on the brink of a full disclosure, with an extremely compromising admission already past recall, and confided to the doubtful secrecy of a woman--the most talkative woman, perhaps, in the village.

"Oh, no. Miss Betsey, you are quite mistaken, I assure you," he faltered forth, with the shame-faced effrontery of one unused to deception, and who scarcely expects his falsehood to succeed.

"No, you don't, Mr. Joe Webb. You don't fool me with your assurances. I know quite well when a gentleman means what he says. You may just as well trust me with the whole story. You know you can depend on my discretion."

"And you will promise not to say a word to any living soul? And you will give me your hand on it? Honour bright?"

"My hand on it, Mr. Webb. Honour bright," and she looked her winningest up into his face. "Who knew?" she thought, "here she was giving a first solemn promise to handsome Joe Webb, and sharing a secret with him, who knew but that she might make him another promise yet?--and what the purport of that promise might be?"

"And I may really trust you?"

"Mr. Webb!"

"Well! It is something to have any kind of fellow bein' one may let out one's breath to. I've 'most 'bust, these last few hours, for want of a soul I could speak to; but now I feel relieved like, and think I can bear up. But I'll be round and see you. Miss Betsey, and we'll have a talk about it if ever I feel nigh busting again." In fact, Betsey's glances had been too deeply laden with expression. She had forgotten the advice of wise King Solomon, and the wary bird had descried in time the net so flagrantly spread out within his view.

"Then it's nothing at present you've been so anxious to confide to me, Mr. Webb?" cried Betsey just a little tartly. "I wondered at your precautions, and, really, they frightened me; and I am very glad you have changed your mind and are going to keep them to yourself. So you give me back my promise and my 'honour bright?' I can breathe free again----" "What you told me," she added after a pause, and with just a suspicion of mischief twinkling under her eyelids, "about your directorship and the company's going soon to smash, don't count, of course, for that was before we said 'honour bright.'"

"How you do run on, Miss Betsey. Of course I hold you to your promise, and it covers everything we have said since we met. If I do not tell you a lot, it is only because there isn't a lot to tell. But really you must not talk about the mining company, or there will be the d---- to pay. Fact is, old Herkimer has not been acting on the square."

"I can believe that," cried Betsey eagerly. Gerald's offence was too recent to be forgotten or forgiven yet awhile.

"He made us declare a div-- at the meeting to-day, though he knows there is nothing to divide, and that most all the metal in the mine has been dug out already. He expects to get shut of his shares that way without losing money, and he don't care what becomes of the concern after that, and he is just using us directors as cats-paws to save his chestnuts."

"Quite likely. They are deep scheming men, both father and son. Just look at Gerald there, and the way he is going on with poor little Muriel! See how the little fool is hanging to his arm."

"She's a fine little girl, Miss Muriel Stanley, and I can excuse anything a fellow does to win her, if only he is good to her afterwards. You think he's after the aunts' money I guess, Miss Betsey? That would be mean, but he can't help liking, the sweet little thing herself all the same."

"Sweet little humbug! And she isn't a Stanley after all! and not the Stanleys' niece. She's nobody's child, that I tell you, and nobody's niece. She was found inside a paper parcel. And as for their money, it's me and my uncle should get it by right, when they are done with it, and they won't sleep easy in their graves if they leave it past us that are their proper flesh and blood; and what's more, I mean to give them a bit of my mind about it, and that right smartly. I'd after them at once, but there's that old fool Considine holding the sunshade over Matilda's head, and we'd best keep family matters at home. Just look at the old thing! Faugh! It makes me sick to see a woman of her age, that should be at home making her soul, philandering about the country with an old dandy like that! Her sunshade lined with rose-coloured silk and no less, to mend her old complexion--while young girls like me must go without--and her curls like sausages flapping about half-way down to her waist. Ha! There they go in at auntie's door to get a drink of ice-water or something. I'll to them there. Good-bye, Mr. Webb! You may depend on me, and trust me fully;" and she hastened away with the "bit of her mind" she had spoken of already on her tongue tip waiting to be launched.

The launching was scarcely a success, however, or so Joe Webb inferred, when, having claimed his horse at the stable, he rode past the rectory on his homeward way. The Misses Stanley were just then leaving the house, looking flushed and indignant, the wife following them to the door with deprecatory looks which changed into dismay as they departed without a sign of leave-taking, and Betsey in the background, too crushed and ashamed to be aware even that it was Joe as he went by.

Whatever unpleasantness occurred passed harmlessly by Muriel. She was walking with Gerald down by the river's bank--her very first walk with an acknowledged lover, for hitherto they had kept up the boy and girl traditions of their earlier friendship, and these now were discarded for the first time as the petals fall from the blossom when their work is done, and they can lend no more assistance to the forming fruit. She missed the altercation, and her aunts took care that she should not hear of it.

CHAPTER III.

[FRIENDS IN COUNCIL].

It was a fortnight later, it was August, and it was dusk. Having dined, the men had stepped forth through open windows to smoke upon their lawns, the ladies, not far off, snuffing the fragrance wafted through the gloom, or, Canadian-wise, setting out on visitations to their neighbours' precincts, or receiving uninvited raiders on their own; the middle-aged to sit and fan and gossip lazily, the young to sing or even dance, chasing the sultry oppression with active exercise, as youth alone is privileged to do.

Jordan had dined, and his shadowy figure would show now and then sharp against the sky, to be lost momentarily again on the dim background of surrounding trees. Only the red spark of his cigar was always seen, travelling back and forth fitfully across the dusky vagueness. Now it would flash out bright and travel briskly, and then anon it would dwindle and grow dim in rusty redness, creeping along or even stationary for a while, starting again into brightness and hurried movement--signs of pre-occupation, doubt, and suppressed excitement in the smoker.

"Ho! Jordan." The hail came suddenly out of the dimness; the light of another cigar drawing near gradually, like the drowsy flight of a belated beetle, being the only sign that Jordan was no longer alone. He started, pulling briskly at his cigar till it glowed and lighted up not only his own features, but those of Ralph Herkimer, who now stood before him.

"Herkimer! Most pleased to see you. Will you--will you come in?"

"No, I had rather join you here in your stroll and smoke, if you don't mind," lighting a fresh cigar as he spoke.

"Well? And are you sorry now you took my advice?" he went on when the process of lighting up was completed. "The difference between the rise we brought about and the impending collapse which you foresaw--and which would inevitably have taken place if your original block of the stock and Rouget's, which I believe you now hold, had all been offered at once. Must be a little fortune."

"Scarcely that, perhaps, but I admit it has turned out a very pretty thing, and does you the very highest credit as a financial engineer. But tell me, how long will this boom last?"

"Till the bubble is pricked, of course--provided the offerings at one time are not more than can be easily absorbed. You can choke even a hungry dog by stuffing too big pieces down his throat."

"Will the price go higher yet?"

"Naturally, if we restrict the supply."

"Fact is, I am holding, still. Never could bring myself to sell on a rising market. I should feel as if I paid every after advance out of my own pocket. But I mean to begin to-morrow--moderately, that is."

"Right," said Ralph between two puffs. He had himself "unloaded" a week before, and had little faith in the future; but it seemed unnecessary to mention that.

"And there is no fear of the ugly rumours coming out again? If the men are seen hanging idle about the tap-rooms, for example, will it not excite inquiry?--from those blockheads with hammers, for instance, who are prowling about the neighbourhood, and trying to get at our people to treat and pump them?"

"The men speak mostly French, the prowlers English. There is safety in that. The men are good Catholics, too; M. le Curé recommended many of them, and they think the English want to tamper with their religion, so they give them a wide berth."

"But how do you keep them busy? And how long can you keep it up?"

"I am getting all who are likely to be troublesome away to Montana, engaging them for a mining concern, which, if it could be found, would no doubt employ them. The men cannot get back from Montana before Fall."

"Bright idea, that. But there are Podevin and the two others. They will blab, I fear, as soon as they succeed in selling out."

"Podevin won't. You made sure of him at the board meeting, when you told him that if it were known the directors would be indictable for fraud. Or was it that fool Webb said it? Podevin and Belmore have sold out, I know, but they are too frightened, both, to say a word. I have seen them come out of the notary's more than once, and doubt not they are conveying their property to their respective wives. I pity Belmore if he does; his wife is Catholic and a devotee, she is sure to leave it all to the church for the benefit of his heretical soul. The other fellow is your--I mean our--real danger. He is as obstinate and as stupid as a pig, and he thinks it would be wrong to save himself, as the rest are doing, while at the same time he bears us a grudge for leading him into the scrape. He has been to me in town several times, but I can make nothing of him, and I fear he is up to some virtuous devilment or another. The fool has honour enough to fit out a township, common cad though he be. Wish I had known sooner."

"Hm! Then I must make haste and get out of the sinking boat."

"Take care you do not founder the whole thing in your panic. Unload by degrees--only so much each day, and, if possible, a little less than is asked for. That will keep the price up, and the quotations of daily transactions will preserve confidence."

"I owe you thanks, Ralph, for your suggestions. So far they have been most valuable. I shall not soon forget how wisely you encouraged me to hold on. I only wish I could reciprocate your favours; but that is not to be hoped. You know all the ropes so much better than I do. Take the will for the deed, old man! and if--by good fortune--if ever----"

"But you can, my dear Jordan, you really can--and I am glad to know that your goodwill is equal to the test; though indeed it is nothing I am asking after all--nothing to cost you anything."

"Name it," mumbled Jordan with a good deal less effusion than he had been indulging in the minute before, though still as cordially as the staccato shock to his nerves would allow. To say truth, he felt not unlike the sportive mouse, which, in pure lightness of heart, has nibbled through the thread whose yielding liberates the spring which catches and holds as in a vice. What wonder that instinctively he should wriggle to withdraw, the moment he felt himself being held, even to a position of his own choosing? Bitten by his own teeth, he would have felt less foolish--less like the stag entangled by his own antlers in a thicket, to wait the coming of the hunter and his hounds.

Ralph noted the change in manner and tone; and the humour of it, causing inward laughter, made the smoke he was inhaling lose its way, and brought on a fit of coughing.

"I want you to pay up Gerald's fortune at once," he said at length. "It wants not much more than a year, you know, to the time fixed. He is of age, and he is my partner, so we shall both be responsible. I am Gerald's next heir, too, so it can have no bad consequences for you, besides being a great convenience to us."

The tumult in Jordan's circulation had had time to subside, and his voice had grown even again. It was more mellifluously soothing now than even its professional wont. "How I wish it had been something else," he said; "something within the bounds of possibility. It distresses me to--but----"

"Quite so, my friend. The usual way of the world. Anything that is not wanted you would have felt it a privilege to do. Is it not so?--even to pulling out your eyes, only you know I am not a cannibal and prefer oysters; so they would be of no use."

"Really, my dear Ralph, you must not put it in that way, you know. Indeed, you have no right to say so. Just think----"

"Oh, I know--quite so--by all means, if you wish it. I know better than chop arguments with a lawyer. That would be worse than an altercation with a woman. He is not satisfied, like her, with the last word, he must have the best of it as well. But the facts remain."

"Is that not an admission, my friend, that you know your position will not bear examination?"

"Look out for your own position, friend Jordan! I have a presentiment it would not be impossible to knock that over like a house of cards on the Stock Exchange to-morrow morning, however easily you might overthrow me in argument to-night."

"I used the word 'position' to express your statement of the case, my dear fellow; I meant nothing offensive."

"And what sort of statement would you make of your own case if I were to dismiss all the miners to-morrow open the gates, and let the world in to see?"

"Pray do be calm, Ralph, and don't grow excited, I had almost said violent. You forget that I am only one of two. I can do nothing alone."

"I know it; but you can persuade your brother trustee, I believe, as I cannot. Besides, he will say, like you, that he is one of two; so I make sure of you before approaching him. Now, what do you say?--My Canadian interests are in a mess. I have washed my hands of those mines--I can ruin you, observe, if I like, without hurting myself--I am already deeply dipped in Pikes Peak and Montanas and I must throw in all the rest I have to save what is there already. My interests are across the lines now, and I mean to be there myself also. So you see I can have no personal interest in sparing you, and I have no doubt that Webb's fear of a criminal prosecution of the directors will come true."

"I am not a director."

"It would be proved that you attended the meetings and influenced the board in favour of every irregularity--and there are plenty of irregularities, I can tell you. The others will insist, you may depend upon it, on the pleasure of your company with them in the dock; and, for myself, I don't see why they shouldn't. I imagine that weak chest of yours will need at least six months to recuperate in Florida--but there will not be time for you to save your fortune and get away if you do not listen to reason----" "You force me to speak plainly," he added, as Jordan stopped short in his walk and dropped heavily upon a garden seat, deprived of strength to stand upright. His cigar had dropped from between his teeth, and he sat a mere black shadow in the dusk till Ralph, pulling his own smouldering spark, into brilliancy, bent near and saw how sickly pale his visage had become.

"What say you, Jordan? How are we to arrange?"

"It will take time to realize and gather in. The accounts, extending over eighteen years as they do, are voluminous and complicated; it will take time to make them up. You see it is nearly two years yet till the time for handing over the trust, so there has appeared to be no hurry so far; but it will take months to get the thing into shape."

"I see. And you know that within a week or two I shall be across the lines, and that it will be a couple of years at least before I shall care to revisit Canada. Now, really, my friend, do you take me for the sort of person it is worth while talking such slop to? Hand me the securities as they are; I am surely as well able to negotiate them as you can be."

"I could transfer you those mining shares, of course, if you wished it. Yes! That will simplify matters; part of them, I mean, the second part."

"Mining shares? Come now, that's a rum un. My uncle's estate don't hold a dollar's worth of them. You forget the transfer books lie in my office, and I could not have overlooked Considine's name either for himself or as trustee. Our company is not in his line. He knows too much and too little for that class of investment. But I see! and it is what I might have suspected from your sudden rise in the world, only that I did not think you could have got round Considine--I know I could not. I admire your management, Jordan. I really do, you must have finessed very cleverly to nobble old Cerberus like that! A good slice of the money has passed through your hands, we may infer; and, of course, as would happen with any one else--I don't blame you, mind--it has got a little confused and mixed up, as it were, amongst your own, which is natural; and I do not mind accommodating you as far as may be. We will take, say, half of your holding--the first half--and it to be sold before you disturb the rest. We will take it at par, and give you credit for it. What else will you give us?"

"Par? Man alive! I bought Rouget's at a premium, and I have been holding the whole ever so long, with the risk of its falling all the time. You must take it at the market value, say a hundred and seventy-six."

"Whose money is it? By your own admission? And do you not receive a pension under the will for looking after it? If the price had gone down, would you have made good the loss?"

"You have no right to insinuate that I would have done anything improper. However, I will not yield to so outrageous a demand. No man in his senses would; especially when you have no more business with it than the parish priest, for two years to come."

"You will force me, however unwillingly, to make Gerald file a petition to have your trusteeship overhauled; with the affidavit I can make in support the court cannot possibly refuse."

"I shall have an information lodged against you for swindling before the petition can be heard. Who will mind your affidavit after that?"

"Good for you, old man. A stale mate! It does one good to play a match against you, Jordan; it brightens one's wits. Well now, can we make a truce? If I do my best to gain you time to realize, and promise to keep Gerald quiet for the next two years, will you get me that money out of Considine's hands? How much is it, by-the-way?"

"Half. We divided the property to avoid the endless consultations, each agreeing to do his best with half, and trust the other."

"Well, get Considine to hand over, and you shall be left undisturbed."

"I don't believe he will do it."

"Will you try to persuade him?"

"Yes."

"Come, then, we will find him at Podevin's, and have it out before we sleep."

"He is not there. I saw him walk past as I sat down to dinner; gone to Miss Stanley's, I fancy, as usual."

"He will be back before long, now; let us go down and wait."

"Better wait here, there are always inquisitive loafers around there. Come in and sit down, the moon is rising. He will not leave his friends till it is high enough to light him home."

CHAPTER IV.

[MOONLIGHT AND SHADOW].

Considine retired early to his chamber by the river-side. The moon was up and emerging in lucent clearness from the bands of dimming haze which joined the transparent heaven to the grosser earth. There was no wind, only a stealing deliciousness on the sweet night air, lulled by faint whispering among the aspen leaves hard by, and the lapping of the waters round the boat-house. It was far too good a time to waste in the unconsciousness of sleep: merely to exist and feel was tranquil joy. He extinguished his lamp, threw off his coat, and lighting a pipe, sat by the open window, and puffed and dreamed.

Swiftly the stream swept by beneath the casement, each swirling eddy touched with a ring of moonlight, and wavy gleaming lines threading the dusky current in its course, showing the volume and the swiftness and the might--like time, like life, like fate. And yet it was not gloomy. The flickering lustre brightened as the moon rose higher, and Considine's eye rested meditatively upon the scene. The river, it seemed to him, was not unlike the passing of his own existence, with something cold and something solitary in it, issuing from one obscurity, and hurrying onward to another--nothing but a passing, and yet not all a cheerless one.

A gentle influence, it seemed to him, was shining just then on his life also, one as pure and good as the beams upon the passing tide, but like that, far off, and cool, and unapproachable. The swellings of the current seemed to leap and glance up, longing and responsive, but the Lady Moon smiled back still in the same cool gentle brightness, coming never the nearer, however the waves might flicker and burn in impotent desire and longing. Matilda, too, was very far away. The sense of yearning to be near her had long been in his soul; it had germinated and grown so gradually that he had not known its presence, till at length in its spreading it grew into his thought, and he knew that he desired.

Yet to disturb the pleasant present by a word seemed far too hazardous--too like hurling a stone into the stream and breaking up the radiance. Better, perhaps, be content to bear in silence the cool reflection in his bosom, than, in leaping to catch the reality, lose even the shadow. When the pulses sober down to the steady task of living--when the turbulence, the cascades, and rainbows of the upper reaches of life are past, and the even stream has entered on the level country of middle age, love grows less confident and bold even in those better natures which alone retain the capacity of loving. Familiarity with disappointment makes man less willing to tempt his fate, and he clings more eagerly to such good as the gods vouchsafe, knowing its rarity and his own weakness to hold fast. "Better enjoy the friendship," thought Considine, "than tamper with and disturb it by futile endeavours to warm it into love;" and he drew a long breath; and somehow the air seemed to have grown dim, though in truth it was only a film of cloud stealing athwart the moon.

He rose and stretched himself, and yawned, and concluded that now it was time to turn in, when a tap at the door of his chamber surprised him.

"Who is there? Ha! Jordan? Glad to see you. And Herkimer! Let me light the lamp. How fortunate I had not gone to bed. Oh, no apology! Should have been sorry to miss you both. Smoking I see. So am I. Brandy and water? Bless my soul, the ice has nearly all melted. Enough? Glad of that--or here is soda if you prefer. Splendid night, is it not?" and so on. His visitors' flow of talk seemed blocked in a strange way for persons who had taken the trouble to visit him so late. He jerked out his disjointed sentences in answer to nods and monosyllables, doing his best to fulfil the rites of hospitality under difficulties.

Smoke, brightened by brandy and soda, however, had its perfect work at last. It dispensed, for one thing, with talk for talking sake, till its own soothing and clarifying influence had time to act; for is not the cloud blown by a fellow-smoker companionable and sufficient without a word? Then Jordan, clearing his voice with a preliminary cough, began:

"You are surprised, Considine, to see us at this hour; but Herkimer thought it our only chance of finding you alone. You popular bachelors are so run after. Fact is, Herkimer says that it would be of advantage to them to have young Gerald's fortune paid up at once, instead of waiting for the short remainder of the twenty years to run out. After talking it over, I am free to confess that much may be said in favour of his view; and, indeed, he has quite brought me round, so I agreed to come with him and assure you of my willingness to join you in acceding. Young Gerald, you will remember, is of age now, and can legally confirm his father's demand. They are partners in business, and nearest of kin to each other, and can give us a full and complete acquittance of our responsibilities, which, speaking for myself, I shall be thankful to be rid of; for candidly I am not as young as I have been, and I grow lazy, I suppose, as well as fat, and I find my own concerns require all the attention I have to bestow. It has been a long and an onerous trust, and I dare say that, like myself, you will not be sorry to be rid of it."

"I need scarcely say," observed Ralph, "that Gerald sees the importance to our affairs of winding up the trust at once, as strongly as I do. He has no desire, though, that the trustees should be deprived of their commission for management before the expiration of the twenty years. On the contrary, he appreciates their services so highly that it is his wish to make the allowance permanent, by granting them a capital sum sufficient to represent at eight per cent their emolument from the property."

When Jordan began to speak Considine had set down his pipe and lay back in his chair, his left foot across his right knee, stroking it with his hand, while he fixed his eyes upon the speaker. When Ralph began, an incipient frown hovered about his eyebrows, the blood rose hotly to his forehead as the speaker proceeded, and he sat bolt upright, with fingers clenched and lips compressed, ere the conclusion was reached; when he answered in a voice of suppressed indignation:

"I am humiliated, Mr. Herkimer, that you should have felt at liberty to speak as you have done. Your words might be taken to imply an insinuation against Jordan's probity and my own, for which I am certain that neither I nor he have given occasion. Take back what you have said, or I, for one, must decline to say a word upon the subject of your demand."

"My dear general!" cried Ralph in amazement, not untouched with scorn for the "canting old prig" who could pretend that the mode of earning a dollar made any difference in its value. "You have completely misunderstood me, I do assure you. No idea could have been farther from my mind, or indeed from the mind of any one who knows as I do your delicate sense of honour. I really must protest against your entertaining so erroneous an impression; and it seems hard that I should be prevented from expressing my boy's sense, and my own, of your assiduous attention to our interests."

"That will be time enough after you know what we have done," answered Considine dryly. "At present you know nothing, nor can, till the accounts of the estate have been made up, and submitted to your examination. However, as you agree to take back the promise of a consideration for violating the trust reposed in us, no more need be said."

"Violating the trust!" remonstrated Jordan. "And who, pray, my dear Considine, uses unguarded language now?"

"Not I. Remember the terms of the will, if you please, Mr. Jordan."

"Technically, my dear sir, and verbally, I will not dispute your accuracy; but more than that is due to the intentions of a testator, from friends, and among friends."

"You think you know Gerald's intentions better than he did himself, then? For my part, I have thought the will a model of clearness."

"Think of the circumstances, general--the present circumstances--and all that has occurred since the will was made."

"Nothing has occurred for which the will did not provide."

"Excuse me, general. Gerald has come of age, he has gone into business, he sees a use to which he can turn his inheritance. What right have we to balk him, and keep him out of his own?"

"I deny that it is his own, or can be, till the time appointed has arrived."

"Literally speaking, of course, your position cannot be gainsaid; but consider the circumstances, as I say. When the will was made, there was every chance that quite another person would inherit. That person would have received the money before reaching majority. It seems therefore unfair, and contrary to the testator's wish, that Gerald should have to wait."

"I don't see it. What if that other should appear and claim the inheritance?"

"Is it likely?"

"It is possible. Again, Gerald may die within the next year-and-a-half. We should be personally liable then to the heirs."

"His father is one of them, his three aunts are the others--all our friends of long standing. From what you know of them, you can have no misgiving as to our old friend Ralph's doing what is right by those ladies. Had the testator been alive he could not but have been glad to confide them to the care of so good a fellow as his nephew Ralph."

"That is just where I must beg to differ. I knew old Gerald most intimately, and I have the best ground for being sure that he would not."

"There it is, Considine! You have always had a kind of grudge against me. You know you have," said Ralph.

"Not at all, sir. Search your memory, and I defy you to produce one token of ill-will. Did I not prove myself a useful friend at Natchez?"

"Never mind Natchez," growled Ralph sulkily.

"Did we not do business together for years after the war?--business by which you profited as much as I did? Have I ever made use of an unfriendly or disrespectful word in your presence?"

"You have thought and looked them; and you know it."

"Men are not held responsible for thoughts and looks. They cannot help them. But let us close all this at once. It is contrary to the letter of the will to do as you propose, gentlemen, and I will not take the responsibility. I believe, too, it will be for the young man's own interest that he should come into possession later, when his hands may be less trammelled by business engagements."

It was useless to say more. The schemers speedily took their leave, Ralph growling and muttering under his breath about pig-headed ramrods, while Jordan reflected pensively what an impracticable old Spartan he would have to reckon with, if ever his peculiar method of trusteeship should come up for discussion. "Not a business man," he muttered to himself. "Emphatically not!"

"If he were to die now, would not the whole be in your hands?" asked Ralph.

"Undoubtedly. Why?"

"It just struck me, when we were up there, and he was holding forth by the open window--and the river outside so swift and deep."

Jordan started.

"By G-- I could have pushed him out, and there would have been an end. But you're chicken-hearted, Jordan. You could not be counted on to keep quiet."

"I would rather not be present at such a transaction, certainly," and Jordan felt a creeping run up his spine. What a desperate fellow the man must be! He must speak him fair and keep out of his clutches. Considine was impracticable, he thought again, and Ralph was violent. If the two came in collision, what loss would it be to him? Either of them might some day become troublesome. The thought shot through his mind, and the sickly faintness, bred of suggested murder, tingled into a glee of terrified exultation, which made him tremble, and the very teeth rattle in his jaw.

"It would be all right? Would it not?" asked Ralph.

"Ye--ye--yes. But really, my dear friend, is it necessary to take me into your confidence? Considine bathes in the river every morning, by-the-way--you may count on my eagerness to forward your views--in any--contingency--but----"

"Quite so, Jordan. I'm to play cat, am I, to your monkey, for the chestnuts? Very well. I won't compromise you. You weren't born to be hanged--a deal more likely to die a sneak-thief's death in a penitentiary hospital! Bathes every morning, does he, in the river? Good-night. Sound sleep and pleasant dreams."

CHAPTER V.

[MURDER].

It was a summer morning, between six and seven. The last thread of mist has melted in the warming air, air suffused with sunshine and crisp with a lingering freshness from the night; the banks all dewy, and the river asparkle in the slanting light.

Considine stepped into a skiff in the boat-house beneath his chamber, and shot out into the stream to take his morning plunge. Then lingeringly snuffing the sweet cool air and surveying the upward moving banks as he drifted down, with fingers idling among the intricacies of buttons, and talking aloud, he leisurely undressed himself for his swim:

"Can that be the glitter of a gunbarrel in the sun? It is--reminds one of the sharpshooters on the Rappahannock river during the war. What can the fellow be skulking for, like that, among the bushes? He remembers it's the close season for duck perhaps; but he might take courage, and stand boldly forth this morning; there is not one on the river to pop at, as far as I can see. I must give the Game Preserving Association a hint when I go to town, though. Well! here goes. One--two--three!" He dived into the river, and the bracing coolness licked his languid limbs into a new feeling of firmness and strength.

Regaining the surface, and shaking his eyes clear of the dripping hair, he turned to survey his sportsman, now standing full in view.

"Ralph Herkimer!--and taking aim!--last night--I understand. My God!--if he aims straight--I'm done for."

The skiff had drifted on in front during his gambols, and he now struck out with all his might to gain its side and interpose it between himself and danger; but he never reached it. A flash and a puff of smoke upon the shore, a crack, and a stinging sensation in the shoulder, paralyzing the arm, and he went under water. Rising presently, he struck out anew, straining every sinew to overtake the boat, and almost reaching it, when he lifted the sound arm to lay hold--lifted it too soon. It fell short, fell back on the water, and he plunged headforemost to the bottom. His head may have struck upon a sunken rock, or--or anything. He struggled, feeling himself drowning, and then he grew drowsy, his consciousness grew vague and dreamlike, and then there was an end. The current swept onward undisturbed, and the empty boat drifted down stream towards the sedgy islands, where the river took a turn, and was lost from view.

Ralph Herkimer stood upon the shore watching with an intentness which left him deaf and impervious to every other impression. The rifle had slipped from his shoulder, the butt rested on the ground, and a thread of smoke still crept out from the barrel. His hand supported it mechanically. His perceptions were out upon the river. The victim was hit, he saw so much, and when he sank, Ralph drew a breath of infinite relief between his tight-set teeth; but still he could not turn away his eyes.

The head emerged above the tide again. What?--and he was wounded?--and yet about to escape!--and it would be known that it was he--Ralph--who had fired. He must not let him escape--and yet, to fire again? The first shot, being unlooked for, would pass unnoticed; the next, all ears along the river being now aroused, would surely be observed. He clutched the rifle, with one barrel still to fire, and watched the swimmer. How heavily he floundered through the water, yet with what desperate force; and, really, he was gaining on the boat. If he should reach it the deed would be out--everything known--and it would then be too late to shoot. A boat with a corpse--an empty boat, with blood-stains, would be enough to set the law and the detectives to work. He lifted the gun, but his heart beat far too wildly to take aim. His eyes were clouded, his hands shook; while out in the stream the swimmer could be seen in frantic effort struggling along and gaining on the boat.

And now it seems to Ralph there is no choice. He must fire again, or the swimmer will gain the boat, and everything be known. Why should his hand tremble now? When did he ever fail to knock a squirrel from the tree? Has he not shot a bear in his time? Is not the danger of letting this man escape worse than any mischief the bear could have done him? and yet----

Ha! The swimmer rises in the water, throwing out his arm as though to grasp the boat. It is beyond his reach. He falls forward in the tide and disappears. A foot is seen above the water for an instant, and is gone. The boat drifts onward all alone. The gun has not gone off, and Ralph sinks on the bank, panting and weak in the revulsion of excitement. His eyes follow the drifting boat and watch the even glassy flowing in its wake, but the waters part not asunder any more. No head emerges panting and struggling to disturb the mirrored lustre reflected from the morning clouds. The thing is done.

CHAPTER VI.

[NEMESIS].

Ralph Herkimer was late for breakfast. He had been out with his gun; for Gerald, setting out to catch an early train for town, came on him stepping from the shrubbery to gain the verandah and his own dressing-room window--met him right in the face, to his own no small surprise, and not, apparently, to the satisfaction of his parent.

"Ducks! Father? Ain't you three weeks ahead of time?"

"Sparrows! my son. We shall not have a black cherry left, for those blasted English sparrows."

"And you took the rifle? That would have been putting a big blast with a vengeance into one of their little persons. Head, claws, feathers, would have been blown to the four winds. The rest would be nowhere."

"Humph," grunted Ralph in surly wise, entering his open window without further parley.

"Old man must be out of sorts this morning," said the son, proceeding on his way. "Never saw him so grumpy of a morning before. And to take a rifle to the sparrows! He must have gone out half awake--taken it up without noticing, and been ashamed at being seen--stolen back, no doubt, before Solomon Sprout would arrive with his spade and barrow. Solomon isn't an early bird by any means. I suppose no gardener is. Has the whole day before him to potter about the place. Solomon would have laughed at the rifle, and told us about blowing Sepoys away from the cannon's mouth when he was soldiering in 'Indy.'"

Ralph was very late for breakfast. He had rung for his man, and sent him for sherry and bitters, and then dismissed him, peremptorily refusing to be shaved, or to be bothered in any way.

Nine o'clock. Mrs. Martha sat by her coffeepot, but her spouse did not appear. She rang for Joseph, and inquired for his master, but he could only say that he had rung for sherry and bitters, refused to be shaved, and ordered him out of the room.

"He's out of sorts," soliloquized Mrs. Martha. "Smoked too many cigars with Jordan last night, that's what's the matter! What fools the men are! Making themselves sick with nasty tobacco, just for manners to one another! I'm sure they don't really like it. I've known the time when Ralph would sit the whole evening with me and Gerald--Gerald was a baby then--and never a cigar. Just a few peaches before going to bed, and a Boston cracker. Heigh-ho! I was young then, to be sure, and better looking, but I don't suppose that signifies to Ralph. I am sure I like him as well, and think him as fine a man as ever I did; and why would he not think the same of me? It's just that eternal business! The men are that dead set on it they think of nothing else, and they make believe to like tobacco to be with one another, and keep the women away, that they may talk business. The weary, weary business! Whatever good has it done us? The richer we get, the harder Ralph seems to work, and the less I see of him. But I'll keep him at home to-day, anyhow. See if I don't."

With a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, she hastened to her husband's room.

"Well, Ralph? Still up? I fancied you must have lain down again. Drink your coffee. It will do you good. Dear me! How pale and limp you look."

"Nonsense! I'm all right."

"Not you. You must not think of going to town to-day. We'll hang a hammock on the shady side of the house and you can swing there. The river view feels cool, and there always comes a breeze up from the water. Joseph!"

"Bid him hang the hammock in the front of the house, Martha. It amuses one to see who comes and goes. Yes; I shall stay at home with you to-day. I don't feel up to much--yesterday's heat, I suppose. Bid him hang the hammock up in front."

"There's no shade worth speaking of on that side till the afternoon. You'll broil yourself with the glare off the flower beds. The west verandah is the place at this hour, and there's the pleasant outlook over the river."

"River be d----d. It makes me giddy to look at it this morning. My head seems all aswim."

"Bilious--the brandy and cigars last night. You never could stand much of that, Ralph. It's not for you! Leave it to the dull fellows who want brightening. You have too many nerves to agree with stimulants in quantity."

"Don't preach, Martha, my good soul. My head is splitting. Open the window wider, and close the blinds. Now leave me, please; I think I could sleep. Send Joseph with the brandy and some soda-water and ice."

"A hair of the dog that bit you, eh? My poor old man. But I think you would be better without it," and she laid her cool hand on his forehead as he lay.

It was the touch that of all things soothed and softened him the most. In the hurry of life and the scramble for its prizes he had long outgrown the early transports of the honeymoon, real though they had been at the time--as real as it was in his nature to experience. The light of her eye had less power to kindle a response within him; it shone more dimly, doubtless, than of old, and his receptive organ--heart, call it?--had toughened with the years, and was too occupied with greed to hold much else. Her bright and sensible talk, grown familiar, had ceased to interest; but the touch of that cool, soft, firm, and sympathetic hand upon his brow, had still the old power to soothe and charm away pain and care. She was so true, and strong, and faithful; and a healing virtue dwelt for him in her touch--the one truly good and holy nature he had ever believed in. And she believed so thoroughly in him--the only one, perhaps, who did, in all the world--except their boy--and he had only learnt the faith from her.

She believed in him, and she was good and true. His brow revelled in the cool, soft, firm touch. He could have pressed it as a dog will rub against his mistress's caressing palm, but that he was ashamed of the one still lingering softness in his nature. Remembering the chicaneries of his money-making career, how glad he was she did not know them; and yet he felt a rogue in gaining this testimony of her faith, more than in all the swervings from uprightness he had ever been guilty of. And the morning's work. For the fraction of an instant it had been less present with him in the luxury of that caress. What would she think of that, if ever she came to know? He guessed the horror she would feel, though, strictly speaking, he felt no horror in himself. Would he ever come to feel any? he wondered. It was merely a dull, stupid consciousness as yet that he was not as other men; that they would none of him if they but knew; that he was separate from the rest of his kind. And she? Her hand appeared to burn him at the thought. He felt spattered and sticky with the dead man's blood, and it was soiling her clean pure hand. If she knew it, she would renounce him. Shrinkingly he turned his head beneath her touch, and the gentle wife, pained at perceiving her caress grow irksome, stole silently from the room.

"Alas! How they had been drifting apart through all the years!" thought Martha. "The world had come between, a broadening wedge pressing them ever more and more asunder. Ralph had never been unkind, but how slowly, yet steadily, he had been growing not to care. He had so many other things to think on." She, who sat at home with her thoughts, and still cherished the old fancies of her girlhood, grew hungry at the heart with the old hunger for a perfect love; and the food had grown sparer and slighter while her mind and soul had been waxing with the years--for a woman's heart need not wither with her complexion--and now, when she sought sign of love, what got she? A roll of bank bills--a handful of Dead Sea fruit--or costly trinkets which had no value now that the eyes she would have pleased did not care to look. Still, until now, he had submitted to her caress; she had even pleased herself by fancying that he liked it, he had submitted always so calmly. Now he had shrunk from her--turned away his head. "Alas! she was growing old," she thought, "he had ceased to care for her save as his housekeeper and Gerald's mother. How hard the men were, and utterly selfish!" She wiped her eyes a little, and went about her morning occupations. At least he should never know that she had suffered this wound. He should never know that she had observed a change. But never again should he have the opportunity to spurn. She would give him his way.

Ralph spent his morning in a semi-invalid fashion strange to one of his habits. "What was the matter with him?" he asked himself, "and what was he afraid of?" To both queries he answered positively "nothing." Yet the oppression on his spirits would not lift, and there was a tremor or dismay at his heart which would not be calmed or reassured. Why would not the man roll over and have done, and let there be an end, as there was with the squirrel and the bear he recollected?

Of moral sense Ralph may be said to have had as little as any one living in the civilized state. He certainly had not enough to trouble sleep or digestion, and might have been warranted impervious to remorse. With little benevolence, and without imagination, he was insensible to pain or misery beyond the circumference of his own cherished hide, as had been shown by his pleasure in the torture and ill-usage of his uncle's slaves. He had even prided himself on being proof to such phantasies as limit other men in working out their will; and if not brave, he had at least the judgment which reduces danger to its true dimensions. He surveyed his position now, The probabilities were in his favour. Who could have seen him? Who suspect him? It was unlikely at that hour that any one had, seeing he had fired but once. In his position nobody would suspect him, even if he had been seen and were accused. He need only say he had seen a bird on the water, and, having the gun in his hand, after frightening the sparrows from his cherry trees hard by, he had let fly. Jordan could testify to his spending the previous evening amicably with the deceased, and no one could suggest a reason for the deed. Possibly, too, the body being in mid-stream would be carried down. Once in the St. Laurence it was safe to be carried over the Lachine Rapids, or rendered unrecognizable by mere lapse of time. Danger, he told himself, there was none, and yet the gloom upon his spirits would not lift. Not all the brandy and soda he could swallow availed to cheer him.

There is a social atmosphere in which we live, a subtile sense of the general sentiment of our fellows, which no obtuseness of the nerves, no clearness of the understanding, can be wholly proof against. We breathe it, and live in it, and are of it, exceptional endowment counting for but little in opposition. The sanctity of human life, and the solidarity of each member with the rest of the community as far as mere existence goes, are sentiments so derived--foregone conclusions which nobody disputes, and nobody finds it necessary to assert. They go without saying, and are in the basis of our notions. And now, as a murderer, Ralph felt himself in the position of a lurking wolf, liable to be found out at any moment, and hooted from the company of men. He was already of a different kind from his fellows--a man apart and outside of human sympathy. If it were known, whom would he have to depend on? Would not his closest intimates be ready to assist the sheriff in bringing him to punishment? The loneliness weighed on him. Brandy would not lighten it. The rush of that detestable river was in his ears, and would not be expelled, nor the swift glassy sweeping of the tide be obliterated from his view, use his eyes or close them as he might.

"Let me take you for a drive, Martha," he called out at last. "A long drive in the sun and wind, I think, will do me good."

That drive was not a happy experience for the unfortunate horse. Urged to his utmost speed, over endless miles of dusty way, in the heat and glare of an August afternoon, Ralph suffered him not to flag, though his sides were wet with foam and his ears drooped with fatigue. Heedless of all else, Ralph strove to escape or outstrip the dull oppression that had fallen on his spirit, the dismay which, like a shadow, stood by his shoulder and at his ear, whispering in the rushing river's voice, and pointing him to the shimmer of waters closing on the swimmer's head, turn his eyes whithersoever he might. Martha sat pensively and silent by his side. In his miserable pre-occupation he forgot her presence, and spoke to her not a word, bent on urging the horse forward, in feverish merciless impatience.

"Ralph!" Martha cried at last in genuine alarm. She had known him in feverish moods before, which violent motion and exertion had been able to relieve, but she never before had seen him act and look as now. She feared for his sanity, and kept silence while she could, trusting to his out-wearing the fit; but in time it seemed to her that their lives were in danger, they were liable to be thrown out at any moment, and succour was miles away. "Ralph!" and she laid her hand on his sleeve. "Where are you going? Where do you want to take us? You will break down the horse and throw us out upon the road, if you do not mind. Look at him!--he seems fit to drop."

Ralph started, and but for his wife the reins would have slipped from his hand. He was like one awakened from a horrid dream, roused to what is going on around him. He checked the horse, brought him to a walk, and shortly stopped. The relief he experienced at the moment he was disturbed was inexpressible, he could have laughed and babbled with delight; but then, too quickly, he recollected. There was something to conceal as well as to forget; he must guard his every word and movement. By-and-by unheeded incidents might be re-called, and pieced together into a web of circumstantial evidence from which it would be impossible to escape. He must command himself.

"It's the heat, Martha, the heat. My head has been turning round all day. Wonder if I can have had a slight sunstroke? It was well you spoke; I must have been asleep--sleeping with my eyes open, and driving like mad. Poor Catchfly! I've nearly killed him. What will Gerald say to me for ruining his nag? Too bad! Really I did not know what I was doing. You should have spoken an hour ago, Martha."

"How could I, Ralph? You have not spoken a word since we came out. I did not know what might be the matter. It was only when Catchfly began to look as if he must drop, and the road got stony, and I saw the gravel pits by the wayside, that I began to fear for our necks and spoke. Where are you going? Where are we?"

"I do not know where we are. As to where I am going, it can only be back again, if we can find the way."

"We must 'light then, and give the poor beast an hour or two's rest, at any rate. See how used up he is! It will be no wonder if he goes lame; and see, he has lost a shoe!"

"We must get out of this sun-beaten road, at any rate, into the shade. There is a grove by the road-side, a mile on the way back. See it? A sugar-bush[^[1]] it looks like from here. There must be a homestead not far from it. We may hire a fresh horse there, perhaps, and let them bring home Catchfly to-morrow."

In time the sugar-bush was reached, and by-and-by, the farmer's house. The way seemed long, they traversed it so slowly, for Catchfly fell lame as he began to cool; and they had to alight and lead him ere the end.

In consideration of money paid, the farmer complied with their wishes. Catchfly was liberated from the shafts, and another horse took his place--a horse which had toiled all day in the turnip field, and at his best was not remarkable for speed. They were condemned to sit up helplessly behind, while this patient beast trudged wearily along the road. The day waned into twilight, and Martha's patience died out with the light.

"Say! Ralph, you can go home and have your dinner. I've had enough of buggy-riding for one day. Let me out here, at Miss Stanley's gate, she'll give me a cup of tea. After dinner you can send up Gerald to bring me home."

"I don't feel hungry either," answered Ralph. "It will be dull without you. I'll go in, too, and bring you home myself by-and-by."

The ladies were sitting in the dusk without candles. Penelope drowsed over some knitting by the window, while Matilda and Muriel played old duets from memory; the former seemingly without much interest or attention, though she still kept on playing, notwithstanding Muriel's frequent exclamations that she had gone astray. The window was darkened for an instant, but the music still went on, hurrying just a little, perhaps, to reach its close. It was only a lady who had come and sat down by Penelope, speaking softly, as if unwilling to interrupt. And then, through the other window there entered a man, the dark outline of whose figure alone was seen against the dimly-lighted garden, and the music ceased, for Matilda had risen.

"Mr. Considine--at last. And we have been looking for you since two o'clock. The horses harnessed, lunch baskets packed, everything ready. What an apology you have got to make us! I really do not think Penelope can bring herself to forgive you, whatever you say."

Ralph gasped and started, stopped short, looked wildly behind him, and catching hold of a chair to steady himself, dropped into it in a momentary palsy of fright.

"Mr. Herkimer!" Matilda corrected herself, "What a ridiculous mistake!" and she coloured, perhaps, but it was growing dark, and no inquisitive eye was near. "You seem quite faint with the heat. Muriel, get him some wine and water. And Martha! I did not observe you come in. Mr. Herkimer seems quite poorly."

"He has been out of sorts all day. Biliousness and the heat combined. No! You did not observe me. It was impossible to mistake my shadow for Considine's."

Ralph started and stamped his foot. That man's name again; and he striving so strenuously to forget!

"Are you worse? Ralph," asked Martha, noticing his movement. "I wonder, Matilda, you should mistake Ralph for Considine. They are both men, that is all the resemblance I can see between them." And Martha smiled.

"We expected Mr. Considine, that is all. We have been looking for him since two o'clock. He has not come, and he has not sent. I never knew him serve us so before. He is so very particular in general."

"I should think so. Depend upon it there is some good reason, or a message has miscarried."

Ralph writhed. Why would they speak of the man? It seemed as if they could speak of no one else. And yet they did not know, and they must not know. Nobody must know; and he must exert a vigorous control upon himself. How was it that control should be needed at all? What weakness was this that had fallen on him? He did not understand it. About a man already dead--done with; non-existent; wiped like a cipher from a slate--vanished and disappeared?

CHAPTER VII.

[RESCUE].

The wooded islands which closed the river view from St. Euphrase, shut out from sight the homestead of Farmer Belmore lower down the stream. Only the unreclaimed outskirts of his land could be seen from the village, repeating the shaggy bush of the islands upon the farther shore, and carrying it backward and upward to the sky line. A dense umbrageous bush it was, containing much choice timber, a resort of game, and also, in the warm weather, of tramps, at times, and specimens of the rougher dwellers in the city, who sought in its leafy recesses temporary change of abode, to the loss of neighbouring gardens and hen-roosts. The farmer, however, was safe while the depredators dwelt upon his land, by tacit understanding; and therefore he made a point of closing his eyes, and never was cognizant of their presence.

At this moment a gang of gypsies[^[2]] were encamped in Belmore's bush. Their waggons, tents, and children had lain there for a week or two, while the men scoured the surrounding country, selling horses, and picking them up, the screws in honest trade, the others as might happen: for strays were certainly not unfrequent about the time of their visits, though none were ever traced into their hands, which is not remarkable, as who would look for a Canadian colt in New York State, or a New York one in Ohio or Kentucky?

These people, like other European products transported to America, have thriven luxuriantly. They have ceased to be tinkers, though fortune-telling is still practised by the women; their donkeys have been exchanged for waggons and horses, and they traverse the settled States from the Gulf of Mexico to the St. Lawrence, following the warm weather northward, as the red-birds and wild canaries do, and returning South again when summer is over, in time to avoid the cold. Their native love of wandering finds a wider range in their new country, and they are comparatively wealthy, though still, as ever, they live in the open air and apart from their fellow men.

The morning fires were alight in the gypsy camp near the river bank. The meal was over, but the children and the dogs still brawled and scrambled for the scraps. The women, and such young men as were not away, had dispersed themselves along the woody banks to fish or bathe; and old Jess, the mother of the gang, sat smoking her corn-cob pipe upon a fallen pine which stretched far out, dabbing its humbled plumage in the current, and raising murmurs for its downfall in the lapping of the water among its boughs. Jess sat and smoked in the pleasant morning air, so full of warmth and sunshine and gentle sound, watching the smoke-rings vanish into air and thinking the passive unconscious thoughts of physical well-being, the thoughts which want no words because they call for no expression. The ox knows them, ruminating in his meadow; and mankind, innocent of printed lore, and under no stress to act or say, must know them too, in their harmonious vagueness, bringing the luxury and refreshment of perfect sleep, without the diminishment of sleep's unconsciousness.

The even movement of the glancing water called up in a day-dream the images of bygone things--her childhood and youth in England, her voyage across the sea, her husband and her sons; and then her husband's death, as he was fording Licken River in a freshet, riding an unruly horse. The current before her seemed to swell and darken and grow turbid as she recalled the affrighted beast plunging and floundering through the swirling flood, swerve suddenly aside, losing his footing, and roll over, disappearing in a vortex, and by-and-by emerge alone and struggle up the bank. It was a long time since it all had happened; the very recollection had ceased to be present in her daily life, with its cares and enjoyments so completely of the present--the affairs of her numerous descendants and their hangers-on, over whom she would fain retain authority as much as might be; and its equivalent, the money, in her own hands.

This morning it felt different, the long ago seemed more actual than the present as she sat and smoked, her grizzled hair hanging in wisps upon her shoulders, and her sun-bonnet of yellow gingham pushed back upon her head. A something in the water, surging up through the surface and sinking again, leaving rings upon the current coming down, caught her eye as she sat gazing up stream. It might only be a log, but yet, how it carried back her thoughts to her old man hurried down on that Licken freshet into the muddy Ohio, and rolling on and on for hundreds of miles through the yellow oozy water, till the body stuck fast in a clay-bank and was hid for ever. It might be a log; but no, it was not, for now she saw white hair, which spread and shrank again, as it sank and rose in the water. A horse, was it? or an ox, with a hide worth stripping off to sell? but no--it was a man! She could see it plainly now, as it drifted near, and she felt the thud as it struck against the branches of her tree, branches which caught it and blocked its forward course. A man! and still alive, perhaps, for there was a redness as from oozing blood around. She threw her pipe away, and shouting to those within hail, she leaped into the water and waded out with the assistance of her tree. A youth had hurried to her aid, the water did not reach above his chest, and their united efforts drew the body ashore.

"A fine clean-limbed man," sighed Jess, comparing him with her own old man, whom partial hap, alas, had carried away for ever. "A fine strapping man, but never so spry as thy own grandfer. Will. He was the man, but he's away; let's see to this coon. Hm----" a smothered exclamation, and a suspicious glance at Will, to see if he had observed her pull a diamond ring from the drowned man's finger; but Will's attention was drawn to something else at the moment.

"He ain't come by's end fair, granny," he said; "see to the blood on's back--running still, by gum! The man maybe ain't dead, granny."

Granny slipped the ring into her mouth for safety, till she should find leisure and privacy to conceal it elsewhere, and then resumed her interest in the drowned man.

"Runnin' sure, the blood is, Will. And shot he's been. I heard the crack of a gun up stream the now, I reckon, but I gave no heed. Lay down his head, lad, and lift his feet. Help shake the water out of him, and roll him round. There was none by to roll thy poor grandfer the day he fell in Licken River. Never fear to hurt him, lad! The man can't feel, and more's the pity. Shake him well and roll him round, keep down his head, and let the filthy water run off his stommick." There was little of that same fluid ever privileged to enter Jess's anatomy, or, indeed to come near her person, save in the inevitable form of rain or a fordable stream.

It was a rough and uncouth process of resuscitation, in which the others, as they gathered about, joined with energy, chafing the limbs, rubbing, rolling, and kneading; but fortunately for himself Considine was unconscious of the liberties which the gypsies were taking with his person; a brown skinned black-eyed rabble, pawing, and pulling, and fingering him all over, without diffidence or any respect.

The warm sun and the vigorous handling had their effect at last, a sigh escaped from the inactive chest, and by-and-by another, and then old Jess had him carried into the bush and laid on her own bed in one of the waggons, where she practised such surgery as she knew in the way of binding up his wound, poured a quantity of whisky down his throat, and left him to sleep.

Just then some of the gypsies, who had come on the boat lying grounded among the weedy shallows round the island, brought it ashore; and Considine's towels and clothing were appropriated and divided among the gang, who then pushed the boat back into the stream and let it drift. When this was done, the camp sank back into rest and leisure. The people wandered off into the bush, to spend the summer day as liked them best, some to stretch themselves in the shadow, others to bask in the sun, while the children picked berries or snared birds, a happy and unsophisticated crew, till the lengthening shadows of afternoon warned the women to prepare supper against the return of their men.

The men returned earlier than was expected. A shrill whistle rang through the bush as they appeared, which brought in the stragglers from every direction to hover round the fire and snuff in expectancy the savoury odours which issued from the bubbling pots.

Reuben, the chief man, led Jess aside, muttering to her a rambling story of his troubles during the day, which she listened to with impatience and disgust.

"As usual, Reuben, al'us getting in a row along of them strays you pick up and let join us. Thou'lt have the hull country raised agin us ere long, and we shan't know whar to go--us as were so well liked every whar a while back."

"It was yourself let him wive with Sall, mother; and you've no call to cast it up to me. A fine thing it would have been to let the pore wench go off with her lad, all alone; and her the handiest gal to tell a fortn' 'twixt here and Allegany. Needs must when the devil drives, so we let the coon stay. And there's no harm in the lad as I kin see, 'cep' that he's kind o' soft like, and not peart. He's cl'ar off the now, and he's makin' for the Lines, but, like's not, they'll be down here the morrow to look for him, and there's a many thing's round this camp as wuddn't be good for sheriff's men to see. We mun cl'ar out, mother; cl'ar out the night."

"I have a half-drownded man in the waggon wi' me, lad--I pulled him out o' th' water myself, for the love o' your old dad as is drownded and gone this many a year--and what am I to do with 'n, think you?"

"Let him slide. Put him back whar you brought 'n from. I wants no stranger wi 's this night."

"We cud not leave him here for the sheriff to find. They'd say we did for him. He has a gunshot in's body as it is, and I hain't a rag to cover him wi' when we leave him. You'd not be for givin' him your own coat, I reckon, and I know of nowt else, for I need my blanket to keep my own old bones warm o' nights. The lads have his pants, and boots, and things among them, the gals have the shirt and the towels, and I have the gold ticker for yourself, Reuben, and you wouldn't be for hanging it round's neck, I reckon, to show we didn't rob him, if we tote him to Belmore's place afore we start."

Reuben took the watch, opened it, held it to his ear, bit the chain with his teeth, tested it in such ways as occurred to him, and finally, satisfied of its value, slipped it into his pocket.

"We'll have to take him, I s'pose. Keep him quiet, and keep the duds away from him. He'll be bound to stay then, cuddn't make off ye know wi' nothin' but's own pelt on's back. He'll kin pay for's liberty and new duds afore long. And willin' too. But you'll have to keep dark."

There was no light in the gypsy camp that night. The fires had smouldered out, and the shadows of the trees excluded every glance of the moonlight. There was no sound either; no yelp of cur or cry of wakeful infant; only the hooting of a solitary owl overhead, blinking at the moon through the leaves, or the rustle of a fox stealing away through the underbush, making off with a half-picked bone. A mile away a creaking of wheels labouring through deep encumbered ruts, and the cracking of branches might have been heard in the stillness, while dusky figures shone momentarily in the moonlight as they passed from one obscurity of shadow to the next.

Ere morning the gang was encamped again in another quiet corner, twenty miles distant from Belmore's bush, and next day they resumed their retreat to the Vermont Line, journeying calmly through a neighbourhood which knew nothing of the misdoings of Sall's husband.

Old Jess rode in the waggon with her charge, nursing and caring for him with much skill, but unable to extract the bullet from his wound. That was now growing fevered and inflamed, the jolting must have caused him pain, and might have elicited a groan liable to be overheard at an inconvenient moment; but she contrived to keep him in a drowse with strange drinks of her own devising, which she administered to him, and it was a whole day from the time of his rescue before he was able to take note of his situation. Even then his head was dizzy, his shoulder ached; his body was so wretched, and his mind so confused, that he was glad to turn round and court sleep and unconsciousness again.

CHAPTER VIII.